Religion In The Story Of An African Farm

In Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm, Waldo embarks on a long spiritual journey that leads him away from the traditional conceptions of religion that he had been raised with. Though Waldo casts off religion, embracing nothingness instead, religious structures and conceptions of power still haunt him in his search for meaning beyond God.

After Lyndall goes on at length about her experience in the girl’s boarding school, she asks Waldo what he has learned in the four-year gap. Waldo replied with one word: “Nothing.” (152). Regarding him with disbelief, Lyndall brushes this comment off, but Waldo’s reverence for the idea of lacking something is intrinsic to his spiritual journey; he travels from believing in a God, a great something,

Waldo regards this man with reverent attention, hanging on his every word, and feeling “love” for him (123). When the stranger departs, Waldo kisses a hoofprint that his horse had left, literally worshiping the ground that the stranger had walked on. Despite Waldo’s rejection of religion, the old structure of the messiah is still present in his mind, but he had shifted the focus from Jesus Christ to this stranger. Having no other structure to demonstrate his attention and respect for this stranger’s ideology, Waldo automatically bows to the dynamic of God and worshiper. Inversely, the stranger regards Waldo as an equal, as a fellow human being with which to have a dialogue. Although he initially levels Waldo with “pity and sympathy,” seeing him as a lesser thing, he shakes Waldo’s hand glovelessly as a sign of mutual respect at their parting (123, 138). He sees Waldo as a person in desperate need of guidance, and adopts the role of his mentor, even giving him a book that helped guide himself in his youth. This mentor and student dynamic is unrecognizable to Waldo, as he has no frame of reference for that kind of relationship. Bonaparte’s relentless abuse and the overwhelming power of God have shaped Waldo’s mind to view authority in an extreme, overpowering manner, leading him to see

The stranger flashes Waldo an “automaton smile,” something automatic and unthinking, but it is used in an attempt to placate Waldo enough so he will accept his offering of a book (137). This conjoining of automatic motion and careful planning provides a hidden level of depth to the stranger, extending far deeper than his self-professed carelessness about the world. Seeing his own past crisis of faith in Waldo, the stranger is inspired by pity and sympathy to offer a guiding light and vision of hope: purpose through work and striving for the truth. Bonaparte’s smashing of Waldo’s sheep-shearing machine tainted the idea of passion and striving after being faced with such cold indifference. Now, this same indifference appears warm and comforting to Waldo as a way out of his spiraling, constant pondering. If Waldo could just cast off his burdens of thought like the stranger, he could be free. However, this is a falsehood. The stranger puts on an air of indifference but has worked through the same crisis that Waldo is currently weathering. He struggles initially, faltering and unsure of how to guide Waldo before jumping into his lengthy speech. However, Waldo detects none of his inner workings. Waldo only sees the stranger’s contentment in the face of nothingness, something that he is desperate to achieve himself. In this way,