Paradise
The Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Toni Morrison, is hailed as “the last classic American writer , a major figure of national literature , and simply the best writer in America.” “ Morrison is at her complex and commanding best in this mysterious tale, as she presents a unique perspective on American history and leaves her dazzled readers shaking their heads over all that is perpetually inexplicable between men and women, rich and poor the tyrannical and free spirited.” The statements above are merely personal opinions and have yet to be proven true. After reading Toni Morrison’s Paradise, I came to the conclusion that these remarks are over exaggerated. This is based on my opinion that Paradise is not the writings of a Nobel Prize award winner and should not be considered one of her best works. After all of the vivid descriptions of her work, I can say that I was fairly disappointed. Paradise was the first and the last of Toni Morrison’s novels that I will read. After doing research into others analysis’ of the novel, I realized that I was not alone in my judgment of Paradise. “I find myself troubled by this novel and how difficult it is to follow. I don’t
mind reading slowly, in fact, I have no objection to taking my time with anything; however, this is simply trying my patience. I wanted to keep going because I had invested so much of my time into reading the novel, but I find myself making excuses for not reading it. I wish Ms. Morrison had thought about the impact of making the reading so challenging and had eased up on us just a little bit. I am worn out from focusing on every word, but if I don’t, then from one sentence to the next, I lose sight of a character, and then I am lost too! I just hope I can hang on long enough to get to the finish line, where, I know I will have to start all over again!” I think this is the universal thought that goes through most minds after attempting to read Paradise. After finally finishing the novel, Thank God, I felt as if I had no idea what I just read. May be this is because throughout the entire book I kept thinking am I almost finished In my opinion a good novel should not have to be read twice in order to achieve some sort of basic understanding. Paradise was puzzling, complex and to me a complete waste of time. The novel is quite difficult, but as we are told , everything worthwhile is. The fact that the novel is challenging and requires a lot of time, patience and energy is hardly the point . The question is “Is it worth the effort?.” My answer to that question is no. I am not saying that the whole novel was awful because it was not. I thought the theme of the novel was incorporated well through out the novel. The problems were with the organization of the story line, and the development of the characters. Another theme in the novel was prejudice. The people traveled from to Ruby to escape “the white man’s law.” They were trying to find their own secluded little world were they wouldn’t have to deal with the problems of the real world. Prejudice was one of their main reasons for their journey. There was discrimination by they dark-skinned blacks against the light skinned blacks. “ Look what the did to Menus, forcing him to give back or return his the woman he brought home to marry. Menus lost (or was forced to give up) the house he’s bought for her and hadn’t been sober since.” This was an example of how the towns’ narrow-mindedness affected the citizens. So, while the characters resented whites for discrimination, they behaved just like them. I did not understand the last chapter of Paradise. I am still left with so many unanswered qu
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1721
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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