Cry, the Beloved Country Essay | Critical Essay #3

Cry, the Beloved Country Critical Essay #3

In the following excerpt, Marcus explores the hopeful and optimistic aspects of Cry, the Beloved Country.

[Cry, the Beloved Country] emerges out of the racial problems in South Africa. We must assess it-not for its sociological content, nor outside its sociological content-as a work of art attempting to recreate experience in a world ordered by the writer. [In his introduction to Cry, the Beloved Country, Scribner's, 1948] Lewis Gannett credits the novel with being"... unashamedly innocent and subtly sophisticated. It is a story; it is a prophecy; It is a psalm." His observations merit comment. The words prophecy and psalm Imply a Biblical quality. Even a relatively unsophisticated reader will sense the Biblical roll of the language, the Old Testament-sounding place names, and the technique of sonorous repetition, in which the plaintive cry of humanity merges with a paean of hope for a brighter tomorrow. The opening sentence of...
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