Compare And Contrast Twyla And Roberta In Recitatif

I think Toni Morrison, obscured the characters racial identities in, “Recitatif” to show us how these two characters became good friends during a rough time in their life. They were both abandoned to St.Bonny’s and placed to share a room together, while Twyla knew her mother would disapprove of rooming with another girl outside her race. Twlya states, “My mother won't like you putting me in here” (1). However, this only helped build their friendship and provided each other strength to get through. Toni Morrison, describes each characters with specific issues and a description of the relationship to they have with their mothers. Maybe Morrison wanted her readers to look beyond race to see how similar each character was to each other. While Twyla believes her mother would disapprove of her sharing a room with Roberta, we read that

After the introduction Twyla’s mother, “ grinned and tried to yank her hand out of the pocket with the raggedy lining-to shake hands, I guess. Roberta's mother looked down at me and then looked down at Mary too. She didn't say anything, just grabbed Roberta with her Bible-free hand and stepped out of line, walking quickly to the rear of it” (3). Both girls never understood why this occurred but they would find out later in life and grew apart. Morrison describes their future encounters in life with both women having taken different paths in life. At this point they share very distinct views and belong to different social class, which creates a divide in both women. Roberta on one occasion is dismissive to Twyla at their first encounter at the Howard Johnson. Twyla questions her about this and Roberta response, "Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was."(). As a reader, I felt as if Twyla never looked into the racial divide that Roberta was talking