Regarding the book The Story of an African Farm, I intend to discuss whether Olive Schreiner's statement of "The barb in the arrow of childhood's suffering is this - its intense loneliness, its intense ignorance" (Chapter One, Page 43), truthfully describes Waldo, Lyndall and Em. In general, I agree that this quote does reflect their lives very well. To illustrate this, I will use Waldo's religious quest, the children's discussion on the kopje and Lyndall's compassion for both Waldo and Em.
From the very beginning of the book, Waldo's loneliness is made apparent - he lies awake at night thinking about G-d, while everyone else sleeps peacefully. When, two years later, he sits "alone on the kopje" (Chapter One, Page 41), he declares his hatred of G-d, feeling that He has abandoned him and left him alone. Even when he talks to Lyndall about the Bushmen's paintings and asks if she shares his thoughts, she replies that "it never seems so to me." (Chapter Two, Page 50) The climax of his loneliness appears when his father dies and he denies G-d. Lyndall considers him mad, and Waldo finds that "friendship is good, a strong stick; but in the day of their bitterest need, all souls are alone." (Chapter Nine, Page 102) Even Lyndall, with whom he shares a strong spiritual connection, is unable to understand him fully.
Waldo's ignorance is clear in his quest for G-d. He sees G-d, wrongly, as cruel, as a G-d Who sends people "to the dark edge of the world" (Chapter One, Page 37). When he offers up his mutton chop, he is unaware that the Christian G-d does not want sacrifice. His tortured faith is based on twisted, misconceived perceptions.
Lyndall is described as "elfin-like" (Chapter One, Page 36) - this indicates that she is otherworldly and different from other people. Her orphaned status also suggests aloneness. Em cannot identify with her ambitious statement of "I intend to go to school.