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Mavis
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Themes
