Essay on Recitatif by Toni Morrison

“Recitatif” is a short story by Toni Morrison, an african american author. On the outside, this story seems to feature 5 meetings between two girls, each aging slightly each time we see them. One white. One black. Referred to as “Salt and pepper”. However, on the inside, Toni Morrison reveals her intention to educate the readers about racial stereotypes and their everyday impacts. She does this through her unique writing style of making influential choices, and using symbols to harmonize them with her theme.

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.

Even by the fourth encounter, the women’s races cannot be defined. Twyla and Roberta see each other at a picketing riot for forced integration of busing in Twyla’s hometown of Newburgh, NY. “The forced busing was in favor by the black people because they wanted equality, while the white people would be against it because they did not want their children to be around black people” (www.hover.org). As Twyla is walking by the rioters, she is momentarily harassed by the people protesting with Roberta. However, Roberta pays no attention to Twyla, ignoring her completely. After Roberta and Twyla have a short and heated exchange about a girl they used to go to school with,

So often, the old adage, "History always repeats itself," rings true due to a failure to truly confront the past, especially when the memory of a period of time sparks profoundly negative emotions ranging from anguish to anger. However, danger lies in failing to recognize history or in the inability to reconcile the mistakes of the past. In her novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison explores the relationship between the past, present and future. Because the horrors of slavery cause so much pain for slaves who endured physical abuse as well as psychological and emotional hardships, former slaves may try to block out the pain, failing to reconcile with their past. However, when Sethe, one of the novel's central characters fails to confront

Another event displaying racism was when Roberta was spotted at a high school. Her and other mothers were outside “picketing” about their children attending a racial integrating school. Twyla was driving by, and

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

Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Beloved, is a historical novel that serves as a memorial for those who died during the perils of slavery. The novel serves as a voice that speaks for the silenced reality of slavery for both men and women. Morrison in this novel gives a voice to those who were denied one, in particular African American women. It is a novel that rediscovers the African American experience. The novel undermines the conventional idea of a story’s time scheme. Instead, Morrison combines the past and the present together. The book is set up as a circling of memories of the past, which continuously reoccur in the book. The past is embedded in the present, and the present has no

When Mary visits Twlya on Easter, the clothing that she has on is seen as inappropriate for chapel, the fact that she did not catch on to Roberta’s mother not wanting to shake her hand, and also the fact that she did not bring her daughter lunch, provide very clear examples of the failures Twyla sees within her mother. Using words like “simple-minded,” “twitched,” and “groaned,” before admitting that, she “could have killed her”(page 242). Twlya effectively links the failures she sees in her mother with Maggie’s disability. Viewing Maggie’s impairments as the physical representation of Mary’s undesirable traits gives the audience an explanation for why Twlya initially reacted negatively toward Maggie, whose physical shortcomings remind Twlya of the shortcomings she sees within her own mother. Taunting Maggie as a child was Twyla seeking vengeance upon Mary. She was only paying attention to Maggie’s physical traits, while her allowing her actual personality to go

If ignorance is bliss, then why is it human nature to uncover the truth? In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the character Denver uses knowledge to feed her craving in hopes that it will fill the void her mother unsuccessfully tried to satisfy with the blood of the past and too little milk. To understand these truths one must accept that Beloved is a physical representation of the past, Sethe embodies the present, and Denver exemplifies the future. Throughout the novel these three characters interact on a superficial level, but each action has a deeper underlying influence on the other. This is why Denver’s assumed motive of using the attachment she forged with Beloved to develop a closer relationship with Sethe is cursory. When in fact it was for

During the course of the narrative Twyla describes her on and off again relationship with Roberta. The girls first meet during their short stay at St. Bonnie’s, which was an orphanage, they both were 8 years old. Neither of the girls were real orphans, and because of this they were alienated from the other girls, and they became friends real fast. Twyla’s mother is assumed to be a stripper, while Roberta’s mother was much too sick to care for her.

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

“Recitatif” addresses several problems in society without attaching a character to a specific issue. Toni Morrison shows racial stereotyping as a learned behavior as well as an incessant activity. The most admirable characteristic of this story is it does not draw a particular conclusion nor does it come to a clean resolution. The general framework of the story poses questions that incite the reader to reevaluate one’s opinion of the importance of race to them. The story causes one to try to see others as

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.

On the next meeting, farther into their lives, Roberta actually calls out to Twyla in a grocery checkout line. When they begin to talk, Roberta asks if her Twyla’s mother is sick as well, meaning that what she said last time they met isn’t correct, that she was still sick. They begin to reminisce, remembering how Roberta’s mother had the cross like two telephone poles, a much less elegant description of how Twyla originally stated earlier, realizing it wasn’t necessarily salvation for her. As the conversation continues, she asks again about her mother, asking if she got well, which she never did, a nice way of saying she passed away. Later on, during the picketing and everything, Twyla notices Roberta picketing with a sign larger than her mother’s cross. Insinuating that she’s becoming her mother, if not more, and falling into a sickness herself that could destroy their friendship. They begin arguing over whether or not when the bow legged servant Maggie fell whether or not they kicked her. This spurs off into a war of words. To insult her Twyla makes a sign saying “How would

Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” is about two young girls, named Twyla and Roberta, who grow up in an Orphanage because their mothers were in no condition to properly take care of them. The main theme in the “Recitatif” is concentrating on racism. A very mind- grabbing event in the story is how the author never tells the race of the two girls. Morrison leaves class codes but not racial codes, as in the story Twyla states, “ It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the mornings—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race” (pg 201) , even the girls do not mention which race the other is. Recitatif is a great story as it plays with the reader’s emotions and effectively makes the reader aware of the stereotypes and each races characteristics.