Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Paradise, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender, Race, and Power
Community
Motherhood and Intergenerational Trauma
Change vs. Tradition
God, Holiness, and Faith
Exclusion
Summary
Analysis
Connie has fallen into alcoholism and a depression born of self-loathing. The other women try to help her, but besides Mavis (who has been at the Convent for eight years), Connie has trouble telling the women apart. She has lost interest in distinguishing between their stories because each one exemplifies the same three dangers that the nuns once warned their Indigenous students about: “disorder, deception, and […] drift.” She grows increasingly angry at these “broken girls, frightened girls, weak and lying,” who foolishly make wishes instead of plans. She is especially frustrated when they speak of love, which Connie doesn’t believe any of them understand.
Though the Convent women look to Connie as their leader, she does not feel that they are a community, and she has no interest in leading them. Connie lives by the strict moral guidelines imposed by the nuns, which demands order, honesty, and productivity. From Connie’s point of view, the women in the Convent lack these virtues, leaving them “broken girls” who can never be fixed.
Themes
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 she finds to an orphanage, but she is attached to Connie, so she brings the girl with her to the residential school to which she is assigned. Mary Magna is the first adult to show concern for Connie. In turn, Connie becomes devoted to Mary Magna, serving her and God in the hopes of maintaining love from both.
After Connie spends much of the book as a motherly figure to the other Convent women, the story returns to her childhood, when she found a mother of her own. The story frames Mary Magna’s adoption of Connie as a “kidnapping,” suggesting violence and a lack of consent. Yet Connie is so honored by Mary Magna’s attention that she becomes grateful for the kidnapping. Through the nun Mary Magna, Connie also forms a connection to God and Catholicism. Connie’s faith is intertwined with her love for Mary Magna, and both these feelings give her purpose.
Themes
In 1954, after most of the girls have left the residential school, the founding families start to build 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 in love with. She has been uninterested in sex since a white man raped her as a child, but she feels drawn to this man, who at twenty-nine is ten years younger than Connie. Connie tries to push away her feelings, but when the man visits the Convent to buy peppers, she gives in. The two have sex in his truck, and he promises to return that Friday. The two begin seeing each other regularly, even though the man is already married. He tells Connie that he has a twin, but he insists “there’s just one of me.”
Though the citizens of Ruby exclude the Convent women, the Convent predates Ruby by several years. Connie has made herself known to the townspeople since the town’s earliest days, yet she remains an outsider. When she sees the man who will become her lover, she tries to repress her feelings for him in an attempt to adhere to the tenets of her faith and its idealized notions of abstinence. Despite Connie’s dedication to Catholicism, she gives in to her lust. Connie’s overwhelming sexuality emphasizes her three-dimensionality, demonstrating that motherly and pious women also can be sexual beings.
Themes
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 anxious Connie decides to go to town and look for him. Along the way, a man she believes to be her lover offers her a ride in his truck. She accepts, but she gradually realizes the man is her lover’s twin and a stranger to her. She is horrified. When she later relates the incident to her lover, he dismisses her concerns. In late autumn, when Connie and her lover need to find somewhere warm to meet, she persuades him to come to a hidden cellar room in the Convent. She excitedly decorates the room for him, but he never arrives. He was disgusted the last time they had sex, when she passionately bit his lip.
Multiple pairs of twins appear throughout the novel: the Morgan brothers; Brood and Apollo Poole, the boys Delia is in love with; and Mavis’s dead daughters, Merle and Pearl. Connie’s lover insists that “there’s just one” of him, but he is similar enough to his twin that Connie initially mistakes one for the other. The complicated nature of the twins’ individual identities echoes the book’s broader theme of how families and communities can absorb and overwhelm the individuals within them. Connie’s lover’s disgust when she bites his lip also speaks to the arbitrary and gendered moral limits society places on sexuality.
Themes
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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 has been with Deek. Connie recognizes that Soane doesn’t want an abortion; she wants to intimidate Connie and see if Connie is pregnant as well. She insists that Deek and the other townspeople “can’t fail at what [they are] doing” because they “are making something.” Connie turns Soane away. Soane later miscarries, and after she and Connie become friends, Soane admits that she believes she lost the baby as punishment for pretending to want an abortion.
Connie and Soane’s friendship starts with a moment of intimidation and loathing, as Soane tries to exert her status as Deek’s wife. This confrontation takes place in the early days of Ruby, when the town still feels like an experimental continuation of Haven. Soane recognizes the significance of building a self-sufficient all-Black town after most of its kind have ceased to exist. She also recognizes that Ruby’s community needs to be carefully constructed and that any instability could ruin the young town.
Themes
Connie is ashamed that she forsook Christ for a mortal man, and she prays in the Convent’s chapel. Mary Magna tells her never to speak of the man again, even though Connie feels that on some level she and he are the same. Mary Magna guides her out of the chapel and the sun briefly blinds Connie. From then on, she sees best in the dark, and she takes this as a sign from God.
Connie’s affair with Deek briefly rendered him a new source for her to channel her love and devotion. With him out of her life, she returns to God and Mary Magna. Connie regrets the affair, but she believes that she is in some ways similar to the sinful, mortal Deek. Nevertheless, she renews her faith and receives a sign from God that literally changes how she sees the world.
Themes
The 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 all three women lonely. The women tend to the property and grow crops to sell to the townspeople. Mary Magna taught Connie the virtue of patience, so as the years pass, Connie “hardly notice[s] the things she [is] losing,” including her first language. By the time Mavis arrives, the other nun is gone, and Connie’s only concern is caring for Mary Magna.
Mary Magna saved Connie from poverty, but she also took Connie from her country, her people, and her language. Connie loves Mary Magna too much to question the kidnapping, and she “hardly notice[s]” as she loses her connection to the culture of her youth. Her love for Mary Magna also prevents her from noticing other losses––like the loss of what her life might have been, had it not been dedicated to caring for her surrogate mother.
Themes
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 her. Lone, who is over 70, advises the 49-year-old Connie about the physical changes she will soon face. She brews Connie a remedy that Mary Magna later refers to as witchcraft. Lone, on the other hand, insists that she believes in God just as Connie does––but she also believes that God lives in the natural elements, and people cannot cling to faith and ignore the physical realities of God’s world. Connie’s religious habits are too deeply ingrained for Lone’s words to hold much weight, however.
The physical changes that Lone and Connie speak about are implied to be menopause, a topic that often goes undiscussed due to the stigmas surrounding both menstruation and infertility. Lone’s readiness to talk about menopause highlights her straightforward attitude and her comfort with her own body. Though Lone’s faith doesn’t adhere to institutionalized religion the way Connie’s does, Lone is more confident in her faith. She does not struggle with the guilt and shame that Connie’s Catholicism causes her.
Themes
Lone is visiting Connie at the Convent when Deek’s sons and their friend crash their car. Lone brings Connie to the accident and instructs her to “wake up” one of the young Morgans, who has apparently died in the accident. Connie does so without hesitation, but after she revives the boy, she is ashamed of her use of magic. Lone tells her that her gift, which she calls “stepping in,” comes from God. Connie disagrees and calls the unwanted gift “seeing in.” Despite her dislike of the power, she uses it to keep Mary Magna alive when the nun becomes ill. Connie’s ability to strengthen the light within Mary Magna causes Mary Magna to glow. Mary Magna finally dies when Connie is 54, and despite the support of Mavis and Grace, she feels utterly untethered to the world.
Connie’s gift is as mysterious to her as it is to the reader. Lone, who seems to understand the magic, insists that the power to “step in” is a gift from God, but the Catholic Connie believes that the power is sinful. Which woman is correct, if either of them are, is never made clear. However, Connie continues to “step in” for the sake of Mary Magna, suggesting that her devotion to Mary Magna is ultimately stronger than her devotion to God. Connie’s entire life has centered around helping Mary Magna, and when the elderly nun passes away, Connie loses part of her own identity.
Themes
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 she is pregnant. Connie recalls a pregnant Arnette coming to the Convent, repulsed by the fetus within her. The Convent women offered Arnette shelter and aid, but Connie learned too late that Arnette has been beating her own stomach and inserting mop handles into herself to kill the fetus. She gave birth prematurely to baby, whom Gigi named Che, and Che died shortly after. Connie believes that she will die “ungrieved in unholy ground,” and she tells God that she will miss Him.
The theme of motherhood continues with Pallas and Arnette, both of whom deny the prospect of motherhood. Pallas steadfastly refuses to admit her pregnancy, but Arnette’s reaction to motherhood is once again tinged with confusion and uncertainty. She sought help from the Convent women while simultaneously trying to abort her pregnancy in secret, indicating an internal conflict about accepting her role as a mother. Connie tried to help Arnette, as she tries to help everyone who comes to the Convent, but she still believes herself too unholy to go to Heaven. She accepts that Heaven is an exclusive paradise, much like Ruby presents itself as.
Themes
After a phone call with her father, Pallas dreads going back to school, where she knows she is already a laughingstock for running off with a janitor. Her father intends to sue the school for Carlos’s abduction of her, ignoring that Pallas went with him eagerly.
Though she has grappled with severe trauma, Pallas is still a teenager. She worries about high school gossip and how her father’s actions might escalate it. Her father’s insistence on suing the school brings up once again the notion that women must be protected, and his refusal to accept that Pallas willingly ran away with Carlos highlights how that perspective ignores the agency of women.
Themes
Gigi, in the bath, recalls a day when K.D. beat her and the other women tore him off her. In the new year, 1975, Gigi has started a relationship with Seneca, and she plans to convince Seneca to run away with her. Seneca has been cutting herself, and though Gigi knows this, she can’t make herself mention the topic to Seneca. Gigi thinks back to her days as an activist and hates herself for giving up. Mavis goes shopping in Ruby and buys gifts for Merle and Pearl. Five years ago, she visited her hometown, but she didn’t look for her children.
Gigi’s recollection of K.D. beating her reveals a violent side to him, which has likely been fostered by the privilege and lack of accountability he has enjoyed as the Morgan heir. The relationship between Gigi and Seneca is suggested to be romantic, adding another element to the intimacy of the Convent’s community and highlighting a significant way women can relate to each other without the presence of men. Mavis, meanwhile, remains tethered to her role as a mother even after abandoning the responsibilities of motherhood. Her commitment to her children manifests after she escapes Frank, suggesting that if she had not been trapped in an abusive marriage, she might have been a nurturing and present mother.
Themes
Remaining in the present, 1975, Connie prepares and serves dinner to the women. She declares that her name is Consolata Sosa and that the women must live as she commands if they want to stay at the Convent. In exchange, she will “teach [them] what [they] are hungry for.” The women are taken aback by this change in Connie, but none of them leave; even Pallas remains. Connie establishes a ritual called “loud dreaming,” which entails all the women lying naked within painted silhouettes of themselves. They share their dreams, secrets, and traumatic histories, until each person’s personal details belong to all of them. They color in the silhouettes with physical features, scars, and symbols of their lives. With Connie as their leader, the women change; now, “unlike some people in Ruby, the Convent women [are] no longer haunted.”
Connie asserts her full name, reclaiming the Brazilian heritage that Mary Magna took from her and asserting the identity she lost when Mary Magna died. The ritual of loud dreaming serves as a king of communal therapy for the women. It enables them to voice their traumas and work through them as a group, fostering understanding and solidarity in the Convent community. They make their pain visible on the painted silhouettes. Connie has accepted and embraced her role as the Convent’s leader. Unlike the Morgan twins in Ruby, Connie’s leadership centers the needs of the members of her community and adapts to fulfil them.
Themes
