How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
And perhaps a second city will grow up [around the new gold mine], a second Johannesburg, with a second Parktown and a second Houghton, a second Parkwold and a second Kensington, a second Jeppe and a second Vrededorp, a second Pimville and a second Shanty Town, a great city that will be the pride of any Odendaalsrust. But isn't that name impossible? (2.23.14)
These places that Paton names are all suburbs of Johannesburg. They cover a big range of social classes, from wealthy Parktown and Houghton to the deeply poor Shanty Town. What Paton is saying is that this new gold mine in Odendaalrust might start a new Johannesburg. But even with all of this gold wealth, this new city will still have the same stark divides between economic classes that the current Johannesburg has. Unless South Africans change their attitudes towards gold, all of the gold in the world won't change the divisions that have made South African society so violent and unstable.
Quote #8
They rise, and the new teacher says, can we not sing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, God Save Africa? And the old teacher says, they do not know it here, it has not come here yet. The new teacher says, we have it in Pietermaritzburg, it is known there. Could we not have it here? The old teacher says, we are not in Pietermaritzburg here. We have much to do in our school. For she is cold with this new teacher, and she is ashamed too, because she does not know Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, God save Africa. (3.30.62)
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is a famous anti-apartheid song that has now become part of South Africa's national anthem. The fact that the new teacher wants to sing it with her students shows the song's growing importance to freedom and liberation movements in the 1940s. And the old teacher's embarrassment over not knowing the song also proves that the song is like a password proving that you are part of the movement for political reform in South Africa.
Quote #9
Why was there a compulsion upon him to pray for the restoration of Ndotsheni, and why was there a white man there on the tops, to do in this valley what no other could have done? And why of all men, the father of the man who had been murdered by his son? And might not another feel also a compulsion and pray night and day without ceasing, for the restoration of some other valley that would never be restored?
But his mind would contain it no longer. It was not for man's knowing. He put it from his mind, for it was a secret. (3.36.43-4)
We have talked about differences between Johannesburg and Ndotsheni and between white and black areas of South Africa, but this mountain is another kind of place entirely. When Kumalo reaches the top of the mountain, where he goes to meditate during moments of extreme spiritual stress, he gets extra perspective on these racial and social issues. The mountain provides a mystical, ambiguous place outside of the sharp divisions of landscape and setting the structure the rest of the novel.