Recitatif By Toni Morrison: A Literary Analysis

Throughout the United States’ history, race and racism has been a prominent part of society and unfortunately may never go away. It is important to address these issues and make them heard and to educate people. In short fiction stories, it is a common theme, especially those authored by African American writers who have had experience in society. In one particular piece of short fiction, “Recitatif”, the author Toni Morrison explores the effect, usually the theme of her stories, of race and racism using the youth during the 1960s and all the way up to the 1980s, mainly by confronting the common act of making assumptions about characters using character traits and historical events. In “Recitatif” the readers are intended to make an assumption

Bonny’s. There are many encounters between Twyla and Roberta that give clues about who is what race with the use of character traits, but each are very controversial. The first one is when Twyla sees Roberta at Howard Johnsons, where Twyla works. Morrison has Twyla describe Roberta as, “Her own hair was so big and wild… had on a powder-blue hater and shorts outfit and earrings the size of bracelets.” (Morrison 144), and then herself as, “I was standing there with my knees showing out from under that uniform… my hair shapeless in a net, my ankles thick in white oxfords. (Morrison 145). With those two descriptions, in this encounter, readers would assume that because Roberta’s hair is big and wild and Twyla’s shapeless that Twyla is white and Roberta black. The second encounter is outside a Food Emporium and then at a coffee shop, Twyla notices that Roberta, “…her huge hair was sleek now, smooth… Shoes, dress, everything lovely and summery and rich.” (Morrison 146), and then notices she has limousine with a driver waiting outside for her. Twyla reflects on their past encounter, “… twelve years ago, we passed like strangers. A black girl and a white girl meeting in a Howard Johnson’s… having nothing to say… Now we were behaving like sisters separated for much too long.” (Morrison 147) and then when Twyla asks Roberta why she did not interact with her that day at that Howard Johnsons, Roberta

Many readers have different opinions about who is which race in my case, I have reason to believe that Roberta is black, on account of her “big hair” and her mother, as Twyla describes her, “…was big. Bigger than any man and her chest was the biggest cross I’d ever seen… And in the crook of her arm was the biggest Bible ever made.” (Morrison 143) and that she wanted nothing to do with Twyla’s mother. This comes from knowing and having stereotypes of African Americans during this time. Twyla is white on account of her hair is shapeless and Twyla not even noticing that race was even an issue, like when she saw everyone as equal when they came to the Howard Johnson’s and meandered around together not seeing the difference. Morrison’s strategy of not ever revealing the race of the girls is important because the girls, when they were younger did not see the difference of their skin color and merely bonded over the fact that they were both dropped off by their neglectful mothers. Later on they face the troubles of being of different races but after many years are still best friends and even refer to themselves as sisters. Morrison leaves it up to the readers to determine who is who using the way she describes their looks and how they act, but also makes the point of that it does not matter