Cry: the Beloved Country Coded Passage

Passage:

Jarvis sat, deeply moved. Whether because this was his son, whether because this was almost the last act of his son, he could not say. Whether because there was some quality in the words, that too he could not say, for he had given little time in his life to the savouring and judging of words. Whether because there was some quality in the ideas, that too he could not say, for he had given little time to study of these particular matters. He rose and went up the stairs to his room, and was glad to find his wife not there, for here was a sequence not to be interrupted. He picked up the Abraham Lincoln and went down to the study again, and there opened the book at the Second Inaugural Address of the great president. He read it through, and felt with a sudden lifting of the spirit that here was a secret unfolding, a track picked up again. There was increasing knowledge of a stranger. He began to understand why the picture of this man was in the house of his son, and the multitude of books.Key:

        Repetition
        Symbolism
Blue text is 3rd person
        Imagery
Underlined is longer repetition
Red text is alliteration
       Odd diction/wording

Cry: Gender Roles

Alan Paton develops gender roles in his novel Cry the Beloved Country through typical societal sexism. He demonstrates these roles through the characters in the story. A man's job in society is much different than that of a woman's. Men owned businesses, "His brother John, who was a carpenter, had gone there, and had a business of his own in Sophiatown, Johannesburg" (36). This expresses that in society, it is a man's job to own businesses and to do the "dirty work". A woman's job is to serve everyone around them, without complaints. Women wear dresses and men wear pants, "...I has meant it for your new black clothes, and new black hat, and new white collars" (40). It is usual for a man to wear these certain outfits, for it is fairly abnormal not to. Gender roles discussed by the author differ from those of South African society. In South African society, gender roles do not matter, meaning that both men and women do the same type of work and wear the same type of clothing.