Re-Creation in Morrison

A woman becomes a gendered woman, according to Judith Butler, "through the stylization of the body"; performative acts that eventually constitute what this certain woman is. This creation of what it means to be a woman is different for all women, but Butler reaffirms the notion of Simone de Beauvoir that, "one is not born, but rather becomes a woman." "Becoming" is a fluid concept, changing for women mostly due to the impact of prejudice on their lives from many different sources.
In Toni Morrison's Paradise the notion of re-creating what it means to be a woman is one of the strongest themes in the novel, especially when looking at the women of the Convent. They have come broken, drawn to this Convent in one way or another from a place of fear. Mavis, the woman who "wondered what it would be like [...] to have a husband who came home every day. For anything" (24), is caught in the role of a wife who has to constantly hold her family together. Yes, she wasn't the smartest of the lot, and yes, she ran away from her family because of both a warrant and her ensuing paranoia; but she was defined by her acts to be the woman who was continually put down. Gigi came from the culture of violence that seeped into every facet of her life, coming to Ruby as a destination. Because of her context, she was created to be the whore: the only way she was to get anything she wanted was to be the "bitch": it was one of the best ways to deal with the continual vision of the "boy spitting blood into his hands" (64). Coming to the Convent in a way was a place of protection, away from the man that she couldn't be with, away from the violence and loss that continually surrounded her life.
One, if not the, most profound example of those around a woman shaping her life and her "performing" her gender is Seneca. She is the peacemaker and has been since her sister ran away as a child. Abandoned, she's the one who always says, "I don't mind" because, "Otherwise- what? The might not like her. Might cry. Might leave" (130). Heaven forbid she would have to be left again, alone, and have to hitch a ride in the back of another pickup. Her place of sanctuary came in the form of the Convent, a place where slowly she changed to a woman who can say what she wants and who she wants to be.
All the women come to the Convent because it is for some reason the only place they have left to go. Because of Connie's own demons, the change of the girls into free women is slow. It is not until nearly the end of the novel where Connie truly takes the reins and puts the girls' lives under that self-reflecting microscope. The spiritual exercises, a mixture of voodoo and Christianity, were the turning point in the creation of the women's lives personally. Societally in comparison to the women of Ruby, they were already created far differently. But, it is the personal re-creation that is so striking. "Unlike some people in Ruby, the women of the Convent were no longer haunted" (266). The women, through their performative acts of what they believed a woman should be, changed the way they lived. Shackled to their pasts no more. Free to dance in the rain. Like all women should be.