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
In 1970, K.D., the nephew of Deek and Steward Morgan, is sitting with his friends by the Oven when he sees a woman (Gigi) step off a bus. She draws attention because she is dressed provocatively in tight pants and high heels, but also because buses never stop in Ruby. K.D. has moved away from his friends to argue with Arnette Fleetwood, whom he has gotten pregnant. Arnette doesn’t want to have the baby or abort it, while K.D. believes the pregnancy is solely her responsibility, since she was the one who pursued him. When K.D. turns to look at the woman from the bus, Arnette calls her “the kind of tramp you want,” and K.D. slaps Arnette.
Arnette’s pregnancy continues the book’s presentation of motherhood. Like Mavis, Arnette cannot be the woman she wants to be while being a mother; unlike Mavis, though, she is not willing to take action to solve her crisis. K.D.’s ability to dismiss Arnette’s concerns demonstrates how Ruby’s female residents are disenfranchised. However, Arnette’s description of Gigi (the stranger from the bus) as a “tramp” suggests that Arnette perpetuates these oppressive systems by shaming Gigi for her sexuality, perhaps motivated by Arnette’s own internalized misogyny.
Themes
K.D. tells his uncles Deek and Steward about the incident with Arnette. They are appalled, but he knows they will act in K.D.’s interests because he is the last male in the Morgan line. The Morgan men meet with Reverend Misner, who will mediate the meeting between the Morgan men and Arnette’s father and brother. Deek and Steward consider Misner a threat to the family’s stronghold over Ruby: he has established a non-profit credit union for his congregation, and he has a history of agitating for social change by challenging white people and their laws rather than avoiding them, as the citizens of Ruby do. Still, Misner’s Baptist congregation is the largest and most powerful in Ruby, so the Morgans must work with him to some extent.
The meeting with Misner establishes both the power that the Morgans have over Ruby and the threat that Misner poses to that power. K.D. has privilege in Ruby not only as a man but as the heir to the Morgan dynasty, an institution built on the traditions of Ruby. Misner’s advocacy for change in Ruby destabilizes the continuation of that dynasty. One of the traditions that upholds Ruby’s status quo is avoiding white people and white supremacy rather than confronting them. Misner’s history of activism is poised to upset this way of life.
Themes
The Morgans drive to the Fleetwoods’ house, and Deek and Steward scold K.D. for having sex with a Fleetwood. K.D. is unbothered. He remembers a summer when he watched white children enjoy “the world’s purest happiness” in a segregated swimming pool. His desire for that swimming pool is similar to his desire for Gigi, the woman from the bus, but this new desire seems within reach.
Deek and Steward’s shared disappointment that K.D. had sex with a Fleetwood speaks to the hierarchies maintained in Ruby. Ruby’s repression is a response to the constant exclusion of racial segregation that all its residents have experienced. Despite K.D.’s privilege within Ruby, he knows he can never attain the “purest happiness” of white children unburdened by racism. His childlike, instinctual desire to swim in the segregated pool mirrors his lust for Gigi.
Themes
The Morgans arrive at the Fleetwoods’ house to meet with Arnold (Arnette’s father) and Jeff (her brother). The men wait for Reverend Misner to speak with “the women who were nowhere in sight”––Mable and Sweetie, Arnold and Jeff’s wives, who spend their time caring for Jeff’s four disabled children. Even before the conversation starts, the situation is fraught. Arnold owes the Morgan twins money, and Jeff’s experiences in the Vietnam War have left him angry at the world. When Misner returns, the men deliberate. Eventually, they resolve that K.D. will apologize to Arnette, and the twins will help pay for her college education. No one mentions Arnette’s pregnancy.
The Fleetwoods’ house makes clear the gender division in Ruby—in the house, Arnold and Jeff deal with social and business matters while Mable and Sweetie care for the children. The men also exclude Arnette from the meeting, even though it is about her. Only Misner is willing to challenge that divide by leaving the men to speak to the women. The fact that all four of Jeff’s children are disabled or ill sheds a new light on why Deek and Steward were so horrified that K.D. impregnated Jeff’s sister. Though the men come to an agreement, they do not address Arnette’s pregnancy, putting aside the necessity of resolving that situation for the sake of protecting Arnette’s reputation. This speaks to the common belief in Ruby that women need protecting.
Themes
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The next morning, Reverend Misner considers the events of yesterday’s meeting. He is glad to have made Mable laugh, but Sweetie seemed unamused by him. When they prayed together, he felt that her relationship to God was “superior, ancient, and completely sealed” compared to his. He suspects that the Morgans have deceived him in some way, especially since he saw K.D. speeding out of town with a “devious smile.”
In addition to being a figure of social change, Misner is a man of God. As a reverend, he feels intimately connected to his faith, but he recognizes that Sweetie’s connection to God is far deeper than his. Her “superior” faith introduces the theme, which runs throughout the story, that people (especially women) can develop profound relationships with God outside the structure of organized religion.
Themes
The story switches to Gigi’s perspective. Her lover Mikey tells her about a rock formation near his hometown in Wish, Arizona that resembles a couple having sex. Gigi is entranced by this, especially Mikey’s description of how the couple seems to move as the sun’s position changes. When Mikey is arrested and jailed for 90 days, Gigi sends him a message telling him to come to Wish with her when he is released. He never responds to her, and though Gigi searches, she never finds the town of Wish or the couple in the rocks. Nevertheless, she refuses to believe that Mikey invented the couple, and she moves to Mexico to search for the rocks.
Gigi is introduced as a sexual figure as she steps off the bus in provocative clothing and instantly arouses K.D. Her connection with sex continues as the story relates her quest to find the rock formation. Her fixation with the rocks suggests that she understands sex differently than K.D does. While K.D.’s lust for Gigi is framed as a desire to possess her, Gigi views sex as sublime, beautiful, and potentially even an object of worship. Her sympathetic characterization makes clear that a woman can be unabashedly sexual without being immoral.
Themes
Gigi’s grandfather calls her to demand that she comes home, and asks he if the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, and Malcom X are enough world change for her. Gigi agrees to come home, but on her way, she meets a man. He tells her that although he has not heard of the couple in the rocks, he has heard of a place with a lake in the middle of a wheat field. Near this lake, he claims, are two trees that grow into each other’s arms, and squeezing between them grants a person unparalleled ecstasy. The trees are in Ruby. Gigi decides not to return home to Frisco and instead travels to Ruby.
The three men Gigi’s grandfather references were all civil rights activists who were murdered during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Gigi arrives in Ruby in 1970, when the deaths of these men are still recent. Her grandfather implies that their activism, which Gigi took part in, was for naught: America is still dangerous, and Gigi should return home to safety. However, she changes her mind when she hears of another mystical, perhaps holy source of sexual pleasure that she can put her faith in.
Themes
Ruby strikes Gigi as undeveloped, though she enjoys “the waves of raw horniness” that the young men send her way. She is disappointed that a man has apparently sent her on yet another wild goose chase, and she is planning to hitchhike out of town when a man named Roger Best offers to give her a ride to the train station.
Gigi sees through Ruby’s picturesque facade to the repressed sexuality beneath. She knows that men view her as a sexual object, and she enjoys the attention, relishing her own beauty and sexuality.
Themes
On the way to the station, Roger Best stops at the Convent to pick up the body of Mother, who has recently died. Gigi is startled to learn she has been riding in a hearse, and she is further surprised at the emptiness of the building Roger calls a Convent. She goes inside to explore, debating whether she wants to ride beside a corpse to the station. She walks into the 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 while she sleeps, and although Roger is about to leave, Gigi agrees.
The Convent Gigi finds is a different one than Mavis encountered, as Mother’s death has fundamentally altered its sense of community. Nevertheless, the Convent remains a place of safety and nourishment. It provides a feast for Gigi, and she repays this generosity by agreeing to watch Connie while she sleeps. This agreement is Gigi’s tacit commitment to the Convent’s community of women who mutually provide for each other.
Themes
Gigi explores the Convent while Connie sleeps. When Connie wakes up, Gigi asks who died, and Connie answers, “A love,” adding that Mother was the first and last of Connie’s two loves. Connie asks what Gigi’s full name is, and Gigi reveals that she is named after her mother, Grace. Connie decides to call her Grace.
Connie was openly devoted to Mother in Mavis’s chapter, but her grief here reveals how all-consuming her love for Mother is. Connie has defined herself by her relationship with her surrogate mother, and now she must find a new identity. At the same time, she grants Gigi the new identity of “Grace” as Gigi enters the Convent community.
Themes
Gigi spends the night in the Convent, and the next morning she is unsettled to find an etching of a female saint offering her naked breasts on a platter. K.D. knocks on the door, and Gigi is both entertained and annoyed at his obvious attraction to her, especially his fixation on her breasts. She agrees to go on a drive with him.
The image of a saint bearing her own breasts on a platter most often represents Agatha of Sicily, and Gigi’s discomfort with the art speaks to how institutionalized Christianity can alienate women. In Catholic lore, St. Agatha rejected the affections of a powerful man, who then tortured her, cut off her breasts, and eventually killed her. K.D.’s appearance immediately after Gigi notices this etching, and his fixation on Gigi’s breasts, hints that Gigi’s relationship with K.D. might not end well for her.
Themes
Mavis returns after a month away to 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 over time, but it is interrupted when a young girl (Arnette) knocks on the door begging for help. She pleads, “I’ve been raped and it’s almost August,” and the narration notes that only part of what the girl says is true.
Mavis and Gigi represent two very different modes of femininity, which causes them to clash. Mavis is motherly, cautious, and largely unsexual after her traumatic marriage to Frank. Gigi, on the other hand, is young, reckless, and indulgently sexual. The girl who arrives at the end of the chapter is not named, but she is almost certainly Arnette. Arnette worries about August approaching because she is scheduled to begin her first year at college, and she needs to terminate her pregnancy. This reference to the time of year is the part of her claim that is true––she has not been raped, since the book makes no indication that her relationship with K.D. was not consensual. The fact that Arnette, a respected young woman of Ruby, comes to the Convent for help highlights that many of Ruby’s women silently depend on the Convent.
Themes
