finition of "paradise." The men break into the convent and kill the women and thereby prove to themselves that they have become like the same people they despised that sent them on their quest for a "paradise" in the first place. They also realize that their town is not a paradise and that isolation will never make it a paradise. The citizens must take "this prison calling itself a town" (308) and rebuild it in order to form a "paradise" within themselves rather than without, just as the four women rebuilt themselves through the teachings of Connie.Toni Morrison's novel Paradise addresses the idea of "paradise" and how it is achieved. Morrison uses the town of Ruby to demonstrate how isolation can not and will not create a "paradise," while also using the women of the Convent to reveal that "paradise" is an inner concept that can only be achieved through understanding and acceptance. The author takes four broken women, kills them, and has them reborn into a "paradise" of their own making....
