CREATING A PARADISIACAL COMMUNITY: ASPECTS OF MULTICULTURALISM IN TONI MORRISON?S PARADISE.

The present paper studied the multiplicity of religious beliefs, racism and nationhood based on the principles of isolationism and patriarchy in Toni Morrison?s novel Paradise (1997). The novel invokes and examines traumatic histories of the Ruby town. It gives emphasis to the important history of Christianity for American and Afro-American nationhood. The paper discussed how the isolative nature of the Ruby town, which forbids new ideas, religious beliefs or ethnicities and racial background, destroys itself from within. It attempted to analyse the multicultural, multifaceted world of a group of five convent women and criticises the contributions of Christian traditions in subjugating women. In this novel, racism is denounced as a concept where the division is between the powerful and the powerless. Morrison?s attempt to challenge Christian Ethnocentricism finds a beautiful expression in this novel. While analysing this novel, the author also employed Zygmunt Bauman?s theory of ?stranger?.