Afrofuturistic Reconstruction in Toni Morrison’s Paradise

Toni Morrison’s Paradise (1997) is a contemporary African American novel that has often been interpreted as either utopian, dystopian, or a gothic piece of literature. Scrutinizing the non-linearity of time in Paradise and connecting it to the historical events at the time the novel was written, we wish to highlight Morrison’s criticism of Eurocentric utopian traditions. Furthermore, we emphasize Morrison’s suggestion of reimagining a reconstructed future through re-examining African American history. By analyzing tropes of metaphorical time travel, parallel universes, and the jump in time integrated with the technology of the 1970s when the events of the novel occurred, we suggest that Paradise can be tackled from an Afrofuturistic lens to visualize a different future. Hence, we argue that Paradise is an Afrofuturistic novel that helps readers envision a new form of Reconstruction through mediating between African American history and technoculture.