EC

Alan Paton characterizes the different genders by showing the difference between how the two are treated differently and how they are mentioned.  Paton suggests that women are less intelligent, therefore not advanced as the men, writing : "... some with blankets over the semi-nudity of their primitive dress, though these were all women. Men no longer in primitive dress" (Paton 43), Paton writes that the women are primitive, ancient people who are not yet at the level of the men, who are "no longer primitive" by using the dress to represent their statuses. Paton also writes : "Then she sat down at his table, and put her head on it, and was silent, with the patient suffering of black women, with the suffering of oxen, with the suffering of any that are mute" (Paton 40) to further reveal the status of women in this novel.  He writes that "she", who represents women, sat down and was silent with the suffering of black women, oxen, and the mute showing the reader that the women suffer just as the oxen do and just as the mute do.  Just like oxen, they work the land to provide food and life for the people; just like the mute, they are unable to speak up, unable to voice opinions and fight for power in this environment.  Paton in addition to these examples of sexism, he also writes : "Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man"(Paton 34). In this example, Paton uses diction to show the insignificance of the women, writing that they "scratch" the soil instead of dig up the soil, hoe or scoop. He also mentions that the maize that they farm, the product of their labor, barely reaches the height of man. By saying this, Paton shows the reader that the product coming from the labor of women cannot measure up to the men and their products.  Writing these lines in his novel, Paton is able to establish inequality between the two sexes.  This establishment further adds to the understanding of inequality throughout the novel.  The inequality coming from both sexism and racism gives the reader a perception of the ranks in the societies of South Africa; that the whites, who are the people who establish cities, civilization, communities with higher advancement in technology, have higher authority than the natives, who live tribally in rural areas with lesser development, and that the women are treated with even lower respect that the native men.  Paton uses this establishment and development of rankism to give the reader a sense of how people are mistreated, cheated, and abused in a social hierarchy.  This sense forces the reader to think about abusive behavior that has begun in ancient times and how it has come to change as humans advance in technology and as a race. Coming across people of great accomplishments such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., Paton is able to have the reader drift off into the vast archives of history and the evolution of equality in the human society to have the reader connect the dots between Paton's works and the world's past.