(Hi) Stories and Tellers: A Critical Reading of Toni Morrison’s Paradise

Abstract

Toni Morrison’s Paradise (1997) the final part of the trilogy that includes Beloved (1987) and Jazz (1992) appropriately meditates on the processes which construct and narrate history. An account of all blacks town Ruby, Paradise provides an incisive critique of the town’s historiography steeped inescapably with the nationalist ethos. Accordingly, the text becomes an important discourse that reassesses the underpinnings of Black Nationalism and more particularly, investigates the possibilities of a unified postcolonial history built on the collective conscience. The present essay seeks to study how by critically hinging upon Ruby’s nationalist historiography, Morrison deconstructs it as a problematic discourse which is strongly inscribed with the conflictual dynamics of Western hegemonic paradigms. In so doing, the paper studies how the author uncovers the ideological faultlines at the heart of Ruby’s historicity and reinforces the exploration of communal (hi) story on alternative lines that provides compelling ways to envisage the marginalized histories and testimonies.