Human Nature is Universal - Essay Example

Human Nature is Universal Toni Morrison’s Paradise is a novel about human nature. When an all black town in Ruby, Oklahoma must face the pressures of being African American in the 1970’s, women in an abandoned convent end up being the object of their rage. Paradise can be analyzed through its theological or racial themes, but the main theme that sticks out is human nature is universal. Although the town inhabitants are black, Morrison does not describe the characters of the convent race, except to acknowledge one is white on the first page. This conveys that although some of the characters are black, one is white, and others are not of a determined race that race is not an issue. The events in Paradise are fueled by people who have been treated badly, discriminated against, and beaten down by society. When people are treated like this, human nature dictates one of two responses; a defeated, beat down individual that wants peace or an angry individual that wants to vent. These two types of people weave the story of Paradise. Religion is a big part of Paradise. Religion is a basic part of human nature. The convent where the four women, Mavis, Gigi (Grace), Seneca, and Pallas (Divine), and their leader Connie (Consolata) live is not a real convent. It is an abandoned convent the four misfit women and a former nun come to live in after life has thrown them disappointment and sorrow. The women of the convent treat religion differently than the men in Ruby. These women took in those in need, living communally. Unlike the rigid views of the men of Ruby, the women at the convent treated their religion of Christianity with a broader view of interpretation. Both types of views toward religion are part of human nature. There have always been the religious zealot and the tolerant individual. The fight between the two has been part of human nature as well. The zealot comes to the conclusion everything bad is being brought about by the evil, or the person or persons that do not believe their way. The men of Ruby came to believe that everything bad happening was the fault of the women at the convent. Things like “A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born into one family” (Morrision, 11). While the women at the convent were only trying to live the way the believed with a nonjudgmental look at the world, the men of Ruby were plotting their demise. The women at the convent could not understand why the men of Ruby hated them. Judgment by the Ruby zealots and the nonjudgmental views by the women at the convent were also part of human nature. Human nature also is divided among gender lines. The men coming from Ruby were there to destroy the women of the convent. The women at the convent were nurturers. They took in guests, canned, and sold their canned food and hot peppers to the locals. Even the women of Ruby had traits that are human nature of women. For example: Saone is chastising herself for not having talked, just talked to Deek. Told him she knew about Connie; that the loss of their third child was a judgment against her—not him. (Morrison, 288). Saone blamed herself for not trying to persuade Deek not to destroy the women of the convent. Women, since Eve, have always thought they could persuade a man. A man’s nature is to blame women for not persuading them in the right direction. After the raid at the convent, the men felt bad. Of course, this must be a woman’s fault. Whether the Ruby’s women for not talking them out of it, or the convent women for forcing them to action, a man’s nature is to blame a woman for his actions. Another example of a man’s nature in Paradise is black, white, red, or purple, men and women act like humans. The black men of Ruby wanted to eradicate what was different from them, which was the women at the convent. These men came from slaves that were ran out of towns, not only by whites, but by light skinned blacks as well (Morrison, 194). Instead of reaction with tolerance for differences, the men from Ruby wanted to eliminate everyone not like them. The black men were acting like white men. Finally, after the raid at the convent, one Ruby man, Deacon feels "long remorse ... at having become what the Old Fathers cursed: the kind of man who set himself up to judge, rout and even destroy the needy, the defenseless, the different" (Morrison, 302). Like many men before him, Deacon realizes his actions were wrong. Human nature of most men is after committing an atrocity, upon seeing the carnage and end result, to feel remorse. It is not in every man’s nature, like the psychopath or persons with no conscious, but most men feel horror upon seeing needless death. Then, intelligent men like Deacon, realize they have been fooled by a mob mentality. This is just another part of human nature as well. Paradise by Toni Morrison is about human nature. It is about the nature of women and men. The nature of a religious zealot and religious tolerance is also part of this human nature. Finally the color blind nature of man is present. All men have similar traits. These traits make all humans, despite their individuality, human. Very few humans can live and do the right thing like the women at the convent, by being individuals, without being persecuted by others with a mob human nature Work Cited Morrison, Toni. Paradise. New York: Plume, 1999. Read More