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READ THIS
A young boy has died in the Diepkloof Reformatory. His death shocked the poet who appears to have
believed that the boy should not have been there at all because his offence was quite trivial.
Paton paints a bleak picture of the justice system in South Africa, where so many people were somehow
involved and yet their work did so little for the upliftment of the inmates or of the nation.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Allan Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg (South Africa) in 1903. He started his career as a teacher but
soon took a strong interest in race relations, joining the South African Institute of Race Relations in 1930.
In 1935 Paton left teaching to become principal of Diepkloof Reformatory for urban Black boys. There he
introduced many humane reforms.
He first achieved fame for his novel, Cry the Beloved Country which was published in 1948. The
story exposed race relations in South Africa of that era.
Merely a few months after the publication of the novel, the National Party came into power in South Africa
and the system of social engineering called Apartheid was born.
Paton then became more involved in politics, becoming National President of the Liberal Party.
In 1964, he gave evidence in mitigation of sentence at Nelson Mandela's treason trial.
Paton died in April 1988 at the age of 85.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Small offender, small innocent child
With no conception or comprehension
Of the vast machinery set in motion
By your trivial transgression."
- What is a reformatory? (2)
[Need help?]
A reformatory is a type of prison for those offenders who are too young to go to an adult prison. It takes
on the form of a school where it is hoped that the offenders will be rehabilitated. They are nevertheless
locked away from society.
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- Although the poet does refer to the child as an "offender", he is nevertheless not convinced that
he should have been locked away. What words does the poet use to convey this
impression? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet refers to him as an "innocent child" and to his offence as being a "trivial
transgression".
In other words, the child has merely committed some minor act of delinquency which most children do at
one time or another. He should not have been locked away for it.
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- What is this "vast machinery set in motion"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet explains the irony of the situation where a child, so young and whose offence is so minor, has
nevertheless caused the State to employ such a veritable army of people to lock him away: judges,
magistrates, lawyers, psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, school principals, policemen, sociologists.
And notice that the poet has used each of these categories in the plural form: not just one of each but
many.
The poet appears to question whether these people don't have better things to do, or whether the State
couldn't perhaps spend its taxpayers' money in a more productive fashion.
Be sure, by the way, that you know what each of these people does. If you don't know, look up each in
a dictionary.
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"Clerks are moved to action by your dying;
Your documents, all neatly put together,
Are transferred from the living to the dead."
- Comment on the ironic use of the word "moved". (4)
[Need help?]
"To be moved" means either being physically relocated from one place to another, or in the sense
of being emotionally involved.
The clerks are in no way emotionally moved by the child's death. They are only moved to transfer the
child's documents from one drawer in a filing cabinet to another, from the draw marked "living" to
another marked "deceased".
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"Here is the document of birth
Saying that you were born and where and when,
But giving no hint of joy or sorrow,
Or if the sun shone, or if the rain was falling,
Or what bird flew singing over the roof
Where your mother travailed."
- Explain the impersonal nature of a birth certificate. (4)
[Need help?]
A birth certificate is merely a factual document "saying that you were born and where and when".
It contains no information about the child as a person. It gives no hint of the "joy or sorrow" of the
birth, what the weather was like, whether or not there were good or bad omens at the moment of birth
--
like a bird singing on the roof.
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- Why would the poet have used the word "travail" to describe the mother's response to the
birth? (4)
[Need help?]
The word "travail" means more than pain. It means "deep sorrow".
There is in fact a biblical feeling to the word: in the Old Testament "travail" is usually used to
describe a whole nation's sorrow at a tragic event.
The poet sees in the child's birth a moment of agony. Already his mother was suffering, even lamenting
at his birth as though she could foresee the sorrow of his future life.
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"Here is the last certificate of Death;
Forestalling authority he sets you free,
You that did once arrive have now departed
And are enfolded in the sole embrace
Of kindness that earth ever gave to you."
- Why is "Death" spelt with an uppercase "D"? (2)
[Need help?]
The uppercase usually connotes a proper noun, usually used for a person or for a very important thing.
"Death" is therefore being made to be a most important event that warrants being addressed as
a proper noun.
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- Is the poet deliberately personifying "Death"? Explain your conclusion. (2)
[Need help?]
Yes, indeed. The poet says later: "He (Death) sets you free".
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- The poet sees a great irony in the child's death. What is it? (3)
[Need help?]
The child has spent his entire life in need of love and affection, needing to be embraced. The irony is that
the child gets embraced only in death, but it is the earth of his grave that embraces him.
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"Here is the warrant of committal,
For this offence, oh small and lonely one,
For this offence in whose commission
Millions of men are in complicity
You are committed. So do I commit you."
- The poet deliberately juxtaposes the word "commit" and "committal". There is a deep
irony in this. Explain what it is. (4)
[Need help?]
The poet, as principal of the reformatory, is tasked with "committing" the child to his grave and with
"committing" his soul to God, whom he refers to as "the great Judge-President".
He can't do any of this, however, unless the State issues a document, a "warrant of committal".
What would have happened if bureaucracy were to get in the way and the "warrant of committal"
got lost?
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