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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cry, the Beloved Country, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Land and the Tribe
Racism and Apartheid
The City vs. Nature
Christian Faith
Fathers, Sons, and Families
Understanding/Knowledge vs. Ignorance/Naiveté
Summary
Analysis
An unnamed narrator describes the beauty of the South African veld: the hills and grass, the sound of the birds, the mountains, and the road that leads into them. Cattle graze on the ground, but not enough to overgraze and the land. The ground holds moisture and life, and feeds the streams that flow down into the valley.
The narrator states that you should stand barefoot upon this earth, because it’s sacred, and from God. The narrator instructs you to take care of the land, because it takes care of men. If it is destroyed, so is man.
The narrator describes a cycle of care between the land and mankind—. To stand barefoot upon the earth is a symbol of connection to the earth, and support of that cycle. Note the connection also of the land to God.
Themes
As the hills descend into the valley, the grass disappears, destroyed by farming, overgrazing of cattle, and misuse. The narrator tells you that if you stand on this ground barefoot, you will cut your feet. Man did not take care of it, and now it no longer takes care of man. When it rains, the exposed red soil bleeds.
The earth is torn apart, and it can no longer hold its young people. Only the elderly and parents of small children, and the children themselves, remain.
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