Viewing Toni Morrison’s Paradise as a Response to William Carlos Williams’s Paterson

Abstract

To unlock Toni Morrison's often opaque and fleeting references in her novels requires patient eye; in case of Paradise, one of keys to understanding Morrison's authorial intent lies within single referential word, word which links Paradise to William Carlos Williams and his long-format poem Paterson. This reference appears in Mavis narrative (21-49) of Toni Morrison's Paradise. Mavis, recalling when her mother came to visit and help out with her children, mentions that her mother drove from Paterson, New Jersey. With many authors, brief mention of town would normally be labeled as ephemeral. Morrison's authorial style, however, in which her choices of words, names, and places are rarely gratuitous, makes it especially important to explore purpose of town of Paterson in Paradise. Over course of almost dozen years, William Carlos Williams composed his epic poem Paterson, which focuses what he calls the city, man, While many critics have explored Paradise through variety of critical perspectives, none have examined novel as metatextual feminist response to Paterson. By juxtaposing Paterson with Paradise, it becomes clear that Morrison's Paradise is an attempt to both supplement and critique William Carlos Williams's sometimes contradictory and opaque views forging of identity, gender, and historical narrative in Paterson. At first glance, two works are vastly different. Paterson, written in years from 1946 to 1958, is an epic poem that deconstructs relationship between what Williams calls the / man, an or [a] like city (Paterson 4, 7). The and man--both named Paterson--venture through streets, searching for answers to formation of their collective identity. Along journey, Williams attempts to explore, with varied success, society's views and attitudes toward women. Morrison's Paradise, conversely, focuses deep interpersonal relationships between men, women, and their shared historical narratives. Paradise tells story of an all-African American town, Ruby, and effects group of women who live in Convent outskirts of Ruby, have town. The similarity between these two works, however, lies both in their intent and structure. Williams sought to explore how and its history affects identity (and vice versa); Morrison does much same. (1) Both authors also create textual structure with free nuance to achieve their goals. Williams uses poetry, prose, shifting narrators, and historical texts throughout five books of Paterson. Morrison tells narrative of Paradise through views of several different women in an effort to give not single voice to feminine perspective, but to exhibit how women in history have multiple, unique and rich voices. (2) Morrison's creation of an intertextual conversation with Paterson, however, becomes much more apparent when we examine specific instances in which she diverges from or signifies on Williams's conception of and city. The thematic interrelationship between Paterson and Paradise explores gender identity, as Morrison critiques destructive yet overwhelming influence of patriarchy females. Precisely because of his oblique language, Williams leaves him[self] open to current charges of sexism because it seems to support sex roles that Western culture has traditionally supported (DeWitt 64). While there is some critical argument about Williams's personal outlook roles of women and artists as members of society, his often patriarchal stance in Paterson is too great to be overlooked. Paterson, which Williams claims is an exploration of idea that a in himself is city (xiv), is reconstructed by Morrison as town of Ruby in Paradise. Morrison's man as city is dominating but, unlike Williams's masculine thematic, has competing perspective: Convent. Morrison juxtaposes two societies Ruby and Convent--to explore phallocentric deficiencies in Paterson. …