Alan Paton’s 3 Freedom Narratives and the Hypocrisies of Supremacy Laws
Table of Contents
Alan
Stewart Paton was born on January 11, 1903, in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South
Africa. He was married to Dorrie Francis Lusted from 1928-1967. He attended the University of Natal and Maritzburg College.
Alan
visited Norway and developed his ideas about his first novel Cry, the Beloved Country which was completed while
in San Francisco in 1946. His debut novel, Cry, the Beloved Country was
published in 1948 and became famous as a result of that.
Cry,
the Beloved Country tells a story
of racial injustice and profiling in the then apartheid South Africa. The novel
later became the Liberal Party’s manifesto in 1953 of which Alan was a founding vice president. The party fought against the apartheid laws legislated by the
National Party government. In 1949 Alan Paton received Anisfield-Wolf Book
Awards.
Alan’s first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, his
second, Too Late the Phalarope and his third,
Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful will be viewed as his three freedom
narratives as well as his contempt for apartheid and the hypocrisies of
supremacy laws in then South Africa.
Cry, the Beloved Country
It
tells tales of groups’ protests because of the way their society was structured,
and people were profiled because of their colour. That put a great divide
between white and black people in South Africa. Cry, the Beloved Country
was not only a gripping narrative of the situation of events, but it was also a strong literary protest of systemic injustices (social, racial, tribal) on both
sides, that is white and black peoples alike. For Paton, the black people of
South Africa were affected by the community and moral displacements resulting
from the diminishing tribal structures, and the white people were overwhelmed by
‘native crimes.’
The characters in the novel portray the impressions and
lived experiences of Paton in Cry, the Beloved Country. For example, the
character of The Girl (Absalom’s wife). She was depicted as a teenager, about
16 years old. According to Paton, the girl claimed that at 16 years old,
Absalom was her third husband. Though we do not know the timeline of the
marriages to the previous husbands, we can conjecture that perhaps, a year
might be the interval between each husband.
Absalom
was characterized as the son of a preacher (a priest), who went in search of
his aunt, Gertrude in Johannesburg. Absalom later murdered Arthur Jarvis, who
was the son of James Jarvis, a wealthy landowner.
Gertrude,
the preacher’s sister was a prostitute in Johannesburg. Not minding his
position as a preacher, Stephen went in search of his sister, Gertrude and son,
Absalom in Johannesburg.
Too Late the Phalarope
Too
Late the Phalarope is the
second novel by Alan Paton and was published in 1953. The title of the novel is
connected to the bird known as the phalarope.
The phalaropes are shore birds found in Africa, Asia,
the Americas, and Europe, which means the birds are virtually on every
continent. The birds are notable for their special feeding method and nesting
behaviour. A phalarope belongs to any of the three living species of
slender-necked shorebirds of the bird family known as Scolopacidae.
In terms of reproduction, these birds practised what has
been called sexual dimorphism. We know that ‘dimorphism’ is the existence of
two different formations or appearances of a species in the same population.
Then sexual morphism could be viewed as the existence of something in two
different forms or appearances. The phalaropes are noted for their polyandrous
behaviours, where one female has multiple male mates and vice versa.
We
can imagine the reason Paton added the bird, the phalarope as part of the title of
his second novel.
Too
Late the Phalarope tells the tale
of an Afrikaner, Pieter van Vlaanderen, a South African police officer at
crossroads between his convictions about the immorality of the apartheid laws
and upholding the office as a man-of-order in South African society. In
this story, Paton carried his campaign against apartheid to the law and its
enforcement, to morality and norms, and to white supremacy in South Africa.
The
novel highlights the efficacy and ignominy of the ‘Immorality Act of 1927.’ The
Act prohibits relationships between black and white people. Among the salient
points of the novel was when Smith (a white man) slept with a black maid and
she became pregnant. Because of shame and fear of breaking the ‘Immorality Act,’
Smith killed his maid and dismembered her body to hide the evidence.
The
police officer himself, Pieter fell in love with a black woman, Stephanie, and
had numerous sexual intercourse with her while at the same time upholding the
‘Immorality Act.’ At that point, Paton painted pictures of hypocrisies, the ignominy of the law, and the “phalarope complex.” Presumably, the
‘Immorality Act’ was meant to prevent black South Africans from meeting
with white South Africans. Eventually, it was the white South Africans who
sought out black South African women for sex.
Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful
Paton’s
third novel, Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful was published in 1983. The
work is a mix of life events and imagined circumstances. It consists of six
sections.
Paton paints a picture of violent conflicts, ire, and
seething bitterness between black, white, Indian, and mixed-race peoples.
Section one is about the
Defiance Campaign in 1952 which was significant because of the action of an
Indian youngster, Prem Bodasingh, who used the Durban Municipal Reference
Library reserved for white people. She continually used the library and urged
others to do the same as a way of protesting the apartheid laws. One could argue that this teenager’s action in 1952 might have
influenced Rosa Parks in the USA. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a
white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955.
In section two, Paton reveals the predicaments of those who resent the apartheid regimes and laws.
The ruling apartheid Nationalist government enforced apartheid laws and defaulters were penalized by loss of jobs and other benefits.
Paton,
in section three, brings to the fore the tensions between the progenitors of
Dutch colonists and English-speaking colonists and argues that it was the
reason for the Boer War of the mid-19th century. He also pinpoints the
apartheid as a point of divergence between the Anglican Church and the
Afrikaner’s Calvinism (who were in support of apartheid).
In
section four, Paton tells the influence and popularity of an Afrikaner, Jan
Woldemade Fischer, a politician, and religious leader. As a part of the justice
system, he trumpeted the apartheid system and was liked by the learned
community as well as politicians and church leaders.
Section
five is the point Paton commends the good works
and life of those who remained docile, humane, and charitable, notwithstanding
the apartheid laws. At the same
time, he brings to light many crimes perpetrated by all concerned in South
African societies.
