Chapter one Cry the Beloved Country

The tone of the speaker in the first chapter is informational. Alan Paton begins with a description of the land surrounding Ixopo, the village where the pastor (and protagonist) Stephen Kumalo lives. Paton establishes this as a rural and isolated area, which is significant to develop the character of Kumalo and his relationship to the larger urban area of Johannesburg where he will soon find himself. The style of this first chapter is grandiose, equating the survival of the soil to no less than the survival of the human race, but this serves an important function, relating the life and health of the country (in both its meanings) to the health of its inhabitants and, by extension, the novel's characters.