Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif”, 1983, is written in first person from Twyla's perspective, and takes place during the early 1950s to the 1980s. The story follows the life of the main characters; Roberta, and Twyla, who are both eight years of age, and get roomed together at a shelter called St. Bonaventure, or “St. Bonny’s”, and eventually leave, but reconnect on multiple different occasions throughout the span of twenty years, with varying emotions each time. Although similar, Roberta and Twyla come from drastically different backgrounds, possess different values, are a part of different economic classes, and are both a different race. However, Toni Morrison does not specifically state which race Twyla and Roberta are. According …show more content…
And in the crook of her arm was the biggest Bible ever made” (234). Because this information is presented, the reader can assume that their lives before being taken to the shelter, and their beliefs on each other's race were drastically different, which affected how the two got along when they first met, however, they shortly became friends after due to feeling sympathetic towards each other. Contrastingly, because of their economic class, they begin to realize their differences, which causes them to fight, however, they slowly grow up and realize their economic class brought them together. One occasion is long after Twyla and Roberta leave St. Bonny’s, when they meet again at a dinner called “Howard Johnson’s”, where Twyla works. They begin to bicker with one another and even go as far as making backhanded comments about each other's parents. As stated in an article published by the Gale Literature Resource Center, which gives an overview of Toni Morrison's short story, “Recitatif”, “Roberta is with two men and tells Twyla that they are on their way to see Jimi Hendrix, but Twyla doesn’t know who Hendrix …show more content…
Twyla and Roberta then begin to argue about their differences in beliefs, and it even escalates to a point where the group of picketers standing with Roberta began to rock Twyla’s car, and Roberta calls Twyla “the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground”. Who Roberta is referring to in this quote is Maggie, who is mute, and possibly deaf. The incident she then states Twyla took part in is when Maggie, the elderly kitchen helper who worked at St. Bonny’s at the time the girls stayed there, was kicked to the ground by the “gar girls”, which is a name Twyla and Roberta gave to the older girls staying at the shelter. The significance with Maggie, according to an article written by Sandra Stanley, is due to “the two main characters arguing about whether or not they participated in the beating. Moreover, as they acknowledge that they never knew for certain whether Maggie was deaf as well as mute or whether she was black or white, they realize that their own ambivalent memories of her have been repressed and
With all the different types of literature we have in our world we also have a similar amount of interpretations of those pieces of literature. Each interpretation is as valid as another. Literature not only allows the writer to create a wonderful world and a story, it allows the reader to fully embrace the story and find meaning out of it. There are also many different types of literary criticisms. These criticisms are vehicles or guidelines for us to use to understand the reading in a very
In “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison the races of Twyla and Roberta are neither directly mentioned nor clarified. Morrison made the the narrator’s race ambiguous because she did not want the reader to formulate racial biases based on her actions. The effect that Morrison tried to achieve by using this tool is that anyone is capable of racism and everyone is equal. The overall meaning of the work is that racism is terrible and causes pain; and that all people are equal and should not let race affect their
people. We grow, we learn, and we understand, and then we begin to shrink, forget, and lose who we were. In Recitatif we move through the story with Twyla and Roberta. We follow them from their shared troubled childhood to their melancholy elder years. We observe how they change through the ages and their ages. The exact year we meet Twyla and Roberta is blurry and vague. It is a time of thick racial divide, as seen by Twyla’s defiance when first seeing she would be sharing a room with a girl of
narrator and main character Twyla gives us an insight on her life experience from the orphanage to her adult years beginning to see the true colors of society. With symbolism and figurative language “Recitatif” helps the reader to identify the racial tension and racial identity struggles that occur in this text. In Morrison’s “Recitatif” the main character
rather than physical appearance, which helps to contrast their similar situations with their individual outlooks, and plays a significant role in how the author presents the story. The interpretation of this short story is left mostly up to indirect characterization and inference. The true nature of both the girls’ mothers is never clearly stated, but rather implied based on what each of the characters says and does. Twyla and Roberta are the only children at the orphanage who still have their parents
that to Twyla shows how she was prejudice to the contrary race. Very similar in "Passing" Clare acts prejudice against her own race stating that white society is more superior and that more light-skin women should pass as white. It is stated that Clare lives a very luxurious life along the side of her husband that she likes to make known to most. In many occasions it is interpreted that Clare believes she's better than Irene because of her luxurious
person's mind and how they perceive situations differently. This story is about two friends who perceive an incident differently. As I read this story I was intrigued knowing the friends were different races, but being unsure who was which race. This story highlights a couple between Twyla and Roberta. One difference of great significance to this story is the race of the two friends. Twyla states, "so for the moment it didn't matter that we looked like salt and pepper
smelled funny” (Morrison 467). With those words a child described the way in which her mother perceives others, as well as the ideals she placed on her child, a direct example of prejudice and racial bias in “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison. After Roberta and Twyla, the story’s main characters, two young girls of contrasting races meet at a shelter and are separated by life’s ups and downs; they are later reunited, by fate, in various occasions, and are reminded of the differences of their skin by others
this fact. In a similar way, Recitatif is just as much Roberta’s story as it is Twyla’s. It is Roberta who provokes the debate about the damage done to Maggie the kitchen-worker: was Maggie black, or was she white? Did she fall down on her own, or did the two girls attack her? At the end of Recitatif, Roberta makes a confession which clarifies matters. Maggie’s race remains uncertain, but it is revealed that the two little girls did not attack her. Roberta confesses as much to Twyla. “Listen to me
individualize thinking, and qualities such as anti-hero. Twyla and Roberta are very complex characters, which Morrison portrays throughout the story. Readers get to watch the characters change with every interaction throughout the years.”We got along alright, Roberta and I.” (Morrison 133). This is the first interaction the characters have together, and it sets the baseline of their relationship. The next time these characters meet is in a diner where Twyla works. “She laughed then a private laugh that included
Benjamin has researched the farthest in this topic by identifying the space that exists between the binaries as “interstitial space”, I aim to delve into this location to discover really what process is occurring, what results this process creates, and how and why Morrison does this. By using the term “integration”, which is not the space between the signifiers but the process and the place where things merge and lose their distinctions, I seek to prove that Morrison explores this space of in-betweeness
fall may be a symbol of some specific event in our history. Considering the context and setting of Twyla and Roberta’s beginning relationship at St. Bonny’s, Maggie’s physical description, job, name, and fall allude to Bob Dylan and the folk music revival of the early 1960s. Bob Dylan began his career as a folk singer in New York City in 1960–the same city and approximate time Twyla and Roberta begin their relationship (Shelton 87). The folk music scene in New York brought “hundreds of guitar
Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” and A.S. Byatt’s “The Thing in the Forest” are both focused on the intersections of childhood trauma, memory, and guilt, as well as how someone’s childhood can affect them through life. Each has its own idea of what effect the guilt might have on a person and how it can affect different people in different ways. “Recitatif” and “The Thing in the Forest” both revolve around the guilt and confusion that adults face when reflecting upon their childhood and wondering if their
Toni Morrison, Country Lovers by Nadine Gordomor , and the film version of The Help directed by Toni Morrison. The theme of racism is strongly present in these texts - from this I can analyze how racism corrupts our morality, how it is seen from different perspectives (the minority and the majority), and how it affects relationships. Racism corrupts our morality:
The central problem in Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior”, and Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”, revolve on the issue of race. Morrison and O’Connor focus on the theme of race specifically between blacks and whites in America. It could be said that Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” concentrates on the racial difference between Asian and Caucasian but race is not made to be a big issue in this novel, since almost all of the characters