Free Essays on Alan Paton

Alan Paton teacher, author, and politician was one of South Africa's most remarkable people. Repelled by the racism he saw all around him in his homeland, he wrote Cry, the Beloved Country, the book that had the most profound effect in the worldwide struggle against apartheid. It is in this book, that he portrayed his life through so many characters and scenes to give the best explanation possible for his fight for justice and equality. This book remains one of South Africa’s greatest novels. It is a true-life portrait of its author, Alan Paton. Alan Paton was born in 1903 in Pietermaritzburg, Natal. He was the oldest of four children and the son of Eunice and James Paton. He was taught to read and write before he started school and as a result he was rapidly advanced all throughout his school years. At the age of fifteen he was starting his college education for a science degree in teaching. After receiving his degree, he was sent to a small farming town of Ixopo, as a housemaster at the high school there. Ixopo would later become increasing familiar in his book, Cry, the Beloved Country. While in Ixopo, Paton took long walks in the hills, which he described in his book. There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond and singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa. About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya, one of the birds of the veld. Below you is the valley of the umzimkulu, on its journey form the Drakensberg to the sea; and beyond and behind the river, great hill after great hill; and beyond and behind them, the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand (Paton 33). This would become the famous start to the first two parts of the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country... Free Essays on Alan Paton Free Essays on Alan Paton Alan Paton teacher, author, and politician was one of South Africa's most remarkable people. Repelled by the racism he saw all around him in his homeland, he wrote Cry, the Beloved Country, the book that had the most profound effect in the worldwide struggle against apartheid. It is in this book, that he portrayed his life through so many characters and scenes to give the best explanation possible for his fight for justice and equality. This book remains one of South Africa’s greatest novels. It is a true-life portrait of its author, Alan Paton. Alan Paton was born in 1903 in Pietermaritzburg, Natal. He was the oldest of four children and the son of Eunice and James Paton. He was taught to read and write before he started school and as a result he was rapidly advanced all throughout his school years. At the age of fifteen he was starting his college education for a science degree in teaching. After receiving his degree, he was sent to a small farming town of Ixopo, as a housemaster at the high school there. Ixopo would later become increasing familiar in his book, Cry, the Beloved Country. While in Ixopo, Paton took long walks in the hills, which he described in his book. There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond and singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbrooke; and from there, if there is no mist, you look down on one of the fairest valleys of Africa. About you there is grass and bracken and you may hear the forlorn crying of the titihoya, one of the birds of the veld. Below you is the valley of the umzimkulu, on its journey form the Drakensberg to the sea; and beyond and behind the river, great hill after great hill; and beyond and behind them, the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand (Paton 33). This would become the famous start to the first two parts of the novel, Cry, the Beloved Country...

Dont Be Too Eager to Publish

Dont Be Too Eager to Publish Dont Be Too Eager to Publish Dont Be Too Eager to Publish By Maeve Maddox My son gave me a mystery the other day. Hed encountered the author at Barnes and Nobles and, having chatted with the man, he felt bound to buy a copy of his book. Well call the writer Author X. Under the attractive dust jacket, the sturdy binding is stamped with the title and authors name in gilt letters. The book could have been produced by a major publisher. As soon as I read the first paragraph, however, I knew that the book had been self-published. With a bit of disguise, heres the first paragraph: The phone jingled on Butch Grands desk and jolted him out of his daydream. He had been thinking about how hot and dry the last two years had been and was hoping this year would be better. As Police Chief of Philadelphia, Mississippi, things just went better for him when it was cooler and they got some rain. The phone rang again and he took the receiver off the hook. Whats the first clue that Author X is not a professional? He tells the reader that the character is having a daydream, and then he tells what the daydream was about. An experienced writer would have placed the reader in the daydream with sensory details, and then jolted him out of it to answer the phone. An experienced writer would probably have had him answer or pick up or perhaps just start talking, and not have told us that the man took the receiver off the hook. See if you can identify any other marks of too little revision. This opening paragraph is followed by a lengthy conversation with a woman who is reporting the discovery of a body at the town dump: No, she didnt discover it, some boys did. And then she puts a boy on the phone and the police chief asks how he spells his name and then he talks to the woman again and wants to know what time she cooks supper and then he tells her that he might not be able to get to the dump right away and then he drifts off again thinking about the fact that the town hasnt had a murder in seven years and then a Hello? at the other end of the line jars him back to business and then he hangs up the receiver and sets the phone back on the desk All this has taken us to page 3. Now we learn that he warned the woman that he might be late because his department has only two patrol cars and both are out with other drivers so he goes to the cafe and gets the Sheriff to drive him to the dump and on the way he thinks about how the dump originated and what the town was like in the 1800s and then they get to the dump where the two men exchange introductions with the boys who found the body and then, finally, on page 8, we see the body. Mysteries can open in various ways. Established authors like Elizabeth George and Sara Paretsky can afford to begin with descriptions of weather and the thoughts of their characters because their readers are confident they are entering a fictional world that has entertained them in the past. First-time authors have to work harder at drawing the reader in with the first paragraph. The body does not have to appear in Chapter One, but if you decide to put it there, get on with it! Consider this opening paragraph: The bodies were discovered at eight forty-five on the morning of Wednesday 18 September by Miss Emily Wharton, a sixty-five-year-old spinster of the parish of St. Mathhews in Paddington, London and Darren Wilkes, aged ten, of no particular parish as far as he knew or cared. P.D. James, A Taste for Death. Like Author X, James delays our first look at the bodies until several pages later. We dont see them until page 9. But where Author X rambles about, talking about this and that, throwing in lengthy conversation and irrelevant detail, James uses the intervening pages to build suspense and horror in the reader. The existence of the bodies is established in the first sentence, but then James makes us wait as she reveals the relationship between the woman and the boy. The more we know about them, the more we want to know what kind of circumstances could have led them to discover dead bodies. When we finally do see the bodies, our horror is greater because we see them through gentle Miss Whartons eyes. The main problem with Author Xs story is that he was too eager to publish. He was not willing to do the revision necessary to turn a draft into a (professionally) publishable manuscript. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:When to Capitalize Animal and Plant NamesIs There a Reason â€Å"the Reason Why† Is Considered Wrong?Ulterior and Alterior