AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
Definition of Allusion
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals, historical events, or philosophical ideas... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to... read full definition
Book I, Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Pass Laws:
Chapter 12 features a strange use of narrative perspective and a historical allusion. After Arthur Jarvis’s murder, social unrest sweeps across the country and white voices murmur amongst themselves:
They should enforce the pass laws, Jackson.
But I tell you the pass laws don't work.
They’d work if they were enforced.
But I tell you they're unenforceable. Do you know that we send one hundred thousand natives every year to prison, where they mix with real criminals?
The allusion to pass laws supplies historical context to the novel. Pass laws—restrictions on native South African people's movement in the country—date as far back as 1760, but they were stringently enforced following apartheid in the 1950s. Under the laws, Black South Africans had to carry pass books wherever they traveled, limiting their freedom of movement. Violators who entered restricted urban areas, for instance, faced penalties of arrest, brutality, and even death. Pass laws severely confined the country’s Black population and contributed to apartheid’s oppressive injustices.
For the reader, they also threaten the novel’s very existence. Cry, the Beloved Country—which follows a Black parson’s travels across South Africa—is directly tied to Kumalo's freedom to travel. Stephen Kumalo takes the train from Ndotsheni to Johannesburg. He wanders from suburb to Shanty Town, Ezenzeleni and back. Apartheid’s pass law restrictions not only put Kumalo in peril, but threaten to disrupt the narrative itself.
Related Themes:
Book II, Chapter 20
Explanation and Analysis—Abraham Lincoln:
The narrative includes an allusion in Chapter 20, when James Jarvis rummages through his dead son’s study. The room is stocked with books and writings, many of which feature important historical figures:
He rose from the chair to look at the books. Here were hundreds of books, all about Abraham Lincoln. He had not known that so many books had been written about any one man. One bookcase was full of them.
The novel’s reference to Abraham Lincoln bears relevance to South Africa’s social state and its portrait of Arthur Jarvis. Like the oppressive racial regime that Stephen Kumalo must navigate, America’s 16th president presided over a country torn by slavery. And like James Jarvis’s son, the president himself died from a gunshot. In his emancipation of America’s 3.5 million slaves and fatal ending, Lincoln provides a parallel to the fallen South African orator.
The allusion makes a statement about Paton’s social vision. Nearly one century after the president’s death, the novel upholds this historical figure as a something of a guide. Cry, the Beloved Country implicitly invests Lincoln with quasi-legendary status—his portrait sits beside Jesus’s in Arthur Jarvis’s study, after all. Paton thereby glorifies the president, as though suggesting that he might be able to offer South Africa important answers.
At the same time, the reference is not an entirely perfect analogy. American chattel slavery is no equivalent to South Africa’s apartheid. Furthermore, Lincoln ended slavery but did not stop America’s longstanding strain of racism and discrimination. In the decades and century following the Emancipation Proclamation, Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, and mob violence put a halt to Reconstruction efforts. Paton’s romanticism is also complicated by Lincoln’s more moderate politics: the president had opposed more radical abolition proposals at the start of his candidacy, and his later stance was at least partly informed by strategic considerations. These historical complexities cast potential shadows over Arthur Jarvis’s as well.
Related Themes:
