Cry The Beloved Country Essay

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Discrimination in our world is a common thing. It comes in all types of forms from the way we look, what religion you practice or the color or your skin. Throughout history this shows to be true with the Jews during WWII all the way to the African Americans in South Africa. Discrimination is a horrible event that has caused pain and suffering to even good people just based on the different ways people do things and the way some look. In the novel Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, Paton talks about two fathers and sons whom are African Americans living in South Africa during the time after WWII. Racial discrimination in the city of Johannesburg at the time was at an all time high, “The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again… It suited the white man to …show more content…

During the Second World War the Nazis were cleansing the Jewish population of Europe. In the book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne he writes about a Jewish boy named Shmuel and a German boy named Bruno. Shmuel is a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp named Auschwitz and Bruno’s father is a high-ranking member of the Nazi forces station at Auschwitz. The two boys somehow become friends despite the stupendous odds set against each other by the German forces, "You 're my best friend, Shmuel," he said. "My best friend for life” (Boyne 213). This quote shows the strength Bruno has to stay with Shmuel to the end, even though he is considered less equal as Bruno. When Bruno was at home talking to his father about Shmuel says, “The people I see from the window. In the huts, in the distance. They 're all dressed the same. Ah, those people, Those people... well, they 're not people at all, Bruno"(Boyne 53). Brunos innocence is shown is this quote from him having no idea what is going on in the world at the time, and through his eyes he sees everyone as