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Definition: A theme is a main idea that has meaning to the reader beyond the story. That is, it has universal meaning. This means that the author’s beliefs and views written into the story also have meaning in your author’s own life and in the lives of everyone else. A theme expresses truths and lessons about life that everyone experiences.

Example: You know what it feels like to be afraid and lonely. You also know how your fear seems to disappear when a friend joins you and keeps you company. In Cry, the Beloved Country Reverend Kumalo is afraid of the many people in the streets when he arrives in Johannesburg. He is comforted when Mr. Mafolo, a member of the St Mark’s Church, joins him and takes him to the Mission House in Sophiatown.

There are many examples in the story of characters’ fear and suffering being comforted by acts of kindness and compassion. These main ideas are repeated in most of the chapters of the novel, like golden threads woven into the text. These ideas become themes of the novel because they express universal experiences and truths. You and everyone else, regardless of language, age or race, experience the truth that acts of kindness can comfort those who are suffering from fear, loneliness or loss. The moral of the lesson told in the story of Ndotsheni is therefore that the world – in this case South Africa – needs acts of compassion and social justice to liberate people from fear and hatred so that they can work together to rebuild relationships and live meaningful lives.

To do:

Choose your own example in the novel of an act of caring that comforted a character suffering from fear. Describe this act in a few sentences. Then describe an incident in your own life when an act of caring lifted your fear.

Example in the story:

Your own example: