Social Class and Race in Alan Patonꞌ s Cry, the Beloved Country

Abstract

Race has played an important role in South African society especially in the period of the apartheid, when there was a separation between the races. The black race was oppressed politically, socially, and economically. In our attempt to find the relationship between race and social class, first we have defined the concept of race and social class by reference to Marxist, Weberian, and Postcolonialist theories. Next we devoted our study to analyze the history and the literature of South Africa. Then we shed light on the biography of Alan Paton and its relation to his writing. Finally we have studied the relation between the race and the class in Alan Patonꞌ s Cry, the Beloved Country. This investigation about South African society leads to the conclusion that in Cry, the Beloved Country, which was published at the time of apartheid, by a white writer, most white people are wealthy and powerful people, while most of the black people are poor and oppressed. And since the literature is the mirror of social reality, and as Marxist literary theory argued that, the write is affected by the ramifications of his age, we conclude that in South African community the race could determine the social class