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Connie is the leader of the Convent women. She has lived at the Convent since childhood, after the nun Mary Magna took her from the streets of Brazil and brought her to America. Connie remains devoted to Mary Magna throughout her life, and she is devastated when the older woman dies. Mary Magna’s death sends Connie into a self-loathing depression, worsened by her growing dependence on alcohol. Having been raised by nuns, Connie is deeply religious, and she fears that her power to “step in” (an ability that lets her heal the dying) is unholy. She loves God, but she does not believe she can be united with him in death; she is certain that she will be buried “ungrieved in unholy ground.” The only significant relationship Connie ever has with a man is her brief affair with the married Deek Morgan. She is in love with Deek, but he leaves her without warning, and Connie’s shame revitalizes her devotion to Christ. Though Connie welcomes anyone in need into the Convent, she grows resentful of the women who establish permanent homes there, viewing them as unproductive and impractical. The other women, however, do not realize the extent of Connie’s apathy and frustration toward them. She is uniquely gifted at listening and comforting the women who come to the Convent, despite her own inner turmoil. Finally, she pulls herself out of the depths of depression by asserting her leadership over the Convent and establishing routines and rituals to help the women bond and collectively recover from their trauma. Connie spends her life helping others, from the women at the Convent to Mary Magna to the two townspeople she heals by “stepping in.” She believes herself to be sinful and unholy, but in reality, Connie is an empathetic and insightful woman with a natural instinct toward kindness.
Consolata (Connie) Sosa Quotes in Paradise
The Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Consolata (Connie) Sosa or refer to Consolata (Connie) Sosa. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Mavis Quotes
Mavis frowned at the pecans. “No,” she said. “Think of something else I can do to help. Shelling that stuff would make me crazy.”
“No it wouldn’t. […] Look at your nails. Strong, curved like a bird’s––perfect pecan hands. Fingernails like that take the meat out whole every time. Beautiful hands, yet you say you can’t. Make you crazy. Makes me crazy to see good nails go to waste.”
Later, [Mavis watched] her suddenly beautiful hands moving at the task […].
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Consolata Quotes
At first she tried it out of the weakness of devotion turned to panic––nothing seemed to relive the sick woman––then, angered by helplessness, she assumed an attitude of command. Stepping in to find the pinpoint of light. Manipulating it, widening it, strengthening it. Reviving, even raising, her from time to time. And so intense were the steppings in, Mary Magna glowed like a lamp till her very last breath in Consolata’s arms. So she had practiced, and although it was for the benefit of the woman she loved, she knew it was anathema, that Mary Magna would have recoiled in disgust and fury knowing her life was prolonged by evil.
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That is how the loud dreaming began. How the stories rose in that place. Half-tales and the never-dreamed escaped from their lips to soar high above guttering candles, shifting dusts from crates and bottles. And it was never important to know who said the dream or whether it had meaning. In spite of or because their bodies ache, they step easily into the dreamer’s tale.
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Consolata (Connie) Sosa Character Timeline in Paradise
The timeline below shows where the character Consolata (Connie) Sosa appears in Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Mavis
...meets a woman sitting by the Convent’s impressive vegetable garden. The woman identifies herself as Connie and offers Mavis food and drink. As Connie serves Mavis a meal, she explains that...
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Connie gives Mavis some pecans to shell, and though Mavis insists she would make a mess...
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A well-dressed, dark-skinned woman comes into the Convent looking for Connie, and she pauses to admire Mavis’s work with the pecans. Connie returns and introduces the...
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...is a small, sickly old woman who radiates a blinding white light. She bickers with Connie, tells Mavis about the Convent’s former purpose as a residential school, and asks Connie to...
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Grace
...kitchen and finds an untouched feast there. She is starving, so she begins to eat. Connie comes in and lies on the kitchen floor. She asks Gigi to watch over her...
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Gigi explores the Convent while Connie sleeps. When Connie wakes up, Gigi asks who died, and Connie answers, “A love,” adding...
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...find Gigi sunbathing naked outside the Convent. The two women are immediately at odds, but Connie assures them they will grow to like each other. The tension between the women grows...
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Seneca
Meanwhile, Soane secretly steeps a tonic that Connie has prepared for her. The tonic eases the grief that has threatened to consume Soane...
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Soane recalls the first time Connie made her a tonic, 19 years ago, after she miscarried due to a “sin.” She...
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Divine
Seneca brings Pallas to meet Connie in Connie’s dark bedroom beside the wine cellar. The other women have noted Connie’s persistent...
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The women, minus Connie, share dinner and then dance together before going to bed. Pallas, who sleeps on the...
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Consolata
Connie has fallen into alcoholism and a depression born of self-loathing. The other women try to...
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In 1925, Mary Magna, a young nun who will become Connie’s Mother, “kidnap[s]” a nine-year-old Connie from the streets of Brazil. Mary Magna takes other orphans...
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...Ruby. Mary Magna is pleased to have a pharmacy nearby, and one day she brings Connie with her to the pharmacy. There, Connie sees a man (Connie’s lover) whom she falls...
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As the nuns debate with lawyers and clergymen about the fate of the Convent, Connie’s feelings deepen for Connie’s lover. After several months, he skips a weekly visit, and an...
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Soane Morgan arrives at the Convent to ask for Connie’s help with an abortion. Connie recognizes Soane as her lover’s wife, revealing that her affair...
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Connie is ashamed that she forsook Christ for a mortal man, and she prays in the...
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...Convent’s last two students are transferred to a different residential school, which they later escape. Connie lives alone with Mary Magna and one other nun, and the Convent’s independence soon makes...
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Before Mavis’s arrival and 10 years after her affair with Deek, Connie faints from a dizzy spell; Lone DuPres, who has come by to buy peppers, finds...
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Lone is visiting Connie at the Convent when Deek’s sons and their friend crash their car. Lone brings Connie...
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Back in the present, Pallas comes to bid farewell to Connie. Connie asks what Pallas intends to do about her pregnancy, prompting Pallas to deny that...
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Remaining in the present, 1975, Connie prepares and serves dinner to the women. She declares that her name is Consolata Sosa...
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Lone
...believes Arnette’s first child, a potential Morgan man, was killed in the Convent. He resents Connie for her affair with Deek, and he sees all the Convent women as a “degradation”...
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...including Dovey and Soane Morgan. Meanwhile, the Convent women finish dancing and return inside, entreating Connie to tell them about a singing woman named Piedade as they dry themselves. She tells...
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...from white law they [are] beyond it.” Soane wishes she had talked to Deek about Connie and about the loss of their sons. Soane tells her sister that the men wouldn’t...
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Connie finds the dying women by the entrance and tries to “step in” to save her....
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...first person shot in the massacre. She is never identified by name. Deek tends to Connie, and when Steward claims to Pious that the men were defending themselves and the town...
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Save-Marie
...his son, while Dovey starts to forgive Steward because she does not believe he shot Connie. Dovey and Soane have fallen out due to their disagreement over who shot Connie.
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...for the first time in his life. He confesses his guilt about his manipulation of Connie, though he refuses to identify her to Misner.
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Connie, whose name the narrator does not explicitly mention, lays her head on the lap of...
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