The discussion at the mission concerns the breakup of the tribes and the resultant loss of values. Kumalo is also confronted with his first severe disappointment when he learns that his sister has become a prostitute. For a simple man of God from the back country, this revelation confronts him with a situation he has never encountered before. He is virtually at a loss to know how to respond to it or what to do about it.
Amidst the discussion of the disintegration of the tribes, Kumalo is also faced with the primary task of trying to bring his personal family back together. There can be no tribal unit until the basic family unit is restored. Consequently, there runs throughout the novel an analogy between the breaking up of the greater society in contrast to Kumalo's attempts to restore his own family as a unit.
In contrast to all the fears and distrust bred by the great city stands the simple but benevolent priest, Msimangu. He will affect Kumalo's life more than any other person in the novel by his examples of unselfishness and devotion to others, and his service to humanity.
Msimangu states directly the central problem of the entire novel. The tragedy is that the black man exists between two worlds: Because the white man has broken the old world of the tribes, which cannot be mended and at the same time, neither the white man nor the black man has found anything to replace the lost, old world. At the end of the novel, we will see the agricultural man arriving and attempting to build something new for the natives in order to re-establish them on the land.
