HOPE

Hey Friends! My name is Cassie. I'm going to be a second year English Ed major and I am so pumped to get started and meet some new folks in the fall! Hopefully YOU!!

Ho-Kay...

I believe that in this story we see HOPE as a result of one person helping another. HOPE is a result of sacrificing concern for one's own problems and caring for the problems of another. In doing this, the characters can move forward and inspire readers to do the same.

On the surface, Paton paints a very grim picture--an elderly priest finds his only son guilty of murder as a product of an unjust society that is slowly killing the values of traditional tribal living. Wow.

Where is the HOPE?

I love the end of Chapter 17 when Father Vincent instructs Kumalo in his time of greatest fear and sorrow, "do not pray for yourself, and do not pray to understand the ways of God." He then goes on to say that Kumalo ought to pray for Gertrude, for Absalom, for everyone except himself, and to give thanks where he can.

It is perhaps a result of this conversation that Kumalo goes back to take in the young impregnated girl at the beginning of Chapter 18. When he sees HER smile, he is able to "walk on like a man from whom a pain has lifted a little," and the HOPE continues.

So, I don't know if any of you had the joy of picking a senior quote for your yearbooks... this was one of my candidates and it seemed appropriate to share. "It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here are my questions: Where else do you find HOPE in this book? Are there other hopeful moments beyond one person helping another? Where do you see HOPE today? (Besides Obama's campaign slogan)? (By the way, this is in no way indicative of my political preferences--I just thought it would be a funny correlation). Is Obama's representation of Hope the same as Paton's? Are there stories of HOPE in your own lives? And lastly, (this is rhetorical folks), did Christ give us a model by sacrificing himself to give us HOPE?