Toni Morrison's Paradise essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Toni Morrison's Paradise - Essay Example The events in Paradise are fueled by people who have been treated badly, discriminated against, and beaten down by society. When people are treated like this, human nature dictates one of two responses; a defeated, beat down individual that wants peace or an angry individual that wants to vent. These two types of people weave the story of Paradise. Religion is a big part of Paradise. Religion is a basic part of human nature. The convent where the four women, Mavis, Gigi (Grace), Seneca, and Pallas (Divine), and their leader Connie (Consolata) live is not a real convent. It is an abandoned convent the four misfit women and a former nun come to live in after life has thrown them disappointment and sorrow. The women of the convent treat religion differently than the men in Ruby. These women took in those in need, living communally. Unlike the rigid views of the men of Ruby, the women at the convent treated their religion of Christianity with a broader view of interpretation. Both types of views toward religion are part of human nature. There have always been the religious zealot and the tolerant individual. The fight between the two has been part of human nature as well. The zealot comes to the conclusion everything bad is being brought about by the evil, or the person or persons that do not believe their way. The men of Ruby came to believe that everything bad happening was the fault of the women at the convent. Things like â€Å"A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born into one family† (Morrision, 11). While the women at the convent were only trying to live the way the believed with a nonjudgmental look at the world, the men of Ruby were plotting their demise. The women at the convent could not understand why the men of Ruby hated them. Judgment by the Ruby zealots and the