An Hour or Two Sacred to Sorrow

In the reflective essay “An Hour or Two Sacred to Sorrow,” Richard Steele uses a recollection of his father’s death to advise his audience on how to cope with the loss of a loved one. He grabs his audience’s attention with a quick memory of his father’s funeral. He then proceeds to continue with how he confronts death at a versed age.

At the age of five, Steele attended the funeral of his father. As Steele recollects, his mother “smothered [him] in her embraces,” then she had to do one of the hardest things: tell her son that his father was dead. As Steele recalled,his mother told his “Papa could not hear [him] and would play with [him] no more, for they were [putting his body] underground, where he would never come to [them] again.”  Steele then described how he saw the reactions of his mother and was “struck with an instinct of sorrow,” even though he didn’t perceive what it meant to grieve.

As the essay progresses, Steele makes a not so predicted transition, when he switches to writing about death and grievance as an elderly person. Steele begins this transition with a fact that is very personal when it states that “[those who] are very old are better able to remember things [from their] distant youth.” As Steele continues in this transition from budding, young child to a mature, experienced man, we see a stronger, sense of wisdom in him. He explains the mind to us and how “every object that returns to our imagination raises different  passions, according to their departure.” As people get close to death, their health can take a downward spiral. Sometimes, this downward spiral can cause suffering.  For these people, “[death] is  approached with cheerfulness.” For others;  however, as Steele states, “untimely deaths are what we are more apt to lament.” “When we [allow] our thoughts [to] wander from such noble objects, and consider havoc which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once.”

Steele’s message was that through your life from childhood to the end of your mortal life, you are going to experience tragic circumstances surrounding death. Memories of the people you lose will always bring you to different feelings, no matter if it’s not expected or if you know it is approaching. It is a normal process to grieve,  yet people should not dwell on the old memories with a painful sense of sorrow;  they should think of the memories that comfort them at the untimely matters of death.

Love. The never-ending struggle between falling too hard or not enough.

Love.

A man,

a woman.

Falling for someone,

Giving them your heart and praying they are the one.

Forever.

It’s an eternity,

Spending your life entirely.

Giving someone every breath,

giving them your soul until death.

It’s not easy,

trusting again,

you think it would come painlessly.

You learn again,

learn to love,

Forever and Ever Amen.

Give it you all,

Don’t be afraid to fall.

Take this ride with me,

and let us flee.

Let us go away from this place,

forever more to see your face.

Relationship Between the Land in Cry, The Beloved Country

Throughout Alan Paxton’s novel, Cry The Beloved Country, he gives several images of Africa, some distorted and twisted, some peaceful and alive. One view of Africa is of the tribal lands, and one view is of the city and whites. These two views give the audience two extremely different connotations.

                In Chapter One, Paxton’s introduction was an antithesis of Africa. The first view is of an Africa where “the grass [was] rich and matted, you [couldn’t] see the soil. It [held] the rain and the mist, and they [seeped] into the ground.” This imagery of Africa gives the reader a feeling that the land is lush and there is a sense of tranquility that comes with the land. Later in Chapter One, Paxton contrasted the lush and peaceful view of Africa. This image of Africa becomes one where “the rich, green hills [were] breaking down. They [were falling] into the valley below,” and changing the land; “[the ground couldn’t] hold the rain and mist.” This view compared to the first view gives the reader the connotation that the land is dying and being morphed. Paxton uses this antithesis to foreshadow a breakdown within the culture and how the land changes as the tribal lands move towards a more industrial city type of land.

                 

                In Chapter One, Paxton gives another antithesis between the lively valleys and the industrial city. The first view of Africa is one where “not too many fires [burned] it,” and “the ground [was] holy,” it “[kept] men, [guarded] men, [cared] for men.” This imagery hits the audience with a powerful feeling of a strong, immaculate land. The way Africa is described hints to the audience that this view is one of the tribe lands and the valleys due to the very religious connect between the tribes and the land; African tribes and cultures typically cared for the land and saw religion as a relationship between land and supernatural forces. The second view of Africa is one where “too many cattle [fed] upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it,” and it “no longer [kept] men, [guarded] men, [cared] for men.” This imagery is one of the cities of Africa; the cattle in “too many cattle [fed] upon it is a metaphor for people and the destruction they cause to the land.  Compared to the first view, this Africa is being annihilated and transposed. Paxton uses this antithesis to give the reader a connotation of an extreme change occurring in society and the land; this antithesis also foreshadows the breakdown of Kumalo and his family.

                In Chapter Ten, Paxton introduces a new city, Shanty Town. This city is the best example of the breakdown of society in the book that gives the reader the connotation of a twisted and corrupted Africa. Paxton describes the city where “a sheet of iron, a few planks, hessian (a burlap type cloth) and grass, an old door from some forgotten house” made a house. As Kumalo walked past the houses, he looks at the sky and wonders “what will they do when it rains?” As the audience sees the state of Shanty Town, there’s a feeling of stark and utter hopelessness that makes the readers question how the people live in those conditions. If you compare Shanty Town to the lively and lush valley from chapter one, you realize that this part of Africa is extremely different; this part of Africa is very blighted, appalling, and contorted.

                Paxton’s views of Africa and the land contradict each other, and normally, foreshadow to an event that will occur later in the book. The connotations the views give to the reader are ones of stark hopelessness, tranquility, and one of change.