ADV. Soph. English Journal Response 5

Cry, The Beloved Country (Gender Characterization Analysis and Significance)

Alan Paton characterizes the different genders by their emotional responses to different events in the story.  The male genders thoughts and feelings seem to come first and foremost before any other opinion.  The male genders are characterized by their anger and thoughtfulness for others.  Reverend Kumalo, for example, uses his hard earned savings to travel to Johannesburg to care for his sister and find out why no letters are being written for him.

His thoughtfulness is shown here.  On the other hand though, the Reverend seems to lose his temper a bit when the subject matter comes to the letters being written.  His initial attitude towards his sister is not friendly when she couldn’t come up with a logical excuse for a simple task of writing letters and staying connected with the Reverend.  This is significant because this shows that the characters live in a time where males are still the dominating force.  Women's complete rights might have not been established at the time.  This affects the major opinions and thoughts about the situation in Johannesburg.

The female genders are characterized by their emotional state, what they say, partially on how they react to different events.  Reverend Kumalo’s sister, for example, was very emotional when the topic of letter writing was raised.  The exaggerated emotions shown to the Revered were only sufficient to stop the arguments at the moment.  In another event Mrs. Ndlela tries to help the two Reverends in their search for Absalom and in return, she gets a question from Reverend Msimangu regarding why she expressed an emotion of pity to Reverend Kumalo.  This unnecessary questioning shows that the social standards for women compared to men at that time were a bit lower than nowadays where every opinion or expression counts.  This is significant because it plays a role (foreshadowing) when decisions are going to made in the story.  These decisions will be agreed upon mostly by the consent of the men and little opinion of the women involved involved.

I noticed that the events that happened in chapters 5-7 show that the opinion of men seem to have more power over women.  The emotions that expressed by the women seem to be questioned by the men a little bit more often than the previous 4 chapters.  The relation between the opposite genders seem to be more on the interrogative side.