Compare And Contrast Twyla And Roberta In Recitatif

Time changes all 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 a different skin color. We additionally see that they live in an orphanage, which is now harder to come by with the rise of the foster care system. We also notice it is a time with more ignorance towards disabled people, seeing as

Twyla and Roberta carry their childhood innocence and eventually exchange it for a grown life. We are introduced to them at the age of eight, childish, scared, and ashamed. We say goodbye to them in their later years where they have settled into their more stable older adult years. They reflect on their brief connections to each other throughout their lives and attempt to make sense of everything. Twyla grew into maturity first. She worked a miserable diner job for money while Roberta bounces across the country with friends to see a musician. They’re barely out of adolescence and snap at each other for their differences. Roberta dismisses her for her seemingly boring lifestyle and Twyla snaps back about her mother’s health. Their pettiness reflects their young adult age well in this act. In act 3 they transition to mid adult life; with marriage and children. They discuss how they’ve settled down and Roberta has even learned how to read. With filled homes and security in themselves, they have a touching meeting. They talk about the disabled kitchen worker, Maggie, and how one of the “gar girls” pushed her over. Twyla can’t recall this. Roberta assures her that she’s just “blocked it” from her memory. They leave each other on an emotional note and return to each other again in act 4 on a more unpleasant one. They’re older now, and fierce about their children. Roberta advocates for her children, a large and important job for a mother her age. Twyla also advocates for her children, though, in a different way. They pick a fight with one another carried out via protest sign. This war was ignited through a recollection Roberta had about who actually pushed Maggie, who she describes as a black girl: Twyla. The two theories to this is first – Roberta’s mind has twisted the memory as she’s grown older or second – Roberta has enough immaturity left in her that she lied to Twyla to make her feel guilty. In the last act they meet each other once