cry the beloved country

The land parallels the Kumalo's lives because it's getting older and worn down so it kind of represents their tribe that is broken and how they used to be this strong family but now Stephen and his wife are getting older and their son has all his problems and could possibly be executed so like everything is breaking down and there's not really a lot of hope left, He says that "They were feeding an old man milk and pretending that he would one day grow into a boy" which is like saying that obviously their tribe is old and they can't just pretend that it's all new. and the fact that they don't have any milk in their town like that everything is so dry and barren it could be like a symbol for hope and how their hope has run dry. So then when the boy brings the milk to them maybe that will start like a spark of hope that they haven't had in awhile.