Friendship In Recitatif Themes

After Roberta found out that Twyla worked there she and the two men she was with laughed at her. Roberta also mentioned that they were all going to see Jimi Hendrix (7). Roberta and Twyla met up again at a grocery store. This time Roberta went up to Twyla to talk to her. Twyla remembered Roberta not wanting to talk to her and only getting greeted with a wow (9). Now Roberta is different than what she was at Howard Johnson’s. Her hair is slick, she dresses like she’s rich, and she lives in a rich neighborhood. Twyla is upset by this because she says that everything is so easy for them and they think they own the world (9). Twyla confronted Roberta about pretending like she didn’t know her at Howard Johnson’s. Roberta responded "Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was" (13). Through these meetings it is known that Twyla and Roberta are still completely separated by race and class. Despite Roberta being friends with Twyla, she still ignored her and laughed at her for being who she is in front of the two men. She may not have wanted them to know that she’s friends with a poor girl who is of another race and who did not even know who Jimi Hendrix was. Roberta wanted to keep a secret that she associated with someone like Twyla. Twyla saying that they get everything and they think they own the world could be her realizing that the opposite race does not even need to work

Morrison, Toni. “Recitatif”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume E, 8th Edition: Ed: Nora Bayn. Crawfordsville IN: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print. 609-623.

When she does this, her grin cracked her whole face, and she replies fine. This shows her unwillingness to disclose, and demonstrates her decision to refuse Twyla’s desire to reignite their old friendship, when she asks how Twyla’s mother is doing she simply replies that she’s doing fine, pretty as a picture, to reflect Roberta’s unwillingness to open up.

I'm sure you have not only heard, but also used the famous phrase "opposites attract." The statement stands true not only in physics and chemistry, but also in relationships and friendships. We tend to be attracted to people with personalities that differ from ours, so life would be more interesting, and desire the opposite of what we have. A perfect example of this, is Sula and Nel, best friends from Toni Morrison's novel, "Sula", where the conventional ideas of good and evil are turned upside down. The two girls are like opposite sides of a magnet, strongly attracted toward one another and useless when split apart. Life puts their friendship to the test by toying with love and sex, life and death, and good and evil, eventually

'Recitatif', by Toni Morrison, is a profound narrative that I believe is meant to invite readers to search for a buried connotation of the experiences that the main characters, Twyla and Roberta, face as children and as they are reunited as adults. Some of the story?s values and meanings involving race, friendship and abandonment begin to emerge as the plot thickens; however, more messages become hidden and remain unrecognized, even until the very last sentence.

Toni Morrison’s only short story was Recitatif, she never reveals which character is white or black. The story explores the relationship between Twyla and Roberta, and their experiences based on their racial differences. By decoding each characters racial identity, we can then understand how race defines a person’s status in society. In analyzing the social cues such as culture, politics and economic signs, to identify the racial identity of Twyla and Roberta. I believe that Twyla is the white character and Roberta the black character.

In the story “Recitatif”, Toni Morrison portrays the lives of two girls from different racial backgrounds who are emotionally abandoned by their mothers. The main characters, Twyla and Roberta, are portrayed at different points in their life, ranging from when they were eight until their adulthood. Because of the situations with their mothers, Twyla and Roberta develop unhealthy senses of self-image and attempt to solve them with distractions. As time goes by, their characteristics become vastly different because of their lifestyles and outlooks.

While racial stereotypes contribute to the majority of the short story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison, Morrison uses these stereotypes to convey a much larger issue. Morrison uses the stereotypes of intelligence, social class, and the character’s behavior and attitude to break the racial code. The two characters, Twyla and Roberta, realize that it is not about race but about their experiences of relating Maggie to their mothers that makes them similar. Many readers try to figure out which character is which race and as they go through, trying to figure out these clues. All they do is realize their own stereotypes.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation that has forced you to act out of character? Then, after the situation it occurred you, that you could have acted differently? Well, in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” the main characters Roberta and Twyla continually run into each other in completely different situations, causing them to behave differently each and every time. Roberta and Twyla’s changing environments caused them to react in unexpected ways, as well as compelling them to acknowledge each other differently, and consequently forcing them to end on different terms after each situation.

In Sula, Toni Morrison questions what true friendship is by putting Nel Wright and Sula Peace’s friendship to the test. Morrison tests the phrase “opposites attract” in this novel. Nel and Sula have two different personalities yet they are able to compliment each other. They are opposites in the way that they relate to other people, and to the world around them. Nel is rational and balanced; she gets married and gives in to conformity and the town’s expectations. Sula is an irrational and transient character. She follows her immediate passions, completely care free of the feelings other people might have about her. To Nel, Sula’s return to Medallion is like “getting the use of an eye back, having a cataract

Morrison is referring to a condition called Genu varum, a physical deformity that makes a person’s knees stay wide apart while standing with feet and ankles together. Where, the lower extremities turn inward, causing the appearance of the knees to be touching while the ankles remain apart. Maggie is believed to be incapable of talking with the people that surrounds her, which includes the kids in St. Bonnys specially Twyla and Roberta. But Morrison is not specifically detailed on the information whether or not Maggie does not want to speak or she is just born mute, that is why we have no way of evaluating her current condition. Maggie is “old and sandy-colored and she worked in the kitchen” (Morrison 2). Twyla remarks that “even for a mute, it was dumb-dressing like a kid and never saying anything at all” (Morrison 2). It has been a norm that one dress himself/herself according to his/her age. That is why it is unusual for the kids in St. Bonny’s to see Maggie, even at this age, to still be dressing like a

In Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif", the story revolves around two girls, one white and the other black, and how their social status affects their way of life. The narrator, Twyla, has five significant instances in her life where she is in a setting with her childhood best friend, Roberta. When they first met at the orphanage, they disliked each other, but because both of them still had a parent to their name, they were seen as social outcasts to the other children of their orphanage. Through their social disgrace they became friends and helped each other out. As they grew up, their lives were distinctly different with Twyla living the life of a lower-middle class citizen while Roberta was living a lavish lifestyle, creating conflict between the two. In the end, there is a slight sense of reconcilement in that they clear up a misunderstanding of their past, but there is an open question to what had happened to an element of their past.

Recitatif is a story written by Toni Morrison. It is about characters Twyla and Roberta and their experiences during and after being put in a shelter. Race can change what a person’s motives are viewed as. Racial stereotyping and racial segregation play a big part in this story. Twyla and Roberta are of a different race/ethnicity which causes strife between the two and they have different opinion on things.

From the very beginning, racial tensions were seen, even from girls of such a young age. While being in the shelter, Twyla did not want to share a room with Roberta because previously her mother had told her that “those people smell funny.” Come to find out, this was an untrue statement and the two girls ended up sticking together; it is the girl’s bond that keeps them sane in this orphanage. They are the only one’s at St. Bonny’s that still actually have parents and this too is a reason they stay so intertwined. The narrator of the story talks of all the things that lessens herself as a person and she is most likely ashamed of. In the early pages of the story, Twyla remembers a time when Maggie ran through the field to catch the bus, which she was inevitably late for. The older girls in the orphanage always gawked at and made fun of this poor woman and the way she walked, which made her fall. Twyla felt tinges of guilt remembering how she never helped Maggie

Morrison describes Roberta as illiterate, while Twyla is able to read and write. Typically during this time in history, blacks were not as well educated as whites children, so this idea about education may reveal their true races. Whites and blacks did not always get along because whites often thought that they were better than blacks. Morrison reveals this idea by Twyla saying “My mother won’t like you putting me in here.” Twyla meant that if her mother say her rooming with a girl from a different race, she would be upset.