Zambezia (1977), 5 (ii).FICTION AND HISTORYFac* and Invention in Alan Paton's novelCry, the Beloved CountryR. W. H. HOLLANDDepartment of English, University of RhodesiaIN THE AUTHOR'S note at the front of the novel appear the following words:Various persons are mentioned, not by name, but as the holdersof this or that position. In no case is reference intended to any actualholder of any of these positions. Nor in any related event is referenceintended to any actual event; except that the accounts of the boy-cott of the buses, the erection of Shanty Town, the finding of gold atOdendaalsrust, and the miners' strike, are a compound of truth andfiction. In these respects therefore the story is not true, but consideredas a social record it is plain and simple truth.1These statements are not as direct and guileless as they may seem. Indeed,they are decidely artful. The events referred to are documented historically,but the writer tells us that fictional elements are combined with them insome way. How? As will be seen, the answer is not simple. And how exactlycan a 'story that is not true' be considered as 'a social record' that is 'true'?This may look like a contradiction. But when one realizes that the term 'true'is being used with two totally different meanings the contradiction is resolved.Any invented story is untrue in the sense that it has never happened andnever likely to; although, if it ever did, the writer persuades us that this isthe way it would happen. Paton's first use of 'true' clearly means this. Hisuse of 'truth' for the social record is a little more complex.How can an account compounded of actual and invented elements betrue? It cannot clearly be literal truth. Does he mean that the describedevents are true to the 'spirit' of things, although departing from the factsin some respects? The spirit of anything is open to interpretation and argu-ment. His simple truth is not as simple as it sounds. If Cry, the Beloved Coun-try is to be seen as both a social and fictional record, one does not have toread far into the novel to spot that there is an ambiguity somewhere in thechronology of events. It is worth looking closely at Paton's 'plain and simpletruth' to find out exactly what it is and to see how he exploits the ambiguityof time-scales for his 'record'.Events that occur within the time-span established by the invented nar-rative will be referred to as happening in fictional time; events that haveactually occurred, and incorporated into the novel, as happening in historicaltime. Within the novel, fictional time will be seen to be given preferenceover historical time.' Alan Paton, 'Author's note', to Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort inDesolation (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1960), 5.129130FICTION AND HISTORYNo author can invent a date in the way that he can invent an incident;unlike a character, it either has occurred or will occur. In a novel, a dateacquires an ambiguous status. Cry, the Beloved Country is set in the year1946. What does this claim amount to? Is the date merely a device to give anappearance of historicity to a record that has never happened? Or arereal events being dressed up to look like some kind of invention? Is the novelperhaps trying to do both? Do we place the date, then, in fictional or his-torical time, or in both? The following discussion will try to show that it isbest regarded as fictional, 'occurring' within the narrative, rather than at aspecific point in history; and, will try to throw light on the questions abouttruth.A precise time is first emphasized in Book I, Chapter XI:2At 1.30 p.m. today Mr. Arthur Jarvis, of Plantation Road, Parkwold,was shot dead in his house by an intruder . . . 3This is offered to the reader as part of a newspaper report; one of the charac-ters, Fr Vincent, brings it to the attention of Stephen Kumalo by readingit aloud to him. There is no ambiguity about the given hour and there is nonecessity for it to occur historically Š- until a day and a date are assigned to it.It is not only fictional, but also essentially timeless, because 1.30 p.m. could,within the book, occur last year, this year, sometime, never. Any one momentis as credible as any other.However, this particular event of the shooting of Arthur Jarvis is not lefttimeless. In court, at the trial of Absalom and his friends:A white man stands up and says that these three are accused ofthe murder of Arthur Trevelyan Jarvis. in his house at PlantationRoad, Parkwold, Johannesburg, on Tuesday the eighth day ofOctober, 1946, in the early afternoon.4Now the instant of the murder has become actual; a fictional specificnesshas become an actual specificness. Also it has been linked to a particularplace. But when a writer is so precise about the timing of a single incident ina story, he is not necessarily wanting the reader to believe that he is describinga factual event. The happening could be imaginary, but the timing real. Hemay wish the reader to understand that an action could have occurred ata precise point in history, and that the reader could have experienced it.Such a blending of the invented and the real gives more convincingness tohis story. In such instances, reality and fantasy do not conflict.But if, for example, a -character is described as going to the police withinformation about a murder that has just happened on the day before the2 Apart, that is, from the date on the letter to Stephen Kumalo sent by Msimangu(25 September 1946) which starts off the entire action of the novel, Cry, the BelovedCountry B\ I. ch. ii. 10.3 Ibid., Bk I, ch. xi,65.4 Ibid., Bk II, ch. v,137.R. W. H. HOLLAND131murder occurs, we sit up incredulously. A mistake of this kindŠan incon-gruity in fictional timeŠwould destroy the artistic illusion, and writers takecare not to make this kind of error. So, giving a real date and time for anyfictional event need not throw up any problem of ambiguous chronology,as long as the invented incidents do not conflict with it. We are, thus ableto think of Arthur Jarvis's murder as happening in fictional and historicaltime simultaneously, thereby giving convincingness to an imaginary hap-pening.But a puzzling ambiguity can occur if a writer does the opposite; that is,introduce into an imaginary account events that are recorded historically.Real calendars and maps are then superimposed on the mock world of thefiction. Alice can live in the day-to-day world, with its formal logic, itsmeasurable space and its regular tick. Or she can walk through the glassand live in the other, with its zany logic, its unpredictable space and itsreversible time. Only when one is forced into the order of the other mighta breakdown occur.Yet it is clear from the 'Author's Note' that Paton has fused history andfiction. What consequences does this have for the temporal structure of thenovel? In giving his evidence, Absalom (the murderer of Arthur Jarvis andson of Stephen Kumalo) claims that, after the killing, he walked among theAlexandra Bus Boycotters:Š And on the second day you walked again to Johannesburg?Š Yes.Š And you again walked amongst the people who were boy-cotting the buses?Š Yes.ŠWere they still talking about the murder?Š They were still talking. Some said they heard it would soonbe discovered.Š And then?Š I was afraid.5This places Absolom, an imaginary character who has committed a murderat 1.30 p.m. in fictional time, firmly into historical time. Because the Alex-andra Bus Boycott is a documented fact, the imaginary crime has beenthrust into the context of history. Flesh and blood boycotters have eventalked about the fictional crime, it is claimed. Obviously, merely to acceptthis much, the reader needs Coleridge's 'willing suspension of disbelief forthe moment which constitutes poetic faith'. Of course, readers willingly giveit. However, Paton's claim that his book 'considered as a social record ...is the plain and simple truth' prompts the critical reader to compare thenovel's account with the historical record. This is where the trouble begins.s Ibid., Bk II, ch. v,143.132FICTION AND HISTORYThe Alexandra Bus Boycott began on 14 November 19446 and lasted forseven weeks.7 Absalom's crime is committed on 8 October 1946. The fictionaland historical clocks are striking at different times. Paton has distortedactual chronology for the sake of his story by placing the boycott two yearsafter its time.There was, it is true, more than one Alexandra Bus Boycott.8 Could Patonbe thinking of the other one? Possible, but unlikely, for two reasons. First,it happened even earlier Š in August 1943 Š and lasted nine days. Thiswould require a delay of three years to fit the novel's chronology, makingPaton's account of contemporary problems (he wrote the novel in 1947) lesscontemporary than need be. Second, the evidence of the novel itself suggestsfairly conclusively that it is the boycott of 1944 he is thinking of.Alexandra was an African location to the south west of Johannesburgwithin the jurisdiction of the Johannesburg City Council; and Paton alsowrote a factual account of it (in addition to the one in the novel) twenty-sixyears after the writing of Cry, the Beloved Country. For the historical record,Paton has had to check his facts; for the fiction, he need not have done so.Nevertheless, that the novel is based firmly on factual details here is one ofthe conclusions that emerges from the comparison:African wages were so low that a rise of a penny in any staple com-modity was a blow to struggling people. The bus fare from AlexandraTownship to the city was raised by just that amount, and the workersof Alexandra, men and women, old men and old women, physicalweaklings and cripples, refused to use the buses and walked to andfrom the city, twenty or twenty-two miles a day. Those who startedwork at 7 a.m. would have to rise at 3 a.m. and start walking at4 a.m. If they finished work at 5 p.m. they would get home by 8 p.m.A great part of the distance was the length of Louis Botha Avenue,lined with comfortable white houses, whose occupants had of neces-sity to watch the daily march. Some white people were deeply movedby the marching protest, and would come daily with their cars tohelp the old and crippled, often being warned by the police that theywere breaking the law. Others were angered by it and thought itshould be ended by force. It is a temptation of white authority tothis very day to silence black protest by force. Most of the whitepeople of Johannesburg had no conception of the importance oftwopence per day to most African people.9The novel's account appears in Book I, Chapter VIII, where Paton makesthe old African pastor, Stephen Kumalo (distressed and poor, seeking hise The dates in E. Callan, Alan Paton (New York, Twayne, 1968), 50, 52, appearto be erroneous.~> See E. Roux, Time Longer than Rope: A History of the Black Man's Strugglefor Freedom in South Africa (Madison, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1966), 318-19.s ' . . . twice during the war the workers of Alexandra had defeated the attemptsof a bus company to raise fares by walking the twenty miles to and from work eachday . . . ', E. A. Walker, A History of Southern Africa (London, Longman, 3rd ed.,1957), 756-7.s Alan Paton, Apartheid and the Archbishop: The Life and Times of GeoffreyClayton, Archbishop of Cape Town (Cape Town, Philip, 1973), 143.R. W. H. HOLLAND133lost son Absalom in the squalid locations around Johannesburg) face a walkof eleven miles into Alexandra, and another walk out again of the samedistance. In fictional chronology, it happens on 7 October 1946. The simi-larities of detail in the two accounts will be apparent. The novel reads asfollows:. . . But here they met an unexpected obstacle, for a man came upto them and said to Msimangu, Are you going to Alexandra,umfundisi?Š Yes, my friend.Š We are here to stop you, umfundisi. Not by force, you see Šhe pointed Š the police are there to prevent that. But by persua-tion. If you use this bus you are weakening the cause of the blackpeople. We have determined not to use these buses until the fare isbrought back again to fourpence.Š Yes, indeed, I have heard of it.He turned to Kumalo.Š I was very foolish, my friend. I had forgotten that there wereno buses; at least I had forgotten the boycott of the buses.Š Our business is very urgent, said Kumalo humbly.Š This boycott is also urgent, said the man politely. They wantus to pay sixpence, that is one shilling a day. Six shillings a week,and some of us get thirty-five or forty shillings.Š Is it far to walk? asked Kumalo.Š It is a long way, umfundisi. Eleven miles.Š That is a long way, for an old man.Š Men as old as you are doing it every day, umfundisi. Andwomen, and some that are sick, and some crippled, and children.They start walking at four in the morning, and they do not get backtill eight at night. They have a bite of food, and their eyes hardlyclose on the pillow before they must stand up again, sometimes tostart off with nothing but hot water in their stomachs. I cannot stopyou taking a bus, umfundisi, but this is a cause to fight for. If welose it, then they will have to pay more in Sophiatown and Claremontand Kliptown and Pimville.Š I understand you well. We shall not use the bus.The man thanked them and went to another would-be traveller.Š That man has a silver tongue, said Kumalo.Š That is the famous Dubula, said Msimangu quietly. A friendof your brother John.10The aged, the crippled and the sick are referred to in both; the times givento cover the distance correspond exactly, and the distance itself tallies." Fur-thermore, references to the lifts offered to Africans by Whites, and refer-ences to Louis Botha Avenue, appear in both. Here is the novel again:io Cry the Beloved Country, Bk I, ch. viii, 39-40.i! I suspect that the reason Paton says 'twenty or twenty-two' in the first and notsimply 'twenty-two' as he does in the novel is that he used Walker's History when heramp to write the later account' Walker appears frequently in the bibliography toApartheid and the Archbishop,134FICTION AND HISTORYSo they walked many miles through the European City, upTwist Street to the Clarendon Circle, and down Louis Botha towardsOrange Grove. And the cars and lorries never ceased, going one wayor the other. After a long time a car stopped and a white manspoke to them.Š Where are you two going? he asked.Š To Alexandra, sir, said Msimangu, talking off his hat.Š I thought you might be. Climb in.12The similarities in the two accounts clearly help to enforce the conclusionthat it is the second Alexandra Bus Boycott, of November 1944, that Patonis writing about in the novel.There is a further piece of evidence to support the view. The first boycottwas a totally spontaneous affair and lasted only nine days. The second boy-cott was quite a different kettle of fish. The first owed almost 'nothing topolitical leadership',13 the second owed everything to it. An 'emergency com-mittee' was set up (the main reason the Africans held out for seven weeks)and according to Roux, '.. . The leading figure on the committee was GaurRadebe, himself a resident of the township'.14 Gaur Radebe may indeed be apossible prototype for Dubula of the silver tongue.There was a third Alexandra Bus Boycott; but as that did not take placeuntil March 1957, it can be clearly ruled out. It seems reasonable to con-clude that the boycott intended in Cry, the Beloved Country is that whichbegan on 14 November 1944.To return to the matter of fictional and historical time. As there is a dis-crepancy of two years between the real boycott and the fictional walk ofAbsalom, the question arises: How shall the incident be regarded? Theycannot be simultaneous events. Fictional time has to be regarded as pre-dominant, because it measures the dimension in which the imaginary eventsof the novel occur and in which the invented characters act out their lives;and it is measured consistently. Thus, the proposal made earlier: it is bestto regard the date of the murder, 8 October 1946, as a purely fictional dateand not a historical one, as the reader inclines to do at first. The clock ofthe novel provides the Greenwich Mean Time, and the clocks of historymust be made to agree with it.The foregoing analysis illustrates a technique that is characteristic of theentire novel. Paton uses it first in Book I, Chapter VIII, with the incidentdiscussed above. He uses it almost immediately again in Chapter IX. Onoccasion its use is even more noteworthy. An examination of the secondinstance tells a lot about the structuring of the novel, the intention of itsauthor, his beliefs, and the meaning of the work.Chapter IX is the first of the remarkable choric sections of the book.15They are dramatic and lyrical and poetic in a way that helps to give the novel12 Cry, the Beloved Country, Bk I, ch. viii, 41.is Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 319.!<* Ibid.is Other 'choric' examples occur in Bk I, ch. ii, xii; and Bk II, ch. v, vi and ix.R. W. H. HOLLAND135its distinctive flavour and style. Let us consider the temporal function of thesection and how it fits into the two chronologies.The marker of Paton's choric sections is the use he makes of the presenttense. He writes in what may be termed the present historic. In English,narrative is normally marked by the use of the past historic in the third person.Indeed, Paton himself uses it orthodoxly for his own purely narrative sec-tions (for example, Book I, Chapter V). The 'tension' that Paton sets upbetween the narrative sections (in the past tense) and the choric sections(in the present) helps to give urgency, width of reference and social relevanceto 'Cry, the Beloved Country. Chapter IX begins thus:All roads lead to Johannesburg. If you are white or if you are blackthey lead to Johannesburg. If the crops fail, there is work in Johannes-burg. If there are taxes to be paid, there is work in Johannesburg.If the farm is too small to be divided further, some must go toJohannesburg. If there is a child to be born that must be deliveredin secret, it can be delivered in Johannesburg.'6The sense that this is happening now implies also that it will continue. Notonly do all roads lead at the moment to Johannesburg, they will do so in thefuture, as they have done in the past. Social problems are thus given a pro-perty of timelessness, illustrative of the eternal human situation and eternaldilemmas. This effect is part of what Paton wants, and may be termed theaftermath, or future, function of the present tense.So, together with this 'aftermath' function, the illusion is kept up that theevents are also happening right now. Often, the 'newness' of the presenttense is emphasized by small linguistic changes that suppress or play downthe 'aftermath' function. By the use of a simple demonstrative 'this', forexample, the 'nowness' of the night is brought vividly out and the 'aftermath'effect diminished'ŁThis night they are busy in Orlando.Again, the insertion of 'tonight' has the same effect:Let us go tonight and cut a few poles quietly.'7Now, we are in the middle of the African slum building itself around us,witnessing the actual process of the erection, subtly made part of it andpartly responsible for it.This night they are busy in Orlando. At one house after another thelights are burning. I shall carry the iron and you my wife the child,and you my son two poles, and you small one, bring as many sacksas you are able, down to the land by the railway lines. Many peopleare moving there, you can hear the sound of digging hammeringalready. It is good that the night is warm, and there is no rain. Thankyou, Mr. Dubula, we are satisfied with this piece of ground. Thankyou, Mr. Dubula, here is our shilling for the committee.'6 Ibid., Bk I, ch. ix, 48.J7 Ibid., 52.136 FICTION AND HISTORYShanty Town is up overnight. What a surprise for the peoplewhen they wake in the morning. Smoke comes up through the sacks,and one or two have a chimney already. There was a nice chimney-pipe lying there at Kliptown Police Station, but I was not such afool as to take it.Shanty Town is up overnight. And the newspapers are full ofus. Great big words and pictures. See, that is my husband standingby the house. Alas, I was too late for the picture. Squatters, theycall us. We are the squatters. This great village of sack and plankand iron, with no rent to pay, only a shilling to the Committee.Shanty Town is up overnight. The child coughs badly, and herbrow is hot as fire. I was afraid to move her, but it was the night forthe moving. The cold wind comes through the sacks. What shall wedo in the rain, in the winter? Quietly my child, your mother is by you.Quietly my child, do not cough any more, your mother is by you.'8Each separate cameo (enclosed between asterisks in this chapter) is a partof the Africans' general plight, as well as episodes in the account of thebuilding of Shanty Town; we are made to realize that the general points tothe particular; all is tending towards the focal point of this particular night.Although earlier the reader was persuaded to accept the situations as time-less, and the comments as those made by the author on an eternal humanpredicament, he is now made to accept it as an immediately urgent dilemmaof one particular night, 7 October 1946, an event of weight and importancein the chronology of the novel. Paton has it both ways: both timeless andtimeful. The events happen on his fictional clock, and on no clock at all,for the eternal is timeless.Roux's account of the historical Shanty Town runs as follows:The war [i.e. 1939-45] industries had drawn large numbers of Afri-can workers into the urban areas. Since Native housing schemesautomatically came to an end in 1940, the resulting congestion inthe urban locations can be imagined. On the Witwatersrand therewere literally thousands of people without homes. Things came toa head at Orlando in April, 1944. The location had become super-saturated with human beings; it could no longer hold all those whowere trying to live there. Some thousands of men, women and child-ren left the location and camped on vacant municipal ground nearby.They built themselves shelters of sticks, sacking, old tins, and maizestalks. Thousands of other homeless persons came to join them fromother parts of the Reef. Thus was Shanty Town born.19The difference between the two purposes is clear: Roux is out to recordthe social and historical fact that Shanty Town was built. Paton wants toshow Shanty Town in a process of becoming; a variety of aspects emerge,but it is not seen as a sociological phenomenon primarily. Human dramaand personal hardship are foregrounded by using the persona of Mrs Seme,an African wife and mother. She seeks lodgings with an Orlando familyis Ibid., 52-3.is Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 322-3.R. W. H. HOLLAND137but is turned away. She hears 'the uncrowned king of Shanty Town' (in reallife, Sofazonke Mpanza)20 propose the building of their shelters:Š-And where do we put the houses?ŠOn the open ground by the railway line, Dubula21 says.ŠAnd of what do we build the houses?ŠAnything you can find. Sacks and planks and grass from the veldand poles from the plantations.ŠAnd when it rains.ŠSiyafa. Then we die.22Mrs Seme goes to see an African official of the Johannesburg Housing Com-mittee. He turns out to be corrupt and asks for five pounds.The whole sequence illustrates the way Paton can bring out the 'aftermath'function of the present, as well as its 'nowness'. In a section that is primarilychoric and static, he is nevertheless able to suggest a narrative by exploitingthe temporal ambiguity of the tense. From the point of view of fictionaland historical time, however, what is important to notice is that ShantyTown is firmly fixed in history in April 1944, whereas, fictionally, it happenson the night of 7-8 October 1946. Paton has again distorted historical timein the interests of fiction by an amount of two years. In fact, the Bus Boycottand Shanty Town were seven months apart. In the novel, this is compressedinto about twenty hours. This is the second distortion of time for the sakeof the fiction.Finally, there is another and possibly more revealing discrepancy. Themonth of the Bus Boycott was November; Shanty Town thus happenedfirst. In the novel, Paton reverses this sequence: Shanty Town follows theboycott.One of his aims is clear from the extracts given: he wishes the physicalupheaval, social suffering and individual misery depicted in the ShantyTown23 episode to be placed alongside a climatic fictional event Š themurdering of Arthur Jarvis by Absalom and all its consequent misery. Thetwo events are thus associated in our minds. This deliberate juxtapositionŠthe real against the fictional Š is fruitful in suggesting that the two are causallyrelated, that the murder of a white man (who, ironically, happens to be active20 Ibid., 323.21 It is worth noting that, in the novel, Dubula organizes both the Bus Boycott andthe building of Shanty Town. In fact, they were two different men; Gaar Radebe andSofazonke Mpanza respectively. Another example of artistic distortion.22 Cry, the Beloved Country, Bk I, ch. ix, 50.23 There were other 'shanty town' incidents that occurred in 1946 at Pimville andAlbertynsville, which were recent in Paton's memory when he wrote Cry, the BelovedCountry in 1947. Roux says that over '25 000 Africans have built themselves shantytowns of some thousands of huts roughly made of hessian stretched over a frameworkof split poles', Time Longer than Rope, 324. These events could account only for someof the details of materials used in the novel's descriptions, such as hessian. But ShantyTown itself was the proper name of one place. The others had different names. Thus,Paton conflates at least two events Š a process at work throughout the social-historicalevents described in the novel. One of the other shanty towns was called Tobruk, whichis mentioned specifically by Paton in connexion which Michael Scott in Apartheid andthe Archbishop, 153.138FICTION AND HISTORYon behalf of Africans) by an unknown Zulu drifting rootlessly about theAfrican locations around Johannesburg has been directly caused by thesociety that produced Shanty Town. Paton does indeed believe that Africancrime can be largely attributed to the conditions in which Africans are forcedto live.24 Arthur Jarvis left a paper on Native25 crime half-written at thetime of his murder, directed at the consciences of the white population ofSouth Africa. The irony of his murder is thus sharpened and deepened.The foregoing analysis illustrates the use Paton makes throughout thenovel of actual social events. They are not there simply for their own sakes,as important as they are. They do not simply add background or convinc-ingness to the whole by making sociological 'facts' concrete (although theydo this in passing). They are tied to particular fictional events, charactersand consequences. They work functionally.First, Stephen Kumalo leaves the remote Natal village of Ndotsheni andtravels hundreds of miles in a train to the thoroughly (for him) alien andbewildering city of Johannesburg. He searches for days amongst the soullesstownships for his son, scurrying from Sophiatown to Alexandra, to Clare-mont, to Pimville, to Orlando, back and forth, unsuccessful, tormented,tired and depressed. It is during this fruitless endless searching that he en-counters the Alexandra Bus Boycott, as we have seen. The boycott is akind of analogue of his own emotional and physical journeying that is gettinghim nowhere. It is a suitable metophor of frustration for both StephenKumalo, the fictional individual, and the actual African workers. It is acrisis point for Kumalo: he begins to suspect and fear the truth about hisson. Later, he confirms this:ŠAt first it was a search. I was anxious at first, but as the searchwent on, step by step, so did the anxiety turn to fear, and this feargrew deeper step by step, It was at Alexandra that I first grew afraid,but it was here in your House, when we heard of the murder, thatmy fear grew into something too great to be borne.26By causing Kumalo to encounter the Bus Boycott, Paton associates a pri-vate and personal trauma with a social one, linking an imagined and a realcrisis. Later, ironically, Absalom is able to hide himself among the walkers;it helps Absalom and hinders his father, another significant linking. WhileAbsalom mingles with the boycotters, his father, at the Mission for the Blind,at Ezenzeleni, suddenly has his eyes opened to the truth about his son. Thus,the entire incident is made to work on more than one level.24 See series of articles by Paton on the relation between society and the offenderin The Forum, quoted in Callan, Alan Paton, 145-6; and Paton's Tales From a TroubledLand (New York, Charles Scribner, 1961: published in London in the same year byJonathan Cape as Debbie Go Home), passim.25 'Native' was the term used in Government papers, in official documents, in news-papers and in ordinary parlance at that time. Post-Verwoerd, it became 'Bantu' [sic].Recently the South African Broadcasting Company, which is Government controlled, hasbegun to use the term 'African' and to refer to particular Africans by name in newsbulletins. Paton himself never used 'native'. It is employed here for obvious reasons.26 Cry, the Beloved Country, Bk I, ch. xv, 94.R. W. H. HOLLAND139Second, Shanty Town: its relation to the murder we have already examined.Its function in relation to Stephen Kumalo is twofold: it helps to convincethe general reader of the dispiriting extent of Kumalo's search, and to impressthe South African reader with the extent of social injustice in his own land.Further it makes another 'step' in the search Kumalo describes in the extractjust quoted.Chapter VIII ends with Msimangu and Stephen Kumalo returning toSophiatown from Alexandra. The main story-line (of their search) continuesat the beginning of Chapter IX:While Kumalo was waiting for Msimangu to take him to ShantyTown, he spent the time with Gertrude and her child.27As far as the main narrative of the quest is concerned, the story could havebeen taken up from this point, without Kumalo having to be shown in ShantyTown. But the need for psychological convincingness means that we mustwatch Kumalo's fear growing throughout his search in Shanty Town. Weare thus persuaded of Shanty Town's fictional reality, besides knowing thatit is also a historical reality. Not only that; immediately after his sojourn inthere, Kumalo returns to the Mission only to discover that, while he hasbeen searching for his son, Absalom committed murder at 1.30 p.m. on thatvery day, and his fear 'grew into something too great to be borne'. Thesocial and the personal have become aspects of a single reality: the fictionalevent has been encapsulated in the social event, the outward becoming themirror and the metaphor of the inner.What then, does Paton achieve by altering historical events to occureither later or earlier, and by putting the events themselves out of historicalsequence? The answer seems to be that his artistic purpose necessitates thereader in grasping the point that personal tragedy (especially of the Africans)and social evils are inextricably linked. Such an interpretation of social eventsobviously implies a certain kind of programme to remedy such social evils.In other words, one infers a positive political stance in the writer which, hehopes, will bring about a change in his readers' political and social attitudes.And, as Paton's historical 'distortions' clearly show, political attitudes andsocial tragedies are human ones first.Paton's 'plain and simple truth' of the 'social record', then, is neitheras simple or plain as he claims. Nor, indeed, is his 'truth' quite as obviousas he implies. The plainness and simplicity of his 'truth' depends very muchon the placing of a specific interpretation on the political and social eventsconcerned, and on seeing their relationship to personal dilemmas in a particularway. Many will accept his 'truth' as axiomatic; many will not. It is clear,too, that in the South Africa of 1947, when Paton wrote the book, he himselfbelieved that his plain and simple truth was far from obvious. For who wouldbother to write a novel to persuade people of the obvious? The 'Author'sNote' was just the first shot in his arsenal of persuasive rhetoric, whichis the novel itself.27 Ibid., Bk. I, ch. x, 55.