Everything Changes

Paton uses the land of South Africa as a symbol for how people change when outside influences become a part of everyday life. His usage of incredible detail to show these changes really helps readers grasp the concept. The way he uses metaphors to show how the land is truly like the people is hard to find, but it is there.

The land, as described in Chapter One, went from good to bad very quickly. According to Paton, the "well tended" land is "holy, being even as it came from the creator," and if you destroy it, "man is destroyed." The land could be compared to man here because we also came from the creator, and we are holy and pure when we come onto the planet. This was used to show that land is holy, just like people can be. In the next page, it goes on to show how the "desolate" land is now "coarse and sharp" because "it is not kept, or guarded, or cared for." The land took a turn for the worse, just like man does when it is no longer cared for and bad influences take over. This shows how with civilization and new influences, everything changes. Whether it is the land or the people, everything has changed.

All the main points in the story are told with a metaphor in relation to the land. Paton discusses the "man sleeping in the grass" while above him, the "greatest storm of all his days" is forming, gathering and putting his life in danger. The metaphor here shows how people, now and back then, don’t know what is to come. The author uses this to show how without guidance and family, we would be lost and we could get blindsided at any moment by any thing, this being a main point and purpose of the text itself. Paton also describes the sun as a "divine providence for the soul that is distressed," and how there was "some rising of the spirit, some lifting of the fear." Here, he uses the sun as a symbol of God and warmth and life and spirituality and hope. This goes into one of the main points of the story, being religion and finding ones true self.

Many of the instances where land is used as a symbol, it is being related back to the main themes and purposes. Without these comparisons, the text would not be as easy to understand. The land is just as we are, full of mystery and wonder, yet always in plain sight.