Most characters in Paradise are devout Christians, and the book’s instances of magical realism frequently connect to the faith of the characters involved. The presence of magic in the story establishes that some version of God exists, but Paradise never clarifies what this God intends or what form holiness might take. The Convent is a safe place for women, and Connie, its leader, retains the Christian values of the nuns who once lived there. In its past, however, the Convent was a residential school for Native American girls. The novel does not discuss the treatment of these girls in detail, but residential schools were constructed to exterminate indigenous culture and force indigenous children to accept Christianity. And before the Convent was a holy place, it was an embezzler’s private mansion.
By establishing the Convent’s complex past, Paradise refuses to accept a single, uncomplicated perception of holiness. Reverend Pulliam and Reverend Misner both uphold the structure of organized religion, but Pulliam’s understanding of God adheres to his conservative worldview while Misner’s suits his radically progressive politics. Pulliam preaches that God is not interested in his followers unless he earns their love, while Misner believes that “not only is God interested in you; He is you.” These opposing interpretations of God inform Pulliam and Misner’s opposing stances to the rising calls for change within Ruby, highlighting how organized religion can both support and obstruct activism. Lone, the midwife, is a deeply pious Christian woman, but the townspeople view her as sinful because her beliefs about God differ from those which organized religion espouses. Connie doubts Lone’s connection to God even as the midwife helps Connie access the power of “stepping in,” a supernatural method of healing. She wonders whether her gift to save lives is an act of God’s will or an act against it, and the narrative never definitively answers her question.
Even more unclear is the book’s depiction of the afterlife, called “Paradise,” to which the women go after their deaths. The story presents the women in Paradise from external perspectives, never allowing the reader to fully grasp what “the endless work” of Heaven entails. This uncertainty emphasizes the importance of faith rather than knowledge. Paradise presents God and godliness as multifaceted, and the story refuses to provide concrete answers about their true nature, forcing the readers to choose what they believe just as the characters must do.
Related Themes from Other Texts
God, Holiness, and Faith ThemeTracker
God, Holiness, and Faith Quotes in Paradise
Bodacious black Eves unredeemed by Mary, they are like panicked does leaping toward a sun that has finished burning off the mist and now pours its holy oil over the hides of game.
God at their side, the men take aim. For Ruby.
She had acquiesced when he asked her to join him in prayer. Bowed her head, closed her eyes, but when she faced him with a quiet “Amen,” he felt as though his relationship with the God he spoke to was vague or too new, while hers was superior, ancient, and completely sealed.
It was the I-give woman serving up her breasts like two baked Alaskas on a platter that took all the kick out of looking in the boy’s eyes. Gigi watched him battle his stare and lose every time. He said his name was K.D. and tried hard to enjoy her face as much as her cleavage when he talked. It was a struggle she expected, rose to and took pleasure in––normally. But the picture she had wakened to an hour earlier spoiled it.
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.
