The most magical, focusing in African and Afro-Latin religious and magical practices is Paradise as the women escape from the convent at the end of the book. Their clothing, their movements, their disappearance is the transcendence that occurs within the context of what people of color refer to as The Religion. The Religion is an umbrella term that includes Yoruban/Ifa, Obeah, Candomble, Santeria, Macumba, Vodun, etc. which are not like Westernized religions which are systemically different. The Religion is like a field of trees that are all interrelated, similar and syncretized.
Consolata in Paradise is a practitioner of her South American expression of The Religion and the issue or her way of getting to the nuns coventry is through Ave Maria, Catholicism. Consolata’s insights into people, her eyes and the overall spiritual context. Paradise is also a comparative piece—it’s comparing the construction of towns, love, relationships, feminism/women’s rights in White vs Black context. By that I mean how men of color treat women of color vs White women. Morrison then creatively subverts her own created context by refusing to isolate which one of the women is White and which is Black so the reader is left to both hold and release race in relationship to the women. The important thing, race, something that is the primary identifier of people in a Western civilization context, I would argue as more than gender and sex, in Morrison’s creation (and perhaps in reality).
The Religion is then presented throughout the book, The Religion having something in common that Westernized religions don’t, spaces and equality for women. In The Religion, women hold equivalent power, which is Morrison’s reason, I assume, for exampling The Religion as, finally, an escape for women in a world, being hunted on many levels, finally, violently.
Beloved also contains illustrations of “magic” in the sense that people of color, African originated, don’t separate magic, spirituality and religion in the way Westernized perspective does. To us, it isn’t separate, it’s more like rooms in a mansion, that we know how to access. By that the return of Beloved is a “magical” occurrence as to whether she is the grown baby, the incarnated baby or a lost woman who is possessed by the baby’s spirit after she dies in the river. Then Sethe’s water breaking, again, when Beloved is “reborn” before she meets her, is a synchronized sensing. And finally, at the end when the women arrive and exorcise Beloved from the home with the application and direction of faith, of spiritual power. To that I would say that is how people of color actualize “magic”. To be very broadly specific, White magic is often object related (Thor’s hammer, Harry Potter’s wand) or taught/imbued (Dr. Strange, Harry Potter’s, others).
“Magic” from people of color is within us to begin with and we can direct it when needed and therefore it resonates throughout people of color as something we know. We know magic from an entirely different context and don’t separate it, differentiate it. That overall look at magic-spirituality-religion then we have the navel-less and intimidating Pilate in Song of Solomon who is lead by, instructed by her father’s ghost, Son’s lickety split, lickety split at the end as he goes back for Jade in Tar Baby, Sula as a whole other kind of woman in Sula. Her other books Jazz, Love, A Mercy, Home, God Help The Child are more straightforward. Though Love does touch on some mystical elements in relationship to the water, the beach, etc.. She’s a huge fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez who of course is the master of magical realism so the influence, cultural and religiously can be seen.
I regularly teach Morrison's for years, all the way back to a graduate seminar was my first class that I got set up to do at SUNY Buffalo. Her work is versatile and deep enough that I can bring it to bare with GED students to graduate ones and there’s enough fun, culturally known stuff and multifaceted characters and soap opera entanglements to catch all levels of attention and interest.
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