Loss In Cry The Beloved Country

In a person’s life their family means everything. Whether or not a family member becomes lost, missing, or dies, the absence of that person creates a hole. Family members mean a tremendous amount to most people. Similarly, in the 20th century novel, Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton utilizes polysyndetons to say, even though life continues to revolve around people, people must search for their family because in the absence of a family an empty feeling builds.

Life constantly moves on around people. Paton describes the endlessness and how easily people can become lost in Johannesburg: “And now the buildings are endless, the buildings, and the white hills, and the great wheels, and streets without number, and cars and lorries and buses”(Paton

A mist constantly shrouds the earth. Paton uses the mist to describe how easily something becomes lost: “some people do not like it, and find it cold and gloomy…”(Paton 41). Paton utilizes fog to express that confusion comes easily to people. Kumalo leaves everything he knows to go look for his family and Paton uses this action to show that the loss of family can make people feel so empty inside, even to the point where they will leave everything they know behind. The complexity that life brings into the world distracts people. In their home, Kumalo and his wife debate on whether or not to look for their children and relatives. Paton employs the feeling of helplessness saying, “with the patient suffering of black women… with the suffering of any that are mute”(Paton 40). Paton teaches that all people go through hard times. The sudden need to search for his family distracts Kumalo from his home and wife. His sudden departure causes suffering on his wife's part because without him a hole she feels as if a hole replaces a part of her heart. Paton uses the feeling of such a hole to tell his readers that the things people do, don’t affect only them, they can have a chain reaction of effects that make others suffer as well, especially the family. Paton teaches that when family members leave, the rest of the family will often feel as if a void takes the place of their