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Jefferson (Jeff) Fleetwood
Reverend Pulliam is a preacher in Ruby. He serves as the older, more conservative counterpart to Reverend Misner, and the two are frequently at odds. Their greatest conflict ensues at K.D. and Arnette’s wedding, when Pulliam preaches that God does not care about individuals who do not earn his love. This so angers Misner that he disrupts the ceremony to hold up a cross in protest.
Reverend Senior Pulliam Quotes in Paradise
The Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Reverend Senior Pulliam or refer to Reverend Senior Pulliam. 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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Divine Quotes
[…] Pulliam had just sprayed [poison] over everything[.] Over the heads of men finding it so hard to fight their instincts to control what they could and crunch what they could not; in the hearts of women tirelessly taming the predator; in the faces of children not yet recovered from the blow to their esteem upon learning that adults would not regard them as humans until they mated; of the bride and groom frozen there, desperate for this public bonding to dilute their private shame. Misner knew that Pulliam’s words were a widening of the war he had declared on Misner’s activities: tempting the youth to step outside the wall, outside the town limits, shepherding them, forcing them to transgress, to think of themselves as civil warriors.
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Reverend Senior Pulliam Character Timeline in Paradise
The timeline below shows where the character Reverend Senior Pulliam appears in Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Seneca
...Brow.” Deek and Steward, along Harper Jury (another Ruby founding father) and the conservative Reverend Pulliam, argue that the young people should respect their elders’ history. The young people argue that...
(full context)
Divine
At K.D. and Arnette’s wedding, the guest preacher Reverend Pulliam delivers a sermon about love. He claims that people do not automatically deserve love—they must...
(full context)
Pulliam’s sermon enrages Misner, who considers the words a “poison” to the tenuous harmony the families...
(full context)
...women wander to the Oven and play Otis Redding music so they can dance. Reverend Pulliam watches them with distaste, intent on preventing them from corrupting Ruby.
(full context)
...at the ceremony, which he regrets. He doesn’t know if his anger is directed at Pulliam, the broader white supremacist backlash to the Civil Rights Movement, or Ruby itself. Misner fears...
(full context)
