Blog Entry #1

My first selection is Paradise written by Toni Morrison. The author's intent in this novel was to reveal how culture, and preserving that culture, was so important to the African Americans of the early 1900's all the way up until the late 1970's. It was also to compare the pain of broken women, and how the townspeople who worked so hard to preserve their culture, tried to destroy these broken women for interferring with their culture. This intent is communicated through the dialogue of the characters and the narrations of the narrator. Toni Morrison wrote this book in scattered timelines. It wasn't in chronological order; it was by memory, and what was going on in the present. For example, she opens the book with description of the very present, purposely making sure the reader has no idea what is going on which forces the reader to continue reading the rest of the book to understand what exactly was going on in the opening. Each section is named by one of the broken girls. In each section, it describes how the broken girls became broken, and it explains what part she plays in interferring with the African American townspoeples' culture. Each section is an event that takes place in the past. The very ending of the book takes the reader back to the very present now that the reader has a clear understanding of what is going on. There are many themes of this book, however, the most important theme in this novel is Fear. This theme is represented in multiple ways. The setting takes place in a small town named Ruby. African Americans of dark complexion only live in this town. There are two light skinned women, and they are despised by the other townspeople. Also, the Convent is another setting, which is located 17 miles outside of Ruby. In the town of Ruby, the people are afraid of change, and in the Convent, scared girls and women go there for security, and freedom. As I reconsider this work, I uncover that the Convent and Ruby both had residents whom were afraid. Afraid of what was outside of where they were. The young people who lived in Ruby were not afraid, in fact, they were curious. It was the older generation that was afraid; afraid that the younger generation would discover the world outside of Ruby and bring it back, which would destroy their culture. The women whom resided in the Convent were afraid of the pain that lead them there.