This spares them a long, painful walk. This single act of kindness deeply affects Kumalo's views of racial tolerance and racial stereotypes. Even though he is participating in a strike that will make the white man less powerful, a strike that is for the civil rights of blacks, a strike that, if successful, will give the natives more power, and make the Afrikaners and English less important, this white man encourages Kumalo and Msimangu. Later, when a white man is stopped by a police officer for carrying black passengers, the man boldly proclaims "Take me to court," (81). This is also a faith and hope-affirming encounter for Kumalo. For the first time, and certainly not the last, he realizes that there is good and hope even in this embattled nation. This section mostly is about tolerance and the separate themes of faith and hope.
When Kumalo finally finds his son, the themes of loss, forgiveness, and tolerance really become evident. Absalom is arrested for the murder of Arthur Jarvis, a prominent white citizen, and a major activist for black civil rights. Kumalo is shocked, and he feels that he has lost his son, not to death or loss, but to evil. He has lost the promising young boy to the crime and sin of Johannesburg. He tries to forgive his son, but seems to feel that his son is not truly repentant. "He will repent, said Kumalo bitterly. If I say to him, do you repent, he will say, it is as my father says," (141). As book one ends, a lawyer agrees to take the case for free. At the beginning of book two, the story shifts to James Jarvis, whose story begins much in the way Kumalo's journey did. He receives news of his son's death, and departs to Johannesburg. The loss of a son he barely knew ("Jarvis filled his pipe slowly, and listened to this tale of his son, the tale of a stranger," (172)) hits him hard, and the loss is almost unbearable. As he reads his son's papers, the void inside of him grows.
