Paradise by Toni Morrison

First published: 1998

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: 1950’s-1970’s

Locale: Haven and Ruby, Oklahoma

Principal characters

• Deacon Morgan and Steward Morgan, twin brothers
• Elder Morgan, their older brother
• K. D. Morgan, their nephew
• Soane Morgan and Dovey Morgan, twin sisters, married to the Morgan twins
• Patricia Best Cato, a schoolteacher and unofficial town historian
• Connie Sosa, ,
• Pallas Truelove, ,
• Grace Gibson, ,
• Mavis Albright, and
• Seneca, residents of the Convent
• Arnette Fleetwood, K. D.’s girlfriend

The Story:

Nine men from the all-black town of Ruby, Oklahoma, are ready to launch a military-style assault against the five women living in a former nunnery called the Convent, located seventeen miles outside town. The women represent everything that, at minimum, two of the men, twin brothers Deacon (Deek) and Steward Morgan, have fought against all their lives: white people and “white blood,” or light-skinned blacks. They enter the Convent and “shoot the white girl first. With the rest [of the women] they can take their time.”

Ruby had been founded by the descendants of the original exiles from Louisiana and Alabama who, in 1889, traveled west toward the “free” territory of Oklahoma. Arriving there, they were turned away from town after town by Choctaws and poor whites. The most traumatic event, one the Morgans have never forgotten, was being turned away by citizens of the all-black town of Fairly, Oklahoma. Although the real reason for their “disallowing” was their lack of cash or capital, Deacon and Steward believe skin-color prejudice, and not economic discrimination, had kept them out of Fairly, a town of light-skinned blacks. So the “8-rock” blacks, so called for the blackness of the “deep deep level in the coal mines,” founded the town of Haven and made it exclusive: No American Indians, whites, or light-skinned blacks were allowed to reside there. When the Great Depression took its toll on the town, the surviving people of Haven moved deeper into unpopulated Oklahoma Territory, avoided the major cities, and founded Ruby, named for the Morgan brothers’ mother, who had died in transit.

The Morgan twins are married to twin sisters, Dovey and Soane. Steward and Dovey cannot have children, and Deacon and Soane had lost both of their sons in the Vietnam War. Sterility and death have led the four to other forms of compensation: Dovey has an imaginary friend, suggesting her withdrawal into childhood. Soane, who had an abortion (the result of an affair) shortly after she and Deacon were married, regularly takes a “tonic” (prepared by Connie Sosa) that prevents her from getting pregnant again; she also talks to birds, warning them to “watch out” for Deacon, who hunts quail. Deacon is having an affair with Connie, as had Steward, and both are losing their grip on power in Ruby.

A new minister, the Reverend Misner, has started a credit union, whose favorable interest rates threaten the Morgans’ bank. The Morgans’ nephew, K. D. Morgan, the son of their dead older brother, has insulted his pregnant girlfriend, Arnette Fleetwood, with a public slap in the face; now, her father, Arnold Fleetwood, wants justice. The Morgans are forced to promise to pay for her college education. K. D., who is having an affair with Grace “Gigi” Gibson, wants to end his relationship with Arnette, but because he is the only male left in the Morgan line, his uncles, Steward and Deacon, lay down the law: He will marry Arnette.

The Convent had been founded by a group of Catholic nuns who bought the place from an embezzler and pornographer who had been on the lam. One of the nuns had kidnapped Connie (then named Consolata) from the streets of Central America, brought her to the Convent, and converted her to Catholicism. However, Connie now practices Voodoo, which she learned from a girl who had been picked up by the settlers of Haven as they were heading west to found Ruby.

Mavis Albright is terrorized by her husband, Frank, and her three children. She accepts this abuse as punishment for having left her twin babies—the would-be siblings of the older children—in a car while shopping. Their death by suffocation had been the lead story on the local TV news. The female reporter had made it clear that Mavis is “the dumbest bitch in the world.” One morning, Mavis steals Frank’s mint-green Cadillac, takes some money, and goes to her mother for help. Her mother calls Frank, who pursues Mavis across several state lines before she escapes to the Convent.

Grace is involved with Mikey, a low-level thief who tells her about a place outside Tucson, Arizona, where there are two trees intertwined, like a couple making love forever. Grace waits for Mikey after he is released from prison, but he never shows up at the appointed meeting place. So she heads to Tucson, but no one there knows about the trees. She decides to head to Mexico and winds up prostituting to survive. She calls her grandfather, who tells her to come home. On the train back to the United States she meets a man named Dice, who tells her about a place where one can find the best rhubarb pie in the world—Ruby, Oklahoma. She accompanies Dice to Ruby, but once there, she is abandoned by him. Grace decides to leave and begins walking out of town. Roger Best, a funeral director and a widower, picks up Grace and drives her to the Convent.

A girl named Seneca is abandoned by Jean, her sister, and placed in foster care because the girls’ mother is dead. After Seneca’s release from care, she decides to take gifts to lonely men in prison. She becomes enamored of one prisoner, Eddie, who eventually talks Seneca into visiting his mother in Wichita, Kansas, to see if she will cash a savings bond for him. His mother refuses, shouting that Eddie will never be forgiven for running over a child. Shocked, Seneca flees to the bus station to leave town. A chauffeur offers her money to be the “plaything” of his employer, a married woman named Norma Fox, whose husband is on a business trip. Seneca stays with Fox for three weeks, suffering through sexual abuse before Fox’s husband returns home. The chauffeur drops Seneca off at the bus station. At a loss for what to do, she takes a bus to Oklahoma and hitches a ride to the Convent.

Pallas Truelove is in high school when she meets Carlos, the school’s maintenance man, and falls in love with him. He aspires to be an artist, so when Pallas mentions that her mother is a painter, Carlos gets Pallas to introduce him. Pallas’s mother, Dee Dee (Divine), and Carlos begin an affair. Pallas is devastated and runs away. She runs into a gang of boys who rape her repeatedly until she eludes them by hiding in a lake. An American Indian woman drives her to Ruby, and then the daughter of schoolteacher Patricia Best Cato takes her to the Convent.

K. D. and Arnette are getting married, and before the reception can start, the Convent women crash the party and dance lewdly with each other, infuriating Deacon and Steward. With three other men, they head for the Convent and kill the women. The funeral director cannot find any bodies on the premises after the shooting, leading some to think that the slaughtered women found an alternate reality in which to thrive.

Bibliography

Aguiar, Sarah Appleton. “’Passing on’ Death: Stealing Life in Toni Morrison’s Paradise.” African American Review 38, no. 3 (Autumn, 2004): 513-519. Aguiar argues that death is a central leitmotif in Paradise, suggesting that the women at the Convent might have been dead when they arrived there. Also demonstrates how death permeates the values and ideas of the residents of Ruby.

Davidson, Rob.“Racial Stock and 8-Rocks: Communal Historiography in Toni Morrison’s Paradise.” Twentieth Century Literature 47, no. 3 (Autumn, 2001): 355-373. Examines the role that communal narratives play in Paradise. Emphasizes that since most of the narratives are controlled by the men of Ruby, Patricia Best Cato’s “counter-narrative” is crucial to uncovering the truth behind major town events, including its founding.

Omry, Keren. “Literary Free Jazz? Mumbo Jumbo and Paradise: Language and Meaning.” African American Review 41, no. 1 (Spring, 2007): 127-141. Drawing upon cultural critic Theodor Adorno’s analysis of jazz music, Omry argues that Paradise replicates the improvisational nature of jazz insofar as the Convent, a symbol of the present, exists in tension with the formal closure of Ruby, a town whose elders are desperate to hold on to the past.

Reames, Kelly Lynch. Toni Morrison’s “Paradise”: A Reader’s Guide. New York: Continuum, 2001.

Schur, Richard L. “Locating Paradise in the Post-Civil Rights Era: Toni Morrison and Critical Race Theory.” Contemporary Literature 45, no. 2 (Summer, 2004): 276-299. Schur argues that Paradise, like all of Morrison’s novels, engages the legal and cultural contexts of their respective settings even when there are no direct references to historical events. Shows how Paradise interrogates the limitations and tunnel vision of the legal system via the relationship between Ruby and the Convent.

Stein, Karen F. Reading, Learning, Teaching Toni Morrison. New York: Peter Lang, 2009. An excellent primer for students just beginning their studies of Morrison and her works. Includes an introductory chapter about the background to Morrison’s fiction.