recitatif by toni morrison essay

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"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison

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Published: Jan 31, 2024

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Analysis of the title, "recitatif", racial dynamics and ambiguity in "recitatif", exploration of class and socioeconomic differences, themes of friendship, betrayal, and memory, symbolism and imagery in "recitatif".

Morrison, Ton"Recitatif." In Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women , edited by Amiri Baraka and Amina Baraka, 243-252. New York: Morrow, 1983.
Smith, Valerie. Toni Morrison: Writing the Moral Imagination . New York: Wiley, 2012.
Andrews, William L., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature . New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.

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The Genius of Toni Morrison’s Only Short Story

In the extraordinary “Recitatif,” Morrison withholds crucial details of racial identity, making the reader the subject of her experiment.

Illustration by Diana Ejaita

I n 1980 Toni Morrison sat down to write her one and only short story, “Recitatif.” The fact that there is only one Morrison short story seems of a piece with her œuvre. There are no dashed-off Morrison pieces, no filler novels, no treading water, no exit off the main road. There are eleven novels and one short story, all of which she wrote with specific aims and intentions. It’s hard to overstate how unusual this is. Most writers work, at least partially, in the dark: subconsciously, stumblingly, progressing chaotically, sometimes taking shortcuts, often reaching dead ends. Morrison was never like that. Perhaps the weight of responsibility she felt herself to be under did not allow for it. To read the startlingly detailed auto-critiques of her own novels in that last book, “ The Source of Self-Regard ,” was to observe a literary lab technician reverse engineering an experiment. And it is this mixture of poetic form and scientific method in Morrison that is, to my mind, unique. Certainly it makes any exercise in close reading of her work intensely rewarding, for you can feel fairly certain—page by page, line by line—that nothing has been left to chance, least of all the originating intention. With “Recitatif” she was explicit. This extraordinary story was specifically intended as “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.” 1

T he characters in question are Twyla and Roberta, two poor girls, eight years old and wards of the state, who spend four months together in St. Bonaventure shelter. The very first thing we learn about them, from Twyla, is this: “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick.” A little later, they were placed together, in Room 406, “stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race.” What we never learn definitively—no matter how closely we read—is which of these girls is black and which white. We will assume, we can insist, but we can’t be sure. And this despite the fact that we get to see them grow up, becoming adults who occasionally run into each other. We eavesdrop when they speak, examine their clothes, hear of their husbands, their jobs, their children, their lives. . . . The crucial detail is withheld. A puzzle of a story, then—a game. Only, Toni Morrison does not play. When she called “Recitatif” an “experiment,” she meant it. The subject of the experiment is the reader.

B ut before we go any further into the ingenious design of this philosophical 2 brainteaser, the title itself is worth a good, long look:

Recitatif, recitative | ˌrɛsɪtəˈtiːv | noun [mass noun] 1. Musical declamation of the kind usual in the narrative and dialogue parts of opera and oratorio, sung in the rhythm of ordinary speech with many words on the same note: singing in recitative . 2. The tone or rhythm peculiar to any language. Obs.

The music of Morrison begins in “ordinary speech.” Her ear was acute, and rescuing African American speech patterns from the debasements of the American mainstream is a defining feature of her early work. In this story, though, the challenge of capturing “ordinary speech” has been deliberately complicated. For many words are here to be “sung . . . on the same note.” That is, we will hear the words of Twyla and the words of Roberta, and, although they are perfectly differentiated the one from the other, we will not be able to differentiate them in the one way we really want to . An experiment easy to imagine but difficult to execute. In order to make it work, you’d need to write in such a way that every phrase precisely straddled the line between characteristically “black” and “white” American speech, and that’s a high-wire act in an eagle-eyed country, ever alert to racial codes, adept at categorization, in which most people feel they can spot a black or white speaker with their eyes closed, precisely because of the tone and rhythm “peculiar to” their language. . . .

And, beyond language, in a racialized system, all manner of things will read as “peculiar to” one kind of person or another. The food a character eats, the music they like, where they live, how they work. Black things, white things. Things that are peculiar to our people and peculiar to theirs. But one of the questions of “Recitatif” is precisely what that phrase “peculiar to” really signifies. For we tend to use it variously, not realizing that we do. It can mean:

That which characterizes That which belongs exclusively to That which is an essential quality of

These three are not the same. The first suggests a tendency; the second implies some form of ownership; the third speaks of essences and therefore of immutable natural laws. In “Recitatif” these differences prove crucial, as we will see.

M uch of the mesmerizing power of “Recitatif” lies in that first definition of “peculiar to”: that which characterizes . As readers, we urgently want to characterize the various characteristics on display. But how? My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick . Well, now, what kind of mother tends to dance all night? A black one or a white one? And whose mother is more likely to be sick? Is Roberta a blacker name than Twyla? Or vice versa? And what about voice? Twyla narrates the story in the first person, and so we may have the commonsense feeling that she must be the black girl, for her author is black. But it doesn’t take much interrogating of this “must” to realize that it rests on rather shallow, autobiographical ideas of authorship that would seem wholly unworthy of the complex experiment that has been set before us. Besides, Morrison was never a poor child in a state institution—she grew up solidly working class in integrated Lorain, Ohio—and autobiography was never a very strong element of her work. Her imagination was capacious. No, autobiography will not get us very far here. So, we listen a little more closely to Twyla:

And Mary, that’s my mother, she was right. Every now and then she would stop dancing long enough to tell me something important and one of the things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny. Roberta sure did. Smell funny, I mean. So when the Big Bozo (nobody ever called her Mrs. Itkin, just like nobody ever said St. Bonaventure)—when she said, “Twyla, this is Roberta. Roberta, this is Twyla. Make each other welcome,” I said, “My mother won’t like you putting me in here.”

The game is afoot. Morrison bypasses any detail that might imply an essential quality of , slyly evades whatever would belong exclusively to one girl or the other, and makes us sit instead in this uncomfortable, double-dealing world of that which characterizes , in which Twyla seems to move in a moment from black to white to black again, depending on the nature of your perception. Like that dress on the Internet no one could ever agree on the color of . . .

W hen reading “Recitatif” with students, there is a moment when the class grows uncomfortable at their own eagerness to settle the question, maybe because most attempts to answer it tend to reveal more about the reader than the character. 3

For example: Twyla loves the food at St. Bonaventure, and Roberta hates it. (The food is Spam, Salisbury steak, Jell-O with fruit cocktail in it.) Is Twyla black? Twyla’s mother’s idea of supper is “popcorn and a can of Yoo-hoo.” Is Twyla white?

Twyla’s mother looks like this:

She had on those green slacks I hated. . . . And that fur jacket with the pocket linings so ripped she had to pull to get her hands out of them. . . . [But] she looked so beautiful even in those ugly green slacks that made her behind stick out.

Roberta’s mother looks like this:

She was big. Bigger than any man and on her chest was the biggest cross I’d ever seen. I swear it was six inches long each way. And in the crook of her arm was the biggest Bible ever made.

Does that help? We might think the puzzle is solved when both mothers come to visit their daughters one Sunday and Roberta’s mother refuses to shake Twyla’s mother’s hand. But a moment later, upon reflection, it will strike us that a pious, upstanding, sickly black mother might be just as unlikely to shake the hand of an immoral, fast-living, trashy, dancing white mother as vice versa. . . . Complicating matters further, Twyla and Roberta—despite their crucial differences—seem to share the same low status within the confines of St. Bonaventure. Or at least that’s how Twyla sees it:

We didn’t like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play with us because we weren’t real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were dumped. Even the New York City Puerto Ricans and the upstate Indians ignored us.

At this point, many readers will start getting a little desperate to put back in precisely what Morrison has deliberately removed. You start combing the fine print:

We were eight years old and got F’s all the time. Me because I couldn’t remember what I read or what the teacher said. And Roberta because she couldn’t read at all and didn’t even listen to the teacher.

Which version of educational failure is more black? Which kind of poor people eat so poorly—or are so grateful to eat bad food? Poor black folk or poor white folk? Both?

As a reader you know there’s something unseemly in these kinds of inquiries, but old habits die hard. You need to know. So you try another angle. You get granular.

Twyla’s mother brings no food for her daughter on that Sunday outing
Cries out “Twyla, baby!” when she spots her in the chapel
Smells of Lady Esther dusting powder
Doesn’t wear a hat in a house of God
Calls Roberta’s mum “that bitch!” and “twitched and crossed and uncrossed her legs all through service.”

Meanwhile, Roberta’s mother brings plenty of food—which Roberta refuses—but says not a word to anyone, although she does read aloud to Roberta from the Bible. There’s a lot of readable difference there, and Twyla certainly notices it all:

Things are not right. The wrong food is always with the wrong people. Maybe that’s why I got into waitress work later—to match up the right people with the right food.

She seems jealous. But can vectors of longing, resentment, or desire tell us who’s who? Is Twyla a black girl jealous of a white mother who brought more food? Or a white girl resentful of a black mother who thinks she’s too godly to shake hands?

C hildren are curious about justice. Sometimes they are shocked by their encounters with its opposite. They say to themselves: Things are not right . But children also experiment with injustice, with cruelty. To stress-test the structure of the adult world. To find out exactly what its rules are. (The fact that questions of justice seem an inconvenient line of speculation for so many adults cannot go unnoticed by children.) And it is when reflecting upon a moment of childish cruelty that Twyla begins to describe a different binary altogether. Not the familiar one that divides black and white, but the one between those who live within the system—whatever their position may be within it—and those who are cast far outside of it. The unspeakable. The outcast. The forgotten. The nobody. Because there is a person in St. Bonaventure whose position is lower than either Twyla’s or Roberta’s—far lower. Her name is Maggie:

The kitchen woman with legs like parentheses. . . . Maggie couldn’t talk. The kids said she had her tongue cut out, but I think she was just born that way: mute. She was old and sandy-colored and she worked in the kitchen. I don’t know if she was nice or not. I just remember her legs like parentheses and how she rocked when she walked.

Maggie has no characteristic language. She has no language at all. Once she fell over in the school orchard and the older girls laughed and Twyla and Roberta did nothing. She is not a person you can do things for: she is only an object of ridicule. “She wore this really stupid little hat—a kid’s hat with earflaps—and she wasn’t much taller than we were.” In the social system of St. Bonaventure, Maggie stands outside all hierarchies. She’s one to whom anything can be said. One to whom anything might be done. Like a slave. Which is what it means to be nobody. Twyla and Roberta, noticing this, take a childish interest in what it means to be nobody:

“But what about if somebody tries to kill her?” I used to wonder about that. “Or what if she wants to cry. Can she cry?” “Sure,” Roberta said. “But just tears. No sounds come out.” “She can’t scream?” “Nope. Nothing.” “Can she hear?” “I guess.” “Let’s call her,” I said. And we did. “Dummy! Dummy!” She never turned her head. “Bow legs! Bow legs!” Nothing. She just rocked on, the chin straps of her baby-boy hat swaying from side to side. I think we were wrong. I think she could hear and didn’t let on. And it shames me even now to think there was somebody in there after all who heard us call her those names and couldn’t tell on us.

T ime leaps forward. Roberta leaves St. Bonny’s first, and a few months after so does Twyla. The girls grow into women. Years later, Twyla is waitressing at an upstate Howard Johnson’s, when who should walk in but Roberta, just in time to give us some more racial cues to debate. 4

These days Roberta’s hair is “so big and wild” that Twyla can barely see her face. She’s wearing a halter and hot pants and sitting between two hirsute guys with big hair and beards. She seems to be on drugs. Now, Roberta and friends are going to see Hendrix, and would any other artist have worked quite so well for Morrison’s purpose? Hendrix’s hair is big and wild. Is his music black or white? Your call. Either way, Twyla—her own hair “shapeless in a net”—has never heard of him, and, when she says she lives in Newburgh, Roberta laughs.

G eography, in America, is fundamental to racial codes, and Newburgh—sixty miles north of Manhattan—is an archetypal racialized American city. Founded in 1709, it is where Washington announced the cessation of hostilities with Britain and therefore the beginning of America as a nation, and in the nineteenth century was a grand and booming town, with a growing black middle class. The Second World War manufacturing boom brought waves of African American migrants to Newburgh, eager to escape the racial terrorism of the South, looking for low-wage work, but with the end of the war the work dried up; factory jobs were relocated south or abroad, and, by the time Morrison wrote “Recitatif,” Newburgh was a depressed town, hit by “white flight,” riven with poverty and the violence that attends poverty, and with large sections of its once beautiful waterfront bulldozed in the name of “urban renewal.” Twyla is married to a Newburgh man from an old Newburgh family, whose race the reader is invited to decipher (“James and his father talk about fishing and baseball and I can see them all together on the Hudson in a raggedy skiff”) but who is certainly one of the millions of twentieth-century Americans who watched once thriving towns mismanaged and abandoned by the federal government: “Half the population of Newburgh is on welfare now, but to my husband’s family it was still some upstate paradise of a time long past.” And then, when the town is on its knees, and the great houses empty and abandoned, and downtown a wasteland of empty shop fronts and aimless kids on the corner—the new money moves in. The old houses get done up. A Food Emporium opens. And it’s in this Emporium—twelve years after their last run-in—that the women meet again, but this time all is transformation. Roberta’s cleaned up her act and married a rich man:

Shoes, dress, everything lovely and summery and rich. I was dying to know what happened to her, how she got from Jimi Hendrix to Annandale, a neighborhood full of doctors and IBM executives. Easy, I thought. Everything is so easy for them. They think they own the world.

For the reader determined to solve the puzzle—the reader who believes the puzzle can be solved, or must be solved—this is surely Exhibit No. 1. Everything hangs on that word “they.” To whom is it pointing? Uppity black people? Entitled white people? Rich people, whatever their color? Gentrifiers? You choose.

N ot too long ago, I happened to be in Annandale myself, standing in the post-office line, staring absently at the list of national holidays fixed to the wall, and reflecting that the only uncontested date on the American calendar is New Year’s Day. With Twyla and Roberta, it’s the same—every element of their shared past is contested:

“Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was.” But I didn’t know. I thought it was just the opposite. . . . You got to see everything at Howard Johnson’s and blacks were very friendly with whites in those days.

Their most contested site is Maggie. Maggie is their Columbus Day, their Thanksgiving. What the hell happened to Maggie? At the beginning of “Recitatif,” we are informed that sandy-colored Maggie “fell” down. Later, Roberta insists she was knocked down, by the older girls—an event Twyla does not remember. Later still, Roberta claims that Maggie was black and that Twyla pushed her down, which sparks an epistemological crisis in Twyla, who does not remember Maggie being black, never mind pushing her. (“I wouldn’t forget a thing like that. Would I?”) Then Roberta claims they both pushed and kicked “a black lady who couldn’t even scream.” It’s interesting to note that this escalation of claims happens at a moment of national “racial strife,” in the form of school busing. Both Roberta’s and Twyla’s children are being sent far across town. And as black—or white—mothers, the two find themselves in rigid positions, on either side of a literal boundary: a protest line. Their shared past starts to fray and then morph under the weight of a mutual anger; even the tiniest things are reinterpreted. They used to like doing each other’s hair, as kids. Now Twyla rejects this commonality ( I hated your hands in my hair ) and Roberta rejects any possibility of alliance with Twyla, in favor of the group identity of the other mothers who feel about busing as she does. 5

The personal connection they once made can hardly be expected to withstand a situation in which once again race proves socially determinant, and in one of the most vulnerable sites any of us have: the education of our children. Mutual suspicion blooms. Why should I trust this person? What are they trying to take from me? My culture? My community? My schools? My neighborhood? My life? Positions get entrenched. Nothing can be shared. Twyla and Roberta start carrying increasingly extreme signs at competing protests. (Twyla: “My signs got crazier each day.”) A hundred and forty characters or fewer: that’s about as much as you can fit on a homemade sign. Both women find that ad hominem attacks work best. You could say the two are never as far apart as at this moment of “racial strife.” You could also say they are in lockstep, for without the self-definition offered by the binary they appear meaningless, even to themselves. (“Actually my sign didn’t make sense without Roberta’s.”)

A s Twyla and Roberta discover, it’s hard to admit a shared humanity with your neighbor if they will not come with you to reëxamine a shared history. Such reëxaminations I sometimes hear described as “resentment politics,” as if telling a history in full could only be the product of a personal resentment, rather than a necessary act performed in the service of curiosity, interest, understanding (of both self and community), and justice itself. But some people sure do take it personal. I couldn’t help but smile to read of an ex-newspaper editor from my country, who, when speaking of his discomfort at recent efforts to reveal the slave history behind many of our great country houses, complained, “I think comfort does matter. I know people say, ‘Oh, we must be uncomfortable.’ . . . Why should I pay a hundred quid a year, or whatever, to be told what a shit I am?” Imagine thinking of history this way! As a thing personally directed at you . As a series of events structured to make you feel one way or another, rather than the precondition of all our lives?

The long, bloody, tangled encounter between the European peoples and the African continent is our history. Our shared history. It’s what happened. It’s not the moral equivalent of a football game where your “side” wins or loses. To give an account of an old English country house that includes not only the provenance of the beautiful paintings but also the provenance of the money that bought them—who suffered and died making that money, how, and why—is history told in full and should surely be of interest to everybody, black or white or neither. And I admit I do begin to feel resentment—actually, something closer to fury—when I realize that merely speaking such facts aloud is so discomfiting to some that they’d rather deny the facts themselves. For the sake of peaceful relations. To better forget about it. To better move on. Many people have this instinct. Twyla and Roberta also want to forget and move on. They want to blame it on the “gar girls” (a pun on gargoyles, “gar girls” is Twyla and Roberta’s nickname for the older residents of St. Bonaventure), or on each other, or on faulty memory itself. Maggie was black. Maggie was white. They hurt Maggie. You did . But, by the end of “Recitatif,” they are both ready to at least try to discuss “what the hell happened to Maggie.” Not for the shallow motive of transhistorical blame, much less to induce personal comfort or discomfort, but rather in the service of truth. We know that their exploration of the question will be painful, messy, and very likely never perfectly settled. But we also know that a good-faith attempt is better than its opposite. Which would be to go on pretending, as Twyla puts it, that “everything was hunky-dory.”

D ifficult to “move on” from any site of suffering if that suffering goes unacknowledged and undescribed. Citizens from Belfast and Belgrade know this, and Berlin and Banjul. (And that’s just the “B”s.) In the privacy of our domestic arguments we know this. We must be heard. It’s human to want to be heard. We are nobody if not heard. I suffered. They suffered. My people suffered! My people continue to suffer! Some take the narrowest possible view of this category of “my people”: they mean only their immediate family. For others, the cry widens out to encompass a city, a nation, a faith group, a perceived racial category, a diaspora. But, whatever your personal allegiances, when you deliberately turn from any human suffering you make what should be a porous border between “your people” and the rest of humanity into something rigid and deadly. You ask not to be bothered by the history of nobodies, the suffering of nobodies. (Or the suffering of somebodies, if hierarchical reversal is your jam.) But surely the very least we can do is listen to what was done to a person—or is still being done. It is the very least we owe the dead, and the suffering. People suffered to build this house, to found that bank, or your country. Maggie suffered at St. Bonaventure. And all we have to do is hear about that? How can we resent it? 6

It takes Twyla some time to see past her resentment at being offered a new version of a past she thought she knew. (“Roberta had messed up my past somehow with that business about Maggie. I wouldn’t forget a thing like that. Would I?”) But, in her forced reconsideration of a shared history, she comes to a deeper realization about her own motives:

I didn’t kick her; I didn’t join in with the gar girls and kick that lady, but I sure did want to. We watched and never tried to help her and never called for help. Maggie was my dancing mother. Deaf, I thought, and dumb. Nobody inside. Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night. . . . And when the gar girls pushed her down, and started roughhousing, I knew she wouldn’t scream, couldn’t—just like me and I was glad about that.

A few pages later, Roberta spontaneously comes to a similar conclusion (although she is now unsure as to whether or not Maggie was, indeed, black). I find the above one of the most stunning paragraphs in all of Morrison’s work. The psychological subtlety of it. The mix of projection, vicarious action, self-justification, sadistic pleasure, and personal trauma that she identifies as a motivating force within Twyla, and that, by extrapolation, she prompts us to recognize in ourselves.

L ike Twyla, Morrison wants us ashamed of how we treat the powerless, even if we, too, feel powerless. And one of the ethical complexities of “Recitatif” is the uncomfortable fact that even as Twyla and Roberta fight to assert their own identities—the fact that they are both “somebody”—they simultaneously cast others into the role of nobodies. The “fags who wanted company” in the chapel are nobodies to them, and they are so repelled by and fixated upon Maggie’s disability that they see nothing else about her. But there is somebody in all these people, after all. There is somebody in all of us. This fact is our shared experience, our shared category: the human. Which acknowledgment is often misused or only half used, employed as a form of sentimental or aesthetic contemplation, i.e., Oh, though we seem so unalike, how alike we all are under our skins . . . . But, historically, this acknowledgment of the human—our inescapable shared category—has also played a role in the work of freedom riders, abolitionists, anticolonialists, trade unionists, queer activists, suffragettes, and in the thoughts of the likes of Frantz Fanon , Malcolm X, Stuart Hall , Paul Gilroy, Morrison herself. If it is a humanism, it is a radical one, which struggles toward solidarity in alterity, the possibility and promise of unity across difference. When applied to racial matters, it recognizes that, although the category of race is both experientially and structurally “real,” it yet has no ultimate or essential reality in and of itself. 7

B ut, of course, ultimate reality is not where any of us live. For hundreds of years, we have lived in deliberately racialized human structures—that is to say, socially pervasive and sometimes legally binding fictions—that prove incapable of stating difference and equality simultaneously. And it is extremely galling to hear that you have suffered for a fiction, or indeed profited from one. It has been fascinating to watch the recent panicked response to the interrogation of whiteness, the terror at the dismantling of a false racial category that for centuries united the rich man born and raised in Belarus, say, with the poor woman born and raised in Wales, under the shared banner of racial superiority. But panic is not entirely absent on the other side of the binary. If race is a construct, what will happen to blackness? Can the categories of black music and black literature survive? What would the phrase “black joy” signify? How can we throw out this dirty bathwater of racism when for centuries we have pressed the baby of race so close to our hearts, and made—even accounting for all the horror—so many beautiful things with it?

T oni Morrison loved the culture and community of the African diaspora in America, even—especially—those elements that were forged as response and defense against the dehumanizing violence of slavery, the political humiliations of Reconstruction, the brutal segregation and state terrorism of Jim Crow, and the many civil-rights successes and neoliberal disappointments that have followed. Out of this history she made a literature, a shelf of books that—for as long as they are read—will serve to remind America that its story about itself was always partial and self-deceiving. And here, for many people, we reach an impasse: a dead end. If race is a construct, whither blackness? If whiteness is an illusion, on what else can a poor man without prospects pride himself? I think a lot of people’s brains actually break at this point. But Morrison had a bigger brain. She could parse the difference between the deadness of a determining category and the richness of a lived experience. And there are some clues in this story, I think. Some hints at alternative ways of conceptualizing difference without either erasing or codifying it. Surprising civic values, fresh philosophical principles. Not only categorization and visibility but also privacy and kindness:

Now we were behaving like sisters separated for much too long. Those four short months were nothing in time. Maybe it was the thing itself. Just being there, together. Two little girls who knew what nobody else in the world knew—how not to ask questions. How to believe what had to be believed. There was politeness in that reluctance and generosity as well. Is your mother sick too? No, she dances all night. Oh—and an understanding nod.

That people live and die within a specific history—within deeply embedded cultural, racial, and class codes—is a reality that cannot be denied, and often a beautiful one. It’s what creates difference. But there are ways to deal with that difference that are expansive and comprehending, rather than narrow and diagnostic. Instead of only ticking boxes on doctors’ forms—pathologizing difference—we might also take a compassionate and discreet interest in it. We don’t always have to judge difference or categorize it or criminalize it. We don’t have to take it personally. We can also just let it be. Or we can, like Morrison, be profoundly interested in it:

The struggle was for writing that was indisputably black. I don’t yet know quite what that is, but neither that nor the attempts to disqualify an effort to find out keeps me from trying to pursue it. My choices of language (speakerly, aural, colloquial), my reliance for full comprehension on codes embedded in black culture, my effort to effect immediate coconspiracy and intimacy (without any distancing, explanatory fabric), as well as my attempt to shape a silence while breaking it are attempts to transfigure the complexity and wealth of Black American culture into a language worthy of the culture. 8

Visibility and privacy, communication and silence, intimacy and encounter are all expressed here. Readers who see only their own exclusion in this paragraph may need to mentally perform, in their own minds, the experiment that “Recitatif” performs in fiction: the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial . To perform this experiment in a literary space, I will choose, for my other character, another Nobel Prize winner, Seamus Heaney. I am looking at his poems. I am looking in. To fully comprehend Heaney’s œuvre, I would have to be wholly embedded in the codes of Northern Irish culture; I am not. No more than I am wholly embedded in the African American culture out of which and toward which Morrison writes. I am not a perfect co-conspirator of either writer. I had to Google to find out what “Lady Esther dusting powder” is, in “Recitatif,” and, when Heaney mentions hoarding “fresh berries in the byre,” no image comes to my mind. 9

As a reader of these two embedded writers, both profoundly interested in their own communities, I can only be a thrilled observer, always partially included, by that great shared category, the human, but also simultaneously on the outside looking in, enriched by that which is new or alien to me, especially when it has not been diluted or falsely presented to flatter my ignorance—that dreaded “explanatory fabric.” Instead, they both keep me rigorous company on the page, not begging for my comprehension but always open to the possibility of it, for no writer would break a silence if they did not want someone—some always unknowable someone—to overhear. I am describing a model reader-writer relationship. But, as “Recitatif” suggests, the same values expressed here might also prove useful to us in our roles as citizens, allies, friends.

R ace, for many, is a determining brand, simply one side of a rigid binary. Blackness, as Morrison conceived of it, was a shared history, an experience, a culture, a language. A complexity, a wealth. To believe in blackness solely as a negative binary in a prejudicial racialized structure, and to further believe that this binary is and will forever be the essential, eternal, and primary organizing category of human life, is a pessimist’s right but an activist’s indulgence. Meanwhile, there is work to be done. And what is the purpose of all this work if our positions within prejudicial, racialized structures are permanent, essential, unchangeable—as rigid as the rules of gravity?

The forces of capital, meanwhile, are pragmatic: capital does not bother itself with essentialisms. It transforms nobodies into somebodies—and vice versa—depending on where labor is needed and profit can be made. The Irish became somebodies when indentured labor had to be formally differentiated from slavery, to justify the latter category. In Britain, we only decided that there was something inside women—or enough of a something to be able to vote with—in the early twentieth century. British women went from being essentially angels of the house—whose essential nature was considered to be domestic—to nodes in a system whose essential nature was to work, just like men, although we were welcome to pump milk in the office basement if we really had to. . . . Yes, capital is adaptive, pragmatic. It is always looking for new markets, new sites of economic vulnerability, of potential exploitation—new Maggies. New human beings whose essential nature is to be nobody. We claim to know this even as we simultaneously misremember or elide the many Maggies in our own lives. These days, Roberta—or Twyla—might march for women’s rights, all the while wearing a four-dollar T-shirt, a product of the enforced labor of Uyghur women on the other side of the world. Twyla—or Roberta—could go door to door, registering voters, while sporting long nails freshly painted by a trafficked young girl. Roberta—or Twyla—may practice “self-care” by going to the hairdresser to get extensions shorn from another, poorer woman’s head. Far beneath the “black-white” racial strife of America, there persists a global underclass of Maggies, unseen and unconsidered within the parochial American conversation, the wretched of the earth. . . .

O ur racial codes are “peculiar to” us, but what do we really mean by that? In “Recitatif,” that which would characterize Twyla and Roberta as black or white is the consequence of history, of shared experience, and what shared histories inevitably produce: culture, community, identity. What belongs exclusively to them is their subjective experience of these same categories in which they have lived. Some of these experiences will have been nourishing, joyful, and beautiful, many others prejudicial, exploitative, and punitive. No one can take a person’s subjective experiences from them. No one should try. Whether Twyla or Roberta is the somebody who has lived within the category of “white” we cannot be sure, but Morrison constructs the story in such a way that we are forced to admit the fact that other categories, aside from the racial, also produce shared experiences. Categories like being poor, being female, like being at the mercy of the state or the police, like living in a certain Zip Code, having children, hating your mother, wanting the best for your family. We are like and not like a lot of people a lot of the time. White may be the most powerful category in the racial hierarchy, but, if you’re an eight-year-old girl in a state institution with a delinquent mother and no money, it sure doesn’t feel that way. Black may be the lower caste, but, if you marry an I.B.M. guy and have two servants and a driver, you are—at the very least—in a new position in relation to the least powerful people in your society. And vice versa. Life is complex, conceptually dominated by binaries but never wholly contained by them. Morrison is the great master of American complexity, and “Recitatif,” in my view, sits alongside “ Bartleby, the Scrivener ” and “ The Lottery ” as a perfect—and perfectly American—tale, one every American child should read.

Finally, what is essentially black or white about Twyla and Roberta I believe we bring to “Recitatif” ourselves, within a system of signs over which too many humans have collectively labored for hundreds of years now. It began in the racialized system of capitalism we call slavery; it was preserved in law long after slavery ended, and continues to assert itself, to sometimes lethal effect, in social, economic, educational, and judicial systems all over the world. But as a category the fact remains that it has no objective reality: it is not, like gravity, a principle of the earth. By removing it from the story, Morrison reveals both the speciousness of “black-white” as our primary human categorization and its dehumanizing effect on human life. But she also lovingly demonstrates how much meaning we were able to find—and continue to find—in our beloved categories. The peculiar way our people make this or that dish, the peculiar music we play at a cookout or a funeral, the peculiar way we use nouns or adjectives, the peculiar way we walk or dance or paint or write—these things are dear to us. Especially if they are denigrated by others, we will tend to hold them close. We feel they define us. And this form of self-regard, for Morrison, was the road back to the human—the insistence that you are somebody although the structures you have lived within have categorized you as “nobody.” A direct descendant of slaves, Morrison writes in a way that recognizes first—and primarily—the somebody within black people, the black human having been, historically, the ultimate example of the dehumanized subject: the one transformed, by capital, from subject to object. But in this lifelong project, as the critic Jesse McCarthy has pointed out, we are invited to see a foundation for all social-justice movements: “The battle over the meaning of black humanity has always been central to both [Toni Morrison’s] fiction and essays—and not just for the sake of black people but to further what we hope all of humanity can become.” 10

We hope all of humanity will reject the project of dehumanization. We hope for a literature—and a society!—that recognizes the somebody in everybody. This despite the fact that, in America’s zero-sum game of racialized capitalism, this form of humanism has been abandoned as an apolitical quantity, toothless, an inanity to repeat, perhaps, on “Sesame Street” (“Everybody’s somebody!”) but considered too naïve and insufficient a basis for radical change. 11

I have written a lot in this essay about prejudicial structures. But I’ve spoken vaguely of them, metaphorically, as a lot of people do these days. In an address to Howard University, in 1995, Morrison got specific. She broke it down, in her scientific way. It is a very useful summary, to be cut out and kept for future reference, for if we hope to dismantle oppressive structures it will surely help to examine how they are built:

Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another. Something, perhaps, like this:

Construct an internal enemy, as both focus and diversion.
Isolate and demonize that enemy by unleashing and protecting the utterance of overt and coded name-calling and verbal abuse. Employ ad hominem attacks as legitimate charges against that enemy.
Enlist and create sources and distributors of information who are willing to reinforce the demonizing process because it is profitable, because it grants power, and because it works.
Palisade all art forms; monitor, discredit, or expel those that challenge or destabilize processes of demonization and deification.
Subvert and malign all representatives of and sympathizers with this constructed enemy.
Solicit, from among the enemy, collaborators who agree with and can sanitize the dispossession process.
Pathologize the enemy in scholarly and popular mediums; recycle, for example, scientific racism and the myths of racial superiority in order to naturalize the pathology.
Criminalize the enemy. Then prepare, budget for, and rationalize the building of holding arenas for the enemy—especially its males and absolutely its children.
Reward mindlessness and apathy with monumentalized entertainments and with little pleasures, tiny seductions: a few minutes on television, a few lines in the press, a little pseudo-success, the illusion of power and influence; a little fun, a little style, a little consequence.
Maintain, at all costs, silence. 12

Elements of this fascist playbook can be seen in the European encounter with Africa, between the West and the East, between the rich and the poor, between the Germans and the Jews, the Hutus and the Tutsis, the British and the Irish, the Serbs and the Croats. It is one of our continual human possibilities. Racism is a kind of fascism, perhaps the most pernicious and long-lasting. But it is still a man-made structure. The capacity for fascisms of one kind or another is something else we all share—you might call it our most depressing collective identity. (And, if we are currently engaged in trying to effect change, it could be worthwhile—as an act of ethical spring-cleaning—to check through Toni’s list and insure that we are not employing any of the playbook of fascism in our own work.) Fascism labors to create the category of the “nobody,” the scapegoat, the sufferer. Morrison repudiated that category as it has applied to black people over centuries, and in doing so strengthened the category of the “somebody” for all of us, whether black or white or neither. Othering whoever has othered us, in reverse, is no liberation—as cathartic as it may feel. 13

Liberation is liberation: the recognition of somebody in everybody. 14

S till, like most readers of “Recitatif,” I found it impossible not to hunger to know who the other was, Twyla or Roberta. Oh, I urgently wanted to have it straightened out. Wanted to sympathize warmly in one sure place, turn cold in the other. To feel for the somebody and dismiss the nobody. But this is precisely what Morrison deliberately and methodically will not allow me to do . It’s worth asking ourselves why. “Recitatif” reminds me that it is not essentially black or white to be poor, oppressed, lesser than, exploited, ignored. The answer to “What the hell happened to Maggie?” is not written in the stars, or in the blood, or in the genes, or forever predetermined by history. Whatever was done to Maggie was done by people. People like Twyla and Roberta. People like you and me.

This essay is drawn from the introduction to “ Recitatif: A Story ,” by Toni Morrison, out this February from Knopf.

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Toni Morrison’s Only Short Story Addresses Race by Avoiding Race

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By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Jan. 28, 2022

RECITATIF A Story By Toni Morrison

It’s a term I invented, while watching the late, great Toni Morrison masterfully take down her critics: “The Morrisonian Moment.”

My favorite of these instances took place during a 1998 interview with Charlie Rose, who verbally poked Morrison — at least, it appeared that way to me — with questions about race. Specifically, why did it annoy her so much when journalists asked, when would she stop writing about race, meaning, writing about Black culture and Black people?

And Morrison answered, “The person who asks that question doesn’t understand he is also raced.”

At this point, I always giggle. (Oh, I’ve watched this interview at least 10 times.) Not only did Charlie Rose seemingly misunderstand what “race” meant, he didn’t realize that he’d brought a knife to a gunfight. He’d thought himself capable of outwitting Toni Morrison, an African American woman who’d won the Nobel Prize in Literature, in a debate about Blackness and its profound creative relevance.

What I loved about Morrison’s response — besides her melodious, withering tone — was her historically informed argument that, although her critics might not understand how race works exactly, “white” has always been a racial category, just like “African American.” After all, white folks are the ones who invented the concept of race in the first place.

Morrison’s unflustered logic is what I love about “Recitatif,” her short story originally published in 1983 and now being released for the first time as a stand-alone book. “Recitatif” depicts an interracial friendship between two girls — one white, one Black — who meet in a shelter. They have different reasons for being there: Roberta’s mother is sick, while Twyla’s “likes to dance.” In the story, told from Twyla’s point of view, we encounter the girls over many years, but Morrison never identifies either’s race.

As she later explained in “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination,” “The only short story I have ever written, ‘Recitatif,’ was an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.” Absence is Morrison’s central point; once racial markers are stripped from the girls, each reader of “Recitatif” will experience the story in a purely subjective fashion.

This subjectivity appears in literary criticism as well. Some scholars insisted they’d cracked Morrison’s racial codes. In an essay called “Black Writing, White Reading: Race and the Politics of Feminist Interpretation,” Elizabeth Abel points out what she thinks are clues to the girls’ races. Ann Rayson, in “Decoding for Race: Toni Morrison’s ‘Recitatif’ and Being White, Teaching Black,” insists there are “obvious cues as to race.” However, when I went back to “Recitatif” some 25 years after my first read, it was clear that Morrison expertly used racial codes as a shell game: You never can find the prize. After a third and fourth read, I remain confused. Frankly, I like it that way.

When Morrison published “Recitatif” in 1983, it was nearly a revolutionary act to insist that white people had a race, too. Thus, her 20th-century readers probably wouldn’t have searched for signifiers of w hiteness, the “normative” identity. (Some might say it remains the norm.) Most readers would have searched for Blackness — its imagery, its music, its vernacular, its performance. Its static, American stereotypes.

Remember, though, that Morrison tells us in “Playing in the Dark” that race is still there in the story. We (her readers) just can’t identify it. Twyla and Roberta — two wounded, mostly unmothered girls, growing up with material and emotional uncertainties — are playing the racial hands they’ve been dealt. Yet because we don’t know who holds which hand, their social realities increasingly become more absurd.

There are no men in “Recitatif.” Thus, the power of white supremacy isn’t quite as obvious. This is a story about women, and it seems that Morrison asks us: “Are we really going to play this game invented by white men? Are we that weak-minded, that susceptible to a power we don’t truly — and won’t ever — possess?”

In preparation for writing this review, I immersed myself in rereading Morrison’s nonfiction, her ideas about what is still (unfortunately) called “writing about race.” I felt her outrage over the question that I’m still asked in this Year of Our Lord: “Why did you feel the need to write about Black people in your novel?” As if an African American writer deciding to creatively depict Black people — my own people — represents a wading through brackish, non-potable waters.

When I return to “Recitatif,” it is with a renewed understanding that, along with a handful of other African Americans, Morrison was among the first to depict Black culture while also considering politics, while also considering United States history, while also considering white supremacy, while also considering economic class, while also considering gender, while also considering intergenerational trauma.

As the kids might say, Toni Morrison did that.

And she did that decades ago, so it’s not her fault that we haven’t learned simultaneity, that we need a blunt hammer to break the American experience into tiny, sharp-edged pieces that we can touch — and maybe hold — only one at a time.

The fault is ours. The lack of understanding is ours — but within any lack, there exists possibility. And that is ours as well.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is the author of the novel “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.”

RECITATIF A Story By Toni Morrison Introduction by Zadie Smith 96 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $16.

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Read our detailed notes below on the short story Recitatif by Toni Morrison. Our notes cover Recitatif summary, themes, characters, and literary analysis.

Recitatif Summary

The short story opens when Twyla declares that she and Roberta are in the Orphanage of St. Bonny because Roberts’s mother was ill, and Twyla’s mother had danced all night. When the story opens, the two of them do not appear to have to save viewpoints. Mary taught Twyla to have biased views of the people of Roberta’s race. When Twyla tells this to the woman in charge of the orphanage Big Bozo, she dismisses her rudely.

The two girls get along when they realize that they can apprehend each other without asking questions. They also get along because they all the time get Fs. Twyla is unable to remember anything she learns, and Roberta has not learned to read. Both of them are excluded from the rest of the children of the orphanage because they are not a real orphanage. That is why they also get along.

The older girls of the orphanage sometimes tease Roberta and Twyla. These girls wear make and appear to be scary and vulnerable. The older girls often hang out and listen to the radio and dance in the orchard. Twyla often sees the orchard in her dream; however, nothing really happened there except that Maggie, an old sandy color woman, fell down there. Maggie works in the kitchen and is suffering from multiple disabilities. She is deaf and perhaps mute.

Roberta’s mother and Mary come to attend the church on one Sunday. They lunch at the orphanage. Roberta and Twyla were happy. They wear nice dresses and curl the hair of each other. When Roberta introduces her mother to Mary and Twyla, her mother simply walks away. Twyla gets embarrassed when her mother does not bring food. She wishes to kill her.

The story then shifts eight years ahead in time. Twyla has been working on the Thruway at Howard Johnson’s. One day Greyhound Bus stops at the dinner, and Roberta is among the passengers. She is accompanied by two young men and wearing an outfit and makeup that made her look like a nun.

Twyla and Roberta have a short and casual conversation. However, Roberta appears to be disinterested and rude. Roberta also taunts her when Twyla discloses that she does not know Jimi Hendrix. Roberta is about to leave without saying goodbye that Twyla asks her about her mother. Roberts tells her that she is fine and formally asks about Mary and then leaves.

The narrative of the story then shifts to twelve years ahead in time. Twyla has married James, who lives in Newburg with his family. They have given birth to a son Joseph. Regardless of high poverty, Newburg is redeveloping. A gourmet market has been opened in the city. Twyla, out of curiosity, visits the shop. However, she is anxious to buy anything. She finally decides to buy Klondike bars as her son and father-in-law love them.

Twyla encounters Roberta at the checkout. Roberts is elegant dresses and tells her that she lives in the wealthy suburb of Annandale with her husband and four stepchildren. Roberta offers to have a coffee. The two women behave like sisters at the coffee shop. They were laughing, giggling, and tightly holding each other. They also recall their time at St. Bonny orphanage. Roberta also shows off that she has last learned to read.

Twyla talks about Maggie, and Roberta reveals that she did not fall but was pushed by the gar girls. Twyla does not believe what she says. However, Roberta discloses that she knows about it because she went back to St. Bonny orphanage twice, and the second time she ran away.

Twyla then talks about Roberta’s rude behavior at Howard Johnson’s. Roberta tells her that her behavior was because of the ongoing racial tension at that time. The two inquire about each other’s mother and promise to keep in touch and then leave.

Twyla then explains that that year the Newburgh faced “racial strife” because of the force integration by means of busing. One day, Twyla accidentally crosses the protest that she saw Roberta, who holds a placard reading “MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO!” Twyla feels compelled to drive back and meet Roberta. The two women talk about protest and then start backbiting.

Ultimately some women in the protest rock the car of Twyla. Twyla asks for Roberta’s hand by reaching out to her hand; however, Roberta does not move to help.

When all the women clear the area, Roberta observes that he has changed and is a completely different person; however, Twyla has not changed —“the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground.” Surprised at this, Twyla says that Maggie was not a black lady. Roberta asserts that she was black, and they kicked her.

Both of them call each other liars, and Twyla comes to join the counter-protest. She holds a series of placards that are directly addressed to Roberta. The last placard reads as “IS YOUR MOTHER WELL.” Seeing this sign, Roberta leaves the protest. Twyla also leaves and does not choose to come back.

Time passes. Christmas has arrived. Joseph is not admitted to the college. Twyla chooses to stop and buy a coffee after buying a Christmas tree. She observes a group of wealthy people near dinner. She admits that she made herself try to look at them. Twyla goes inside and finds Roberta. Roberta wants to speak to her. Twyla, even though she resists, finally agrees to talk.

The woman talks about small things before Roberta tells her that she has to say something. Roberta claims that she thought Maggie was black and knew that she and Twyla did not kick her at all. They both just watched the gar girls kicking her. Roberta also admits that she wants the gar girls to kick her, and that is bad.

Twyla comforts her when Roberta starts crying. Twyla suspects Roberta is upset and drunk. She tries to comfort her by reminding her that they are eight years old lonely children. Robert appears to have better feelings. Twyla inquires about Roberta’s mother. Roberta tells her that her mother never got a mother. Twyla also says that Mary never stops dancing. Suddenly Roberta again is overwhelmed with despair and exclaims, “ Shit, shit, shit. What the hell happened to Maggie?”

Background of the Story

Historical context.

The short story “Recitatif” is set in three different time periods. All of these time periods saw shifts in culture and racial tensions in the United States. The first part of the story took place in the 1950s when Twyla and Roberta were eighteen years old. It was the time when the Civil Rights Movement began, and Jim Crow segregation was in full swing.

The Supreme Court issued Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, which outlawed the segregation of school. In 1957, “Little Rock Nine,” a famous school enrolled nine African-American students. The schools faced a severe protest by the white segregationists, and to be able to set foot in their school, they required the intervention of President Eisenhower.

The second stage of the story is set in the 1960s. During that time, Twyla and Roberta are young adults. In 1964, the Civil Rights Movements were passed. Following the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, the Black Power Movement also was in full momentum.

There was also a huge cultural shift in the 1960s. There was a rise of an uncontrollable youthful counter-culture that broadly reject the progressive politics, conservative social norms, and clasp of a “sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll.” Jimi Hendrix, the psychedelic rock guitarist, was a key figure in this movement. In the story, Roberta is on her way to meet Jimi Hendrix.

The decade of the 1970s appears to have more improved race relationships. However, the black communities still suffered from incarcerations and high rates of poverty. Their conditions worsened during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Ha was elected in 1981.

Even though the short story was written when the Reagan era has started, it also alludes to the social issues that got intensified during his presidency. The short story points out the increased discrepancy between the lives of the poor and the rich. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Brown vs. Board of Education also saw an increase in the usage of busing as a means to force the racial integration of schools.

Literary Context

The short story “Recitatif” was published during the time when in the global culture, there was an increasing acceptance and celebration of the literature of African-Americans. Several other key movements of the twentieth century, like that of the Harlem Renaissance, preceded the movement. The central literary figures of these movements include Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Langston Hughes.

Writers such as James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Richard Wright also deal with the themes of segregation and racism in the 1940s and 1950s. Therefore, they create a sense of the cultural moment that leads to the Civil Rights Movement in 196s.

The period was followed by the Black Arts Movement, which was the cultural and key factor of the Black Power Movement. This movement was started by Imani Amiri Baraka. He, along with his wife Amina, edited the volume Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women . “Recitatif” was first published in this volume.

The Black Art Movement deals with those aesthetic principles that were not included in the white Western tradition. They also intend to liberate the black writers and artists from white dependency and institutions such as publishing houses and universities. Writers who were the leading figures of the movement were Baraka, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovani.

Even though Toni Morrison is not part of the Black Arts Movement, she is generally associated with it, and her works are placed in the African-American tradition. Toni Morrison worked on the texts of Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones, the African-American writers. Alce Walker published the novel The Color Purple one year before Toni Morrison published “Recitatif.” The Color Purple turned out to be the widely read novel in the literary tradition of African-Americans.

The title of the story is the French word for “recitative.” The word refers to the passages (speech-like) of opera in which the storyline or plot is moved forward.

Characters Analysis

She is the narrator of “Recitatif.” She is the main character of the story, along with Roberta. When the story opens, she is eight years old. She has been brought to St. Bonny’s Orphanage because her mother dances all night. Mary has abandoned her daughter and taught her biases towards the people of Roberts’s race. The race of both of the characters remains ambiguous throughout the story.

Even though over the course of Twyla’s friendship with Roberta, the racial prejudices appear to diminish, they resurface when two meet after a long time as adults. Though Twyla could not perform well at school, she is better than Roberta as she can read. At St. Bonny’s, Twyla is afraid of girls as the pick on her and Roberta. She is affectionate towards Roberta and curious about Maggie.

When her mother, Mary, comes to visit her at an orphanage, she has strange emotions as she is excited to see her but simultaneously ashamed at her behavior. In her late teens, Twyla started working at Howard Johnson. She becomes more responsible and weary. She marries a man whom she describes as wonderful to Roberta and privately calls him as comfortable as a house slipper.”

Twyla appears to be alarmed by the incursion of wealth and development in Newburg. She is anxious and stressed because of her financial conditions. She also appears to be upset with the “racial strife” that starts at Newburg due to bussing, even though she does not have any personal opinion about the matter.

When Roberta claims that both of them kicked Maggie, she feels resentful. However, at the end of the story, she realizes that her anger and helplessness towards her mother ignites her desire to kick Maggie.

Besides Twyla, Roberta is another main character of the story. Roberta is the roommate of Twyla at St, Bonny’s orphanage. Both of the girls are eight years old. One of the girls in white, and while the other is black, however, it is ambiguous which race belongs to which race. Roberta’s mother is such; that is why she is unable to look after her. At the end of the story, Roberta reveals that her mother was in an institution that claims her illness to be mental rather than physical.

Even though Roberta appears to be raised up in a less neglectful way than Twyla, she is unable to read. Roberta leaves St. Bonny before Twyla; however, she returns back to it twice, and for the second time, she runs away.

In the second part of the story, when the story is shifted eight-year ahead in time, Roberta and Twyla meet at Howards Johnson’s. Roberta has to wear a glamorous and sexy outfit with lots of makeup. Two men are accompanying her, and they are heading to meet Hendrix. In this part of the story, Roberta appears to be part of the 1960’s rebellious youth culture. She taunts Twyla for not knowing Hendrix. She also embraced the self-indulgent command of “sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll.”

In the final section of the story, Roberta has undergone a transformation. She has married a rich man when Twyla meets her at the gourmet market. She is associated with luxury. However, she also becomes a passionate opponent of forced integration. The personality of Roberta appears to be less stable than that of Twyla. She also has insecurity about her identity. However, it is also suggested that Roberta is more self-centered than serious and responsible Twyla. That is why the readers are surprised to see that she cared about Maggie’s and is obsessed with her fate.

In the short story “Recitatif”, Maggie is a minor character; however, she takes the central and mysterious significance in the story. She has been referred to as the “kitchen woman” by the children at St. Bonny orphanage. She is old bow-legged and “sandy-colored.” Maggie is unable to talk, and some children claim that her tongue was cut. However, Twyla assumes that she is deaf as well.

She, along with Roberta, tries to test her listening ability by calling her “Dummy1″ and Bow Legs,” to which she does not react. However, Twyla is certain that she can listen to them and is guilty about it.

Due to her helplessness and vulnerability, children at St. Bunny feel angry towards her. However, she later realizes the similarity between the unusual way of Maggie’s walk and her mother dancing all night. Roberta and Twyla also want to hurt Maggie because she resembles and represents their mothers and their vulnerability.

Maggie has become a point of contention between Roberta and Twyla when Roberta asserts that they also, along with other girls, Kicked Maggie at the orchard. Roberta also asserts that Maggie is black. However, Twyla does not agree with it. Later, Roberta confesses that they did not kick her with other girls, but they want to kick her.

The racial ambiguity of Maggie in the story mirrors the complicated relationship of a woman with race. They resist being identified as oppressive and bigoted while at the same time, they want to distance themselves from the pitiful and helpless existence of Maggie.

She is the woman in charge of St. Bonny. The real name of Big Bozo is Mrs. Itkin. Her official title is not mentioned in the story. She assigns Roberta and Twyla to be roommates. When Twyla objects that her mother would disdain this, she rudely dismisses her. The children at the orphanage appear to dislike Big Bozo. Twyla notices that the only time she smiles was when Twyla’s mother and Roberta’s mother come to visit them.

Roberta, after twenty years when she meets Twyla at the gourmet market, discloses that Big Bozo was a friend when the gar girls kicked Maggie at the orchard. Twyla also raised a placard at the protest that those mothers who protest against integration are “Bozos.” Roberta replies to this that they are not. Big Bozo represents harsh and loveless authoritarianism that is endured by the children as for not being raised by their own parents. The story also suggests that some parents can be more unpleasant.

Marry is the mother of Twyla. She is introduced at the beginning of the story when Twyla describes her arrival at St. Bonny because her mother danced all night. Throughout the story, Twyla uses this simple phrase to explain why Mary is unable to take care of her. However, the true meaning of this phrase is ambiguous. She could be suffering from any disease, or she could be a sex worker. That is why she does not want to have any child.

The name of Mary is ironic. She is completely opposite to the self-sacrificing and morally perfect figure. Instead is a careless mother who abandoned Twyla. Twyla mentions that her mother’s idea of super was a can of Yoo-Hoo and popcorn. Whenever she comes to meet Twyla, she jiggles throughout the church service.

Instead of calling her mother “Mom” or something like that, Twyla calls her by first name “Mary.” This indicates a skewed nature of the relationship between the two. Even at the age of eight, Twyla appears to be more responsible than her mother.

Twyla has mixed feelings about her mother. She is excited when she comes to meet her. However, she is also embarrassed at the same time because of the weird and crazy behavior of her mother. At the end of the story, Twyla repeats the phrase that even though she has become a mother, Mary has not stopped dancing.

Roberta’s Mother

The real name of Roberta’s mother is never mentioned in the story. Moreover, the detail about the character is also not clearly mentioned. Roberta describes her as sick. However, her illness is not mentioned. It is unclear whether she is suffering from mental illness or physical. Twyla describes her as bigger than any man when she comes to meet Roberta. She is wearing a cross and carrying the Bible. Roberta’s mother, unlike Mary, is serious and religious. At the end of the story, Roberts discloses that her mother was raised in an “institution,” which claims that her illness is mental rather than physical.

The Gar Girls

At the beginning of the story, Twyla and Robert are picked on by some older teenage girls. Both of them called these girls as gar girls based on the misunderstanding of Roberta of the “gargoyles.” The gar girls listen to the radio and dance in the orchard. They wear makeup and smoke cigarettes. Roberta and Twyla are afraid of them and think of them as touchy and mean.

However, Twyla notices that they are scared runaways who have fought off their uncles. They are the paradox of vulnerability and toughness. They represent how children who faced abuse and neglect are considered threatening. They also kick Maggie in the orchard, thereby representing an abuse that Roberta and Twyla are trying to escape from.

Joseph Benson

He is the only son of Twyla and James. He does not mind being bused or integrated into another school. He prefers to study at home while the schools are closed and watch TV. He hangs the placard of Twyla in his room reading, “HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?”

Friendship vs. Family

The short story “Recitatif” is an account of the two girls’ friendship, Roberta and Twyla. They meet in the orphanage or shelter St. Bunny’s. There are lots of parallels between the two girls, which creates a sense that they are twins. They are of the same age; their mothers are alive but could not take care of them.

This fact is emphasized when they have the same fashion sense; for example, they curl each other’s hair when their mothers come to meet them. Moreover, Twyla also says that they both are behaving like sisters meeting after twenty years living in St. Bonny together.

However, the notion that Roberta and Twyla are sisters is disrupted by the fact that they both belong to different races. Even though Toni Morison deliberately makes it unclear that which girl belongs to which race, it is clear that both of them do not belong to the same race. Twyla also mentions that other children at St. Bonny calls them “salt and pepper.” This illustrates their difference yet conjunction as a single unit.

The family relationship of both Roberta and Twyla is out of reach, which shows their desperate desire to have a family. Their relationship is counterfeit against the setting of a symbolic ‘family” at St, Bonny that is made up of children that have no parents along with the socially expelled figures like Maggie.

Even though the children at St. Bonny are linked as family, they are also haunted by the absence of their own family. Moreover, Roberta and Twyla are excluded from the family at St. Bonny because they are not real orphans.

Even though, as adult women, both of them have their own families, these families are not talked about in detail in the story. Therefore, the story suggests that symbolic families and familial relationships are more significant and meaningful than real families.

Twyla and Roberta conveyed their undecided feeling about their motherhood in a confusion that surrounds protest. Even as an adult woman, Twyla depends upon Roberta for her sense of identity, which is the strong evidence of her familial nature of their friendship.

Keeping aside the familial implications of their relationship, the friendship of Robert and Twyla is also intensely charged. When the story opens, they have different opinions and are enemies because of racial prejudice. Even though they have become very close to each other, when they meet at Howards Johnson’s, their friendship is plagued with alienation, resentment, and misunderstanding.

All of the issues are because of social class differences. Roberta appears to have a glamorous and exciting life, while Twyla is working as a waitress at a restaurant. Even though the ladies are closer to each other than any other at some points in the story, their class and racial difference come in their way, and they are not able to overcome them.

Outcasts, Outsiders and the Unwanted

The initial setting of the short story “Recitatif” inside an orphanage /shelter launches a theme of alienation and social exclusion that is carried throughout the story. In the shelter, the children brought to be raised whose parents are dead or cannot take care of them. Twyla says that she and her friend Roberta were “dumped” and alienated because their mother is alive and are not real orphans. Thereby, Roberta and Twyla face double exclusion: from society and also from the institution of social outcasts.

The older girls at St. Bonny’s are described as the scared runaway of pit out girls who fight off their uncle. However, these girls would threaten Twyla and Roberta. Over here, Toni Morison points towards the fact that how abandoned or excluded members of the society are regarded as “tough” and threatening. However, they are extremely weak and sensitive.

However, at St. Bonny, children are not only the outcasts. An old lady who is disabled and works in the kitchen is arguably more outcast and unwanted than children. The children bully her, and she cannot respond because she is mute and perhaps dead. She has a significantly most central role in the story when Roberta and Twyla fight over her. Roberta claims that along with other girls, they also kick her. However, Twyla refuses this.

Even though Roberts changes her opinion, she remains obsessed with the fate of Maggie. Roberta was not only a child at St. Bonny; she belongs to the category who are socially excluded and vulnerable. She still can feel complicit and guilty at Maggie’s exclusion from society.

The story mainly deals with the theme of social exclusion. It demonstrates race and segregation. Robert and Twyla are having the opposite opinion about busing or integration of school when they are adults. Even though Roberta’s protest is mainly because her children are sent to other schools out of the neighborhood, she is indirectly supporting segregation.

Sickness and Disability

The primary theme of the short story “Recitatif” is a disability. Even though Maggie’s is the main disabled character in the story, she appears to be the background character of the story. However, at the end of the story, she becomes a central character. Maggie appears to be more vulnerable than the children at the shelter. She has a mysterious character, and everyone has a different perspective on her.

Some children claim that her tongue has been cut, while Twyla supposes that she is deaf. They try to test her listening ability by calling her with rude names. Though she does not respond, her reaction cannot be concluded with certainty. Twyla is guilty and ashamed that Maggie could possibly listen to her. Because of her subjectivity, interior emotions, disability, and vulnerability, Maggie is not considered as human.

Moreover, the children at the shelter/orphanage also blame Maggie for her vulnerability and defenselessness. For them, the sight of someone miserable and vulnerable makes them inflict more pain on them. This is the consequence of the Children’s own expulsion and suffering at the hand of society. They express their feelings of helplessness and rejection by inflicting suffering and pain on someone inferior to them.

However, Maggie is not the only vulnerable or disabled character in the story. Twyla, as a narrator, asserts in the very first sentence of the story that they are brought to St. Bonny because her mother Mary danced all night, and Roberta’s mother is sick. Because of the mental/physical sickness of Roberta’s mother, she is unable to take care of her. This sickness is paralleled with Mary’s obsession with dancing all night and is shown as a kind of disability that prevents her from taking care of her daughter.

The way Maggie walks makes Twyla compare her with her mother. This suggests that there is something about the way they move, which is socially not acceptable or inappropriate. This idea is a racialized concept as in American history, and black is demonized for dancing or any other kind of movement that is linked with black culture.

Childhood vs. Adulthood

The central topic that the story deals with is childhood and adulthood. Half of the narrative is set at the shelter where Twyla and Roberta spend their childhood while the other half the story is set when they are adults. The children are living in a world in which Maggie, an old woman, is presented as a child because of her dressing and helplessness.

However, the children are forced to live responsible lives and act as grown-up because of the absence of their parents. They grow up more mature and responsible than the children of their age. This can be seen in the behavior of gar girls who wear makeup and intimidate young children.

Twyla and Roberta are made to behave like grown-up adults because their mother cannot take care of them and fails to perform their role. Twyla’s mother was unable to be mature enough to take care of herself. Twyla associates her with youth culture. These facts demonstrate the idea that childhood and adulthood are not something concrete or could be measured with age. They are not the absolute opposite. However, they are in moving states and depend on the different ways and situations in the lives of people.

Race and Prejudice

Like most of the works of Toni Morrison, the short story “Recitatif: also deals with racial identity, prejudice, and community. Toni Morison deliberately kept the races of the three main characters in the story. The readers are certain that Twyla and Roberta belong to two different races: black and white; however, it is uncertain who belongs to which race.

Moreover, Maggie is described as sandy-colored, while Twyla asserts that Maggie is not black. The vagueness of the racial identity of Maggie is the main element that makes her mysterious and significant. This ambiguity shows that race is a largely social construction and arbitrary. These are practiced in real life because these prejudices and racial concepts originate in the minds of people.

Twyla and Roberta disagree over the race of Maggie after 20 years when they live together in the shelter, even though both of them had a strong awareness of race and racism when they were children. Moreover, St. Bonny’s is an institute where all types of races exist; even then, the children face racial discrimination and are at their forefronts.

Morrison offers contradictory clues about Twyla and Roberta’s race that, most of the time, confuses the readers. Through this, the readers illuminate their own prejudices and assumptions about race.

Toni Morison shows Twyla and Roberta’s clash over the integration of schools as a vague scene. This fact reveals her amazing skill as a writer. The two women show the socio-economic gulf between them. Roberta lives in a place where executives and doctors are her neighbors while Twyla lives in a poor neighborhood in Newburgh. However, these facts do not reveal anything about the races of these women.

Twyla and Roberta argue and fight over the issue of busing and integration. It is ambiguous what their final opinion about racial integration is. Moreover, the race is not made obvious through their support or opposition for the integration as Roberta mainly protests because her children are being abused at different schools out of her neighborhood.

The arbitrariness of the racial identity is emphasized when Twyla and Roberta assert that “I wonder what made me think you were different.” Apparently, the assortment sounds like racial prejudice as both women appear to have negative views about each other’s race. However, the thought that the other is “different” is not advocated by anyone.

The sense of racial ambiguity and the fact that both women say this sentence in succession points out towards another contradictory meaning. Considering the sentence out of context, it can be taken as a gesture of racial reconciliation. In reality, we are the same, but I don’t know what made you think that we are different.

As the differences between the two women are racial and significant, it also deals with arbitrary economic and social circumstances. Even though racism and discrimination is the real part of the world in which live, everyone regardless of assumption and stereotype should be given even opportunities and values as other people.

Literary Analysis

Between 1955 and 1968, a movement named as the African-American Civil Rights movement reigned in the United States. The main agenda of the movement was to illegalize the racial discrimination and sufferings of African-Americans. Like any other powerful movement, the movement initiates collective changes in American society both mentally and physically. In any public accommodation, discrimination based on race, religion, and nation was banned.

One can say that African-Americans have gained significant freedom. For American-Americans, doubleness became more attractive, and they started reviving and analyzing it more broadly. For example, W.E.B. Bois suggested a concept of double consciousness. He describes this concept as being caught in “self-conception” as an American and as a person of African origin.

“Recitatif” was published in 1983 by Toni Morison. It is an account of two childhood friends. The one among them is black while the other is white. The lives of the main characters of the story intersect over the course of many years. The main and significant point about the short story is Toni Morison never mentions which gild belongs to which race. She deliberately does so and intends to reveal the tendency of humans to categorize people instantly.

Morison overlaps the version of different characters about the same and shared history and shows what happens when two people’s memories of the same event bump against each other. When Twyla and Roberta discover that both of them have different memories about the same event, Twyla asserts that “I wouldn’t forget a thing like that. Would I?”

Twyla’s uncertainty points towards the instability and insecurity of memory. Du Bois asserts that “ always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

In the short story “Recitatif,” there is a third character that gives alteration to Twyla and Roberta’s memories. The third character is dwelling in the fictional suspension of Morison’s works. The character is a deaf Maggie who is vulnerable, and the far girls of the shelter torment her. As Twyla and Roberta grew older, the memories of what happened to Maggie torment them. Maggie represents silent by having a metamorphic role between the two main characters. Even if the cultural role of Twyla and Roberta are changed, Maggie is still found in the crippling cultural discourse.

It is mentioned that “the heart of stereotyping is the “concept of fixity” in the ideological construction of otherness”. The fixity is defined as signs of historical/cultural/racial differences and is a paradoxical mode of representation.”

Therefore, it can be said that there is one main character in the story for whom the ideological construction of otherness is mixed, and this character is Maggie. Contrary to Twyla and Roberta, the main sign of the difference between Maggie is her disability. Moreover, Maggie has an important prosthetic function in the story. Toni Morison provides the readers with the uncertainty of Maggie’s race, just like the other two characters of the story, and the perception of the two women constantly changes about her.

This change of perception, on one side, can be taken as a consequence of the idea of narrative, and the misleading readers concern more about the racial identities of Roberta and Twyla. Even though time and again gives clues in the story to guess the race of the girls, the readers are not sure about the race of any character.

The conversation between Roberta and Twyla corresponds to the ambiguity of the race of Maggie as well. For instance, Roberta says that “ Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you’re not. You’re the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground. You kicked a black lady, and you have the nerve call me a bigot.”

To this Twyla replies that

“What was she saying? Black? Maggie wasn’t black.”

“She wasn’t black,” I said

Roberta: “Like hell, she wasn’t, and you kicked her. We both did. You kicked a black lady who couldn’t even scream.”

Twyla: “Liar!”

Roberta: You’re the lair. Why don’t you just go home and leave us alone, huh?”

Roberta has taken the terrifying and traumatic memory of the victimization of Maggie and changed it into a site for her own feelings of victimization by substituting herself for Maggie. It is clearly observed that one cannot precisely be certain about the racial identity of Maggie by considering the conversation between Twyla and Roberta.

To conclude, “Recitatif” is an African-American short story by Toni Morison. The story is an account of the relationship between the two women and how their relationship is shaped by their differences in races. Morison does not disclose the races of any character of the story. Instead of focusing on the distinctive culture of African-Americans, Toni Morison makes a point that the diving cultures of black and whites are largely based on whites and blacks defining themselves as opposed to each other.

Abstract ideas and concepts in a literary text are represented by objects, characters, and figures. The following are the symbols in the short story “Recitatif” by Toni Morison.

The symbol of the dance is introduced in the story when the narrator narrates the first sentence of the story: “My mother danced all night, and Roberta’s was sick.” The illness of Roberta’s mother is parallel to that of Mary’s dancing. Certainly, the dancing habit of Mary prevents her from performing her duties as a mother. It is possible that the phrase “dancing all night” is used to hide the important detail of Mary’s life. Mary could be a sex worker who dances at the bar, or there could be any other reason that prevents her from taking care of Twyla.

Throughout the story, the act of dancing is linked with some sort of abnormality. The sexuality and rebelliousness of gar girls are shown by the fact they listen to the radio and dance in the orchard to the music. Moreover, explaining her reason for escaping St. Bonny, Roberta says that she had to escape as she cannot dance in the orchard. Therefore, the act of dancing symbolizes the future that Twyla and Roberta want to escape from.

The first part of the story is set in the 1950s and 1960s. During that time, many popular forms of dances common among people were linked with immorality and sexuality. This association also started when Africa-American traditional forms of dances were demonized, and white culture viewed it as hypersexual, wild, and un-Christian.

Moreover, with the character of Maggie, a more metaphorical form of dace is associated. Maggie walks in an unusual way because of her bow legs. Twyla makes an explicit link between her mother dancing and the way Maggie walks. She says that “Maggie was my dancing mother… rocking, dancing, and swaying as she walked.” Twyla, once again, associates dancing with abnormality and disability. In other words, one can say that dancing shows their inability to function according to the set rules of society.

The Orchard

The short story “Recitatif ” contains a lot of symbolic settings. The setting includes the bedroom of Roberta and Twyla, Howards Johnson’s chapel, the Newburg dinner, and the gourmet market. The most important setting of the story is the orchard at St. Bonny’s. While talking about the gar girls and their habit of hanging and dancing at the orchard, Twyla first introduces the orchard.

Twyla would frequently dream about the orchard. She describes the orchard as 2-4 acres and contains apple trees. However, the trees were “ empty and crooked like beggar women when I first came to St. Bonny’s but fat with flowers when I left.” The description that Twyla gives about the apple trees is clearly connected between Maggie and trees as Maggie is also crooked because of her disability.

The site of the orchard is also important as the gar girls abuse Maggie by kicking her. Therefore the symbol of the orchard is Edenic (the garden of Eden). It is the place where the innocence of childhood paves the way for “sins: of vanity, cruelty, sexuality, and adolescence.

The Klondike Bars

The Klondike bars that Twyla bus at the gourmet market after deciding upon it too much represent her character as an adult woman and her circumstances after marriage. It also signifies the difference between Roberta and Twyla. Twyla visits the gourmet market out of curiosity. While walking in the market, she cannot justify spending her husband’s salary on anything except for buying Klondike bars as her son and father-in-law both love it.

This small incident shows the responsible, restrained, and modest personality of Twyla and also shows how much her life revolves around the desires of others.

However, Twyla feels guilty after buying them. When Roberts suggests having a coffee, Twyla instantly thinks about the bars that will melt in the car. Twyla again thinks about the Klondike bars when the conversation in the coffee bar gets sour. She wonders that she is too childish to think about the instance when Roberta snubs her in Howards Johnson’s. This confirms the link between the Klondike bars and the self-esteem and delicacy of Twyla’s maturity.

Protest Signs/Placards

Roberta and others start protesting when the schools in Newburg are made to integrate through busing. Roberts is holding a placard that reads, “MOTHERS HAVE RIGHTS TOO!”. Twyla accidentally drives past the protest and sees Roberta holding the placards. After having an argument with Roberta, Twyla decides to join the counter-protest as hold the placard that reads, “AND SO DO CHILDREN***.” This placard is followed by a series of other placards that make no context to the ladies but are directed to the shared experience of Roberta and Twyla.

In the story, these protest signs play an important role as it symbolizes Twyla’s and Roberta’s transformation from powerless and vulnerable children to an adult woman who can speak for them on public platforms. However, the statement of Roberta and her identification with motherhood appears to be unconvincing and emphasizes her assimilation with influence, wealth, and responsibility.

The placards, at the same time, also show Roberta and Twyla’s obscurity to the world around them. Twyla repeatedly says while reflecting on her friendship with Roberta that she does not ask questions and appreciates it. Instead of asking questions and interrogation from each other, the two kids simply accept each other’s life as it is. Therefore, the cryptic signs that Twyla makes are only addressed to Roberta and very significant.

The placard “AND SO DO CHILDREN***” could be interpreted in a way that Roberta is the stepmother of four kinds and is not technically a mother. In response to this, Roberta creates a placard that reads that “HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?” and “IS YOUR MOTHER WELL?.”

Even though these placards have nothing to do with the ongoing protest, the question is a motif with which Roberta and Twyla end their conversation each time when they meet as adults. Roberta’s placards show her responsibility and maturity as an adult, while Twyla’s signs show the unstable childhood of both women.

The tone of the short story “Recitatif” is realistic and somber. The apparent prejudices make it impossible for the two girls to get along with each other. Robert’s mother and society are among the sources of outside society that makes such prejudices

Point of View

The story is narrated from the first-person point of view. The narrator of the story is the main character, Twyla. Twyla narrates the story from first-hand experience. She cannot understand why Roberta is treating her the way she does. If the story were narrated from Roberta’s point of view, it would be drastically different.

The story begins when the girls are preteens. This was around the 1940s or 1950s. The story continues until both girls are much older women with kids of their own. Although Twyla has settled into a comfortable life, where she is happy, she realizes that when she meets up with Roberta, her life has not been happy or comfortable.

The word “Recitatif” is taken from the French language, which means recitative. It is a style of the musical oratorio that hangs between ordinary speech and song. During operas, Recitatives are used for narrative and dialogic interludes. It can also be defined as the tone and rhythm specific to any language.

These definitions suggest the episodic nature of the story. It deals with the five sections of the story that are different from the ordinary lives of the two main characters Twyla and Roberta. The sections of the story bring rhythm in the lives of the two characters. All of the moments are narrated in the voice of Twyla, so one can say the short story is the “Recitatif of Twyla.

“Recitatif” belongs to the category of a short story fiction. It is a story in racial writing as the race of Twyla and Roberta is ambiguous and debatable. It is not clear which is Caucasian and which one is African American.

Short Stories

“Recitatif” by Toni Morrison Analysis

Introduction, toni morrison’s personality, topical themes behind recitatif.

One of the primary purposes of literature is to deliver meaningful messages through artful images and plots. While some literary works may have a mostly entertaining function, some pieces prove to be seminal in the broader context of topical issues of society. Toni Morrison is one of the authors whose name will remain in the history of literature due to their immense contribution to societal discussions. Having experienced the direct impact of racial discrimination, she used it as a source of inspiration for her works, among which Recitatif has become the most influential one. Morrison’s knowledge and talent provided insight into the disparities faced by people of color across their lives. Subsequently, Recitatif was on the front line of literature and art, which changed the paradigm of social thought in regards to intercultural relations. The purpose of this essay is to examine the context behind Recitatif and its powerful message sent by Toni Morrison.

In order to acquire an in-depth understanding of the meaning behind Recitatif , a review of Toni Morrison’s personal story may be instrumental. The author of the story was born in 1931 in a regular African American family with a modest income (“Toni Morrison. Biography”). Her parents worked hard to provide their four children with the necessary sustenance and ensure their development. Despite spending her earlier years in a semi-integrated area, Morrison still had to witness and experience the various facets of racial segregation of the middle 20 th -century United States. Historical accounts confirm that discrimination remained a constant threat throughout her childhood and youth (Lee). As Morrison continued to develop her innate talents and enrolled in a university, she toured the American South with a theater troop, becoming acquainted with even worse instances of segregation. The disparities faced by young Morrison determined her future works and the meta-narrative around them.

Toni Morrison became one of the leaders of the progressive literary community, which attempted to draw the public’s attention to the issues regarding systemic racism in the United States. She pursued the academic path, which proved to be instrumental in reshaping the views of the younger generations in relation to the problems rooted in people’s mindsets for centuries (“Toni Morrison. Biography”). From the literary perspective, Morrison always wrote about strong characters of various cultural backgrounds. In her works, the author laid an emphasis on the personalities of these people, each of whom was defined by the traits of their characters instead of the skin color or socioeconomic status. Morrison promoted equality on all levels, and her struggle was recognized by the international community, awarding her a Nobel Prize, as well as the Pulitzer Prize (“Toni Morrison. Biography”). She also emphasized the importance of the liberation of all oppressed groups, drawing similarities between the African American fight for freedom and feminist movements (“Women, Race, and Memory”). The author’s biography and views are reflected in her seminal piece Recitatif .

The plot of the short story revolves around two friends, Twyla and Roberta. Originally, the two of them meet in a state home for children, and their relationship becomes stronger because of the similar circumstances of their lives. Their mothers could not provide for their children, and the girls were sent to the federal institution (Morrison 5). Morrison knew the hardships of children care in modest families, as her own family was never rich. However, she emphasized this aspect in her story, highlighting the fact that many people have more difficult lives than she did. Furthermore, Twyla and Roberta are of different races, but the cultural differences never become the decisive factor in their communication. This principle corresponds to the vision of the author, who always supported the relationships, in which racial identities do not play the leading role as compared to personal qualities (Knoflíčková 23). The plot of Recitatif is advanced not by socially ascribed stereotypes but by the objective circumstances, which can be faced by any person.

The story is divided into encounters, which illustrate how the lives of the characters change over the years. As the plot progresses, the fates of the main characters become highly different, which is reflected in their interaction. Roberta becomes wealthy and marries a computer industry specialist, whereas Twyle lives a regular life with a firefighter (Morrison 20). At some point, the differences in the women’s worldviews in regards to issues, which pertain to both personal and global affairs, become significant. They argue about the concept of racial integration through forced busing, as well the details of their lives at the children’s state home. When they meet again on one Christmas Eve, Twyla and Roberta finally come to an understanding once again and discuss the issues between them. Overall, while the influence of racial differences threads through the plot, it never becomes the decisive factor, leaving the leading role to common personal attributes.

The significance of Recitattif stems from a combination of powerful factors, which determined the story’s background and impact. Toni Morrison wrote a story about vivid characters living their own lives while avoiding common stereotypes. When discussing the story, Knoflíčková states that the author manages to shift the focus of the reader’s attention from the socially ascribed characteristics and prejudices (26). This way, Morrison increased the impact of her message, as the lack of emphasis on cultural differences actually highlighted the false nature of the assumptions behind them. Twyla and Roberta were defined by their thought, actions, and views instead of the external roles expected from them. Accordingly, they acted like human beings with their own fears, hopes, and aspirations. This model has contributed to the credibility of the story, but it can also be extended to personal relationships, in general. Morrison clearly showed that racial stereotypes are highly superficial, and she did so in the most artful manner possible by not devoting attention to them.

Recitatif possesses both social and literary qualities, which made it a seminal piece known today. Its inclusion in the general English curricula is important, as it contributes to the eradication of the invasive “whiteness” of the field. This detrimental concept has two facets, which complement one another. First of all, many non-white authors are ignored by scholars, despite the evident quality of their literature. However, even when their voices are heard, the discussion surrounding their works is determined by the racial identities of the authors (Barnett 27). Therefore, it is possible to state that Morrison’s plot in Recitatif reflects the extended context in which African American literature has existed.

In conclusion, Toni Morrison managed to send a powerful message through her works, among which Recitatif is one of the most important ones. She based her plots and characters on personal inspiration, following decades of struggle against discrimination. Twyla and Roberta reflect the positive model of interpersonal relationships, which are not defined by their racial identities. Recitatif made an invaluable contribution to literary diversity, while also contributing to equality-related issues in the broader context.

“Toni Morrison. Biography.” Biography , 2021. Web.

“Women, Race, and Memory: An Excerpt From Toni Morrison’s New Book, The Source of Self-Regard.” Jezebel , 2019. Web.

Barnett, Timothy. “Reading “Whiteness” in English Studies.” College English , vol. 63, no. 1, 2000, pp. 9-37. Web.

Knoflíčková, Marie. “Racial Identities Revisited: Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif.” Litteraria Pragensia , vol. 21, no. 41, 2011, pp. 22-33.

Lee, Alexander Kerri. “Toni Morrison.” National Women’s History Museum. n.d. Web.

Morrison, Toni. Recitatif . Pons y Cia, 2010.

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“Recitatif” by Toni Morrison Essay

The story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison is about the times when racial discrimination was already not so frequently and vividly observed but when the color of the skin was still crucial for some people. The main characters of the story are the two girls, Roberta and Twyla and the ambiguity of their race is what the story relies upon. They both stay at the shelter which, strange as it may seem, they consider not very bad: “People want to put their arms around you when you tell them you were in a shelter, but it really wasn’t bad.” (Charles H. Rowell, p. 422). Twyla is the narrator of the story and she tells about the girls’ lives in the shelter as well as afterward. Though both of them are children united by the common displeasure – the necessity to stay in the shelter when both of them have mothers, a number of conflicts because of the difference in their skin color arise throughout the story.

What should be mentioned above of all is the girls’ first meeting which started with the first realization of the girls’ being different. Roberta was already in the shelter when Twyla was brought there and by seeing a white girl in the room Twyla felt disgusted and disrespect to her at once: “The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach.” (Charles H. Rowell, p. 422) This is proof of the fact that racial views were imposed on the society by its members themselves as the child raised in the family of whichever skin color already had certain stereotypes regarding the people who were different. For instance, Twyla’s mother repeatedly told her that white people “never washed their hair and they smelled funny.” (Charles H. Rowell, p. 422).

Secondly, the conflict due to the racial factor arises when the girls meet some years later. Both the girls had changed by that time. Nevertheless, Twyla recognizes the friend of her childhood whereas Roberta, being ashamed of having a dark-skinned friend even if it was long ago, pretends that she does not care about her: “I was dismissed without anyone saying goodbye, so I thought I would do it for her.” (Charles H. Rowell, p. 427). Twyla had very unpleasant feelings after this meeting and she remembered this insult very distinctly. Though being kids the girls first felt an aversion towards each other they became best friends but as they became grown-ups, everything seemed to have changed. Later, discussing this meeting with Twyla, Roberta told her that she was ashamed to show her attachment to Twyla because her friends would not approve of her relations with a black woman.

And finally, the conflict which can be observed throughout the whole story is the situation with Maggy, a woman who worked in the shelter’s kitchen who once fell in the orchard, and none of the children being there, including the girls, called for help. Later, Roberta tried to prove to Twyla that she was the one who pushed Maggy, and Twyla who didn’t remember much of this story still tried to deny it after which Roberta reproached Twyla for remaining the same black girl as she has always been. At the end of the story the situation clears up and it turns out that Roberta was just lying to Twyla and in fact, nobody kicked Maggy, she fell by herself.

In conclusion, it should be added, that “Recitatif” is a story with deep sense and it touches on an important problem of race discrimination in the twentieth century. What distinguishes it from other stories on this subject is that it describes how the discrimination affected the lives of two little girls rather than the events which took place in that period of time.

Works Cited

Charles H. Rowell. Ancestral House: The Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe. Westview Press, 1995.

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February is Black History Month in the U.S., and this year's theme is Black Health and Wellness. NPR has compiled a list of stories, music performances, podcasts and other content that chronicles the Black American experience.

Toni Morrison's only short story is available in book form for the first time

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Author Toni Morrison pictured at Princeton University in New Jersey in October 1993. She is known for her 11 novels, but her single short story has often been forgotten. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Author Toni Morrison pictured at Princeton University in New Jersey in October 1993. She is known for her 11 novels, but her single short story has often been forgotten.

Toni Morrison — the late author and Nobel laureate whose work focused on Black life and culture — published 11 acclaimed novels, several essay collections, about half a dozen children's books and just one short story: "Recitatif ."

"Recitatif" was originally published in a 1983 anthology that has since gone out of print and was rarely seen in intervening decades, as The Associated Press has reported . But it's making a comeback, this time in book form.

Toni Morrison, Whose Soaring Novels Were Rooted In Black Lives, Dies At 88

The republished story is hitting shelves and online stores on Tuesday in what Knopf Doubleday says is the first-ever hardcover edition. The book includes an introduction by writer Zadie Smith, and the audio edition is read by actor Bahni Turpin.

Its title refers to the French word for "recitative," which Merriam-Webster describes as a "rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflections of speech."

"When you think about the short story, there's always this sort of humming under the surface," said Honorée Fanonne Jeffers , a poet who teaches at the University of Oklahoma. "And that humming under the surface is race, in America."

The story follows two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who spend several months as roommates in a children's shelter and run into each other on occasion as adults. One is Black and one is white — but Morrison doesn't tell the reader which is which.

Morrison once described the book as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." She refers to things like hair length, social status and family memories throughout, keeping readers guessing — and thinking.

Jeffers told Morning Edition that she noticed the story challenged stereotypes she herself held about Black and white people.

She described searching for clues about the characters' races, only to eventually step back and ask herself: "Why did I need to know so badly?" When she stopped focusing on race, she said, she saw the story in a different light.

"You begin to see a domestic story emerge, about how girls grow up in our society, about how women are shuttled into these smaller categories, many times," Jeffers said. "And then it becomes, or at least it became for me, a story about gender."

Autumn M. Womack, a professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University, told the AP that "Recitatif " speaks to themes found in Morrison's novels, like the complicated relationship between two women in 1973's Sula and the racial blurring she used in Paradise in the late 1990s.

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But she also noted the important differences between the short story and Morrison's longer works.

"One of the main takeaways from ["Recitatif"] is that you'll begin to think of her as someone who experimented with form," Womack said. "You'll get away from the idea that she was solely a novelist and think of her as someone who was trying all kinds of writing."

Jeffers says republishing also offers another opportunity to examine the way Black writers are critiqued.

"These issues of race constantly come up in ways that they don't come up for white writers," she explains. "White writers are never asked why they wrote about white characters, white writers are never asked to justify the importance of what they're writing. Only writers of color and, in particular, African American writers, are asked to do that."

Audio for this story was produced by Ziad Buchh and Ben Abrams.

The digital version of this story originally appeared in the Morning Edition live blog .

NPR has compiled a list of stories, performances and other content that chronicles the Black American experience for Black History Month. See the whole collection here.

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Friendship vs. Family

“Recitatif” chronicles the friendship of two girls, Twyla and Roberta , who meet in a shelter, St. Bonny’s. The parallels between the girls—including the fact that they are the same age and that both of their mothers are alive but unable to take care of them—create a sense that they are something like twins. This is emphasized in moments when they behave in a parallel, mirroring fashion—such as when they curl each other’s hair in…

Outsiders, Outcasts, and the Unwanted

The story’s initial setting inside a shelter establishes the theme of social exclusion and alienation. The children in the shelter either no longer have parents or—like Twyla and Roberta —have parents who are unfit to take care of them. Twyla says that she and Roberta were “dumped” at St. Bonny’s, and explains that the other children at the shelter refused to play with them because they were not “real orphans.” Because of their mothers, Twyla…

Sickness and Disability

Many people read “Recitatif” as a story whose primary theme is disability. Although the main disabled figure in the story, Maggie , at first appears to be a background character, by the end of the story she takes on a central (if still passive) role. Maggie’s disabilities—she is mute and possibly deaf, with “legs like parentheses”—make her even more vulnerable than the children at St. Bonny’s. She is mysterious, and the characters in the story…

Childhood vs. Adulthood

The binary of childhood and adulthood is central to the story; this is first made obvious by the fact that half of the narrative is set during Twyla and Roberta ’s childhood, and the other half when they are adults. In the first half, Twyla and Roberta live in St. Bonny’s, a world of children. Even Maggie , who is technically an adult, is presented as a child in her helplessness and her mode of…

Race and Prejudice

Like all of Morrison’s work, “Recitatif” centers questions of racial identity, community, and prejudice. Unusually, however, the races of the three main characters are deliberately kept mysterious. The reader is told that one of Twyla and Roberta is black and the other is white, however it is unclear which is which. Meanwhile, Maggie is describes as “sandy-colored”; Roberta insists that she is black, while Twyla is sure that she is not. The ambiguity of Maggie’s…

by Toni Morrison

Recitatif essay questions.

Why does the author start out the story with Twyla and Roberta as children? Why are they at a state home, rather than at a normal house—and how does this origin story inform the broader narrative?

At the beginning of the book, we see both Twyla and Roberta as innocent children of opposite races. Their youth plays an important role in the story: it shows what people should act like, not discriminating against others. Both of the girls are at a state home because their mothers could not provide proper care for them, and the fact that they are there instead of somewhere else plays a huge role in the story. For one, they meet Maggie, who is most likely black. She is disabled and cannot talk, and she is a target of mockery for all the girls at the home. Later in the story, we see that Maggie is a text that Twyla and Roberta "write" in order to engage with their own complicated understanding of who they are and what their relationships with their mothers are.

Why is the story divided into "encounters" instead of chapters or no divisions at all?

Recitatif is divided into encounters, showing the girls at different times and different ages. Each encounter is unique, and it shows what age can do to a person. When they are young, the girls are great friends. When they are teenagers, they don't like how the other is living and find that their different races and social circumstances matter to them. When they are married, they are able to feel more comfortable with the other. When they get older and cannot escape the political/racial turmoil of the day, they cannot easily relate to each other. This method of storytelling gives the reader a more accurate description of the time that has passed: the girls didn't really keep in touch with each other although they wanted to; the bonds of girlhood and shared childhood trauma are strong, but the rest of the world intrudes upon those bonds and complicates them.

What is the narrative effect of the reader never being outright told which character is black and which character is white?

Morrison wants her readers to understand the primacy of race but also the fallacies it engenders. Readers will endeavor to figure out who's which race using stereotypes and implicit biases, but Morrison ultimately frustrates those readings. She asks her readers to consider how arbitrary these codes are and the fact that they are inventions that perpetuate white supremacy and division of the races. She doesn't say that race is unimportant—it clearly is for these characters, and for real people throughout history—but that we must inspect the origins of our assumptions in order to eradicate harm and cruelty.

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Recitatif Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Recitatif is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Twyla mentions that some older girls liked to dance when they thought no one was watching. Twyla and Roberta developed the habit of looking at the girls while they were dancing, but unfortunately, when the two were caught by the older girls, they...

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Do you mean when the bus unloads at the Howard Johnson?

Twyla is the narrator of the story; she is the opposite race of Roberta, but we do not know who is white and who is black. She meets Roberta at St. Bonaventure's; the two bond over the fact that they are not orphans. Twyla's mother is pretty and...

Study Guide for Recitatif

"Recitatif" study guide contains a biography of Toni Morrison, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About Recitatif
Recitatif Summary
Character List

Essays for Recitatif

"Recitatif" essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison.

The Exclusivity of Racial Categories: An Analysis of the Racial Ambiguity in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”
A Grammatical Analysis of Toni Morrison’s Recitatif
What Happened To Maggie?
Racial Dynamic in Recitafif
Memory and the Possibility of Reconciliation in "Recitatif"

Wikipedia Entries for Recitatif

Introduction
Historical context
Plot summary
Major themes

The Meaning of Maggie in Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif'

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Ph.D., English, State University of New York at Albany
B.A., English, Brown University

Toni Morrison's short story, "Recitatif," appeared in 1983 in "Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women." It is Morrison's only published short story, though excerpts of her novels have sometimes been published as stand-alone pieces in magazines, such as " Sweetness ," excerpted from her 2015 novel "God Help the Child."

The two main characters in the story, Twyla and Roberta, are troubled by the memory of the way they treated — or wanted to treat — Maggie, one of the workers in the orphanage where they spent time as children. "Recitatif" ends with one character sobbing, "What the hell happened to Maggie?"

The reader is left wondering not just about the answer, but also about the meaning of the question. Is it asking what happened to Maggie after the children left the orphanage? Is it asking what happened to her while they were there, given that their memories conflict? Is it asking what happened to make her mute? Or is it a larger question, asking what happened not just to Maggie, but to Twyla, Roberta, and their mothers?

Twyla, the narrator , twice mentions that Maggie had legs like parentheses, and that's a good representation of the way Maggie is treated by the world. She is like something parenthetical, an aside, cut off from the things that really matter. Maggie is also mute, incapable of making herself heard. And she dresses like a child, wearing a "stupid little hat — a kid's hat with ear flaps." She isn't much taller than Twyla and Roberta.

It's as if, by a combination of circumstance and choice, Maggie cannot or will not participate in full adult citizenship in the world. The older girls exploit Maggie's vulnerability, mocking her. Even Twyla and Roberta call her names, knowing she can't protest and half-convinced she can't even hear them.

If the girls are cruel, perhaps it's because every girl in the shelter is also an outsider, shut out from the mainstream world of families taking care of children, so they turn their scorn toward someone who is even further in the margins than they are. As children whose parents are alive but can't or won't take care of them, Twyla and Roberta are outsiders even within the shelter.

As Twyla and Roberta encounter each other sporadically through the years, their memories of Maggie seem to play tricks on them. One remembers Maggie as Black, the other as white, but eventually, neither feels sure.

Roberta asserts that Maggie didn't fall in the orchard, but rather, was pushed by the older girls. Later, at the height of their argument over school busing, Robert claims that she and Twyla participated, too, in kicking Maggie. She yells that Twyla "kicked a poor old Black lady when she was down on the ground...You kicked a Black lady who couldn't even scream."

Twyla finds herself less troubled by the accusation of violence — she feels confident that she would never have kicked anyone — than by the suggestion that Maggie was Black, which undermines her confidence completely.

'Recitatif' Meaning and Final Thoughts

At different times in the story, both women realize that even though they didn't kick Maggie, they wanted to. Roberta concludes that wanting to was the same as actually doing it.

For the young Twyla, as she watched the "gar girls" kick Maggie, Maggie was her mother — stingy and unresponsive, neither hearing Twyla nor communicating anything important to her. Just as Maggie resembles a child, Twyla's mother seems incapable of growing up. When she sees Twyla at Easter, she waves "like she was the little girl looking for her mother — not me."

Twyla states that during the Easter service, while her mother groaned and re-applied lipstick, "All I could think of was that she really needed to be killed."

And again, when her mother humiliates her by failing to pack a lunch so that they have to eat jellybeans out of Twyla's basket, Twyla says, "I could have killed her."

So perhaps it's no wonder that when Maggie is kicked down, unable to scream, Twyla is secretly pleased. The "mother" is punished for refusing to grow up, and she becomes as powerless to defend herself as Twyla is, which is a kind of justice.

Maggie had been brought up in an institution, just like Roberta's mother, so she must have presented a frightening vision of Roberta's possible future. To see the older girls kick Maggie — the future Roberta didn’t want — must have seemed like exorcising a demon.

At Howard Johnson's, Roberta symbolically "kicks" Twyla by treating her coldly and laughing at her lack of sophistication. And over the years, the memory of Maggie becomes a weapon that Roberta uses against Twyla.

It is only when they are much older, with stable families and a clear recognition that Roberta has achieved greater financial prosperity than Twyla, that Roberta can finally break down and wrestle, at last, with the question of what happened to Maggie.

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Recitatif by Toni Morrison
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Racial Tensions in "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison

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"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison: [Essay Example], 539 words
Toni Morrison is a renowned American author, known for her compelling exploration of race, identity, and memory in her works. One of her notable short stories is "Recitatif," which delves into the complexities of racial dynamics, friendship, and betrayal. This essay will analyze the themes and literary devices used in "Recitatif" to present an ...
Recitatif Summary & Analysis
Recitatif by Toni Morrison. Upgrade to A + Download this LitChart! (PDF) Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Recitatif makes teaching easy. Introduction Intro. Plot Summary Plot. Summary & Analysis. Themes. All Themes; Friendship vs. Family Outsiders, Outcasts, and the Unwanted
The Genius of Toni Morrison's Only Short Story
January 23, 2022. Illustration by Diana Ejaita. I n 1980 Toni Morrison sat down to write her one and only short story, "Recitatif.". The fact that there is only one Morrison short story seems ...
Recitatif: Full Plot Summary
Roberta says she did, and before Twyla asks, says that her own mother never got better. Roberta cries. The story ends as Roberta wonders aloud about what really happened to Maggie. A short summary of Toni Morrison's Recitatif. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of Recitatif.
'Recitatif' Review: Toni Morrison on Race and Culture
RECITATIF. A Story. By Toni Morrison. It's a term I invented, while watching the late, great Toni Morrison masterfully take down her critics: "The Morrisonian Moment.". My favorite of these ...
"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison Literature Analysis Essay
Recitatif is one of Morrison's stories (Goldstein-Shirley, 1996). The story narrates the experiences caused by racism. Morrison wrote this book to express her political views against racism through fictional writing. The place of the story is at St. Bonaventure, that is a children's home. The story took place around 1960, when racial ...
Recitatif Summary, Themes, Chaarcters, & Analysis
Genre. "Recitatif" belongs to the category of a short story fiction. It is a story in racial writing as the race of Twyla and Roberta is ambiguous and debatable. It is not clear which is Caucasian and which one is African American. Read our complete notes on "Recitatif", a famous short story by Toni Morrison.
Recitatif: Study Guide
Overview. Published as part of the collection Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women in 1983, "Recitatif" is the only short story composed by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison. The story is a fictional account of two girls who meet at a children's shelter and their subsequent encounters throughout their lives. Morrison ...
Recitatif (1983) by Toni Morrison
Works Cited. Morrison, Toni. 1983. Recitatif. In Norton anthology of American literature. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 2253-2267.
Recitatif Essays and Criticism
Essays and criticism on Toni Morrison's Recitatif - Essays and Criticism ... Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif','' in Short Story, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring, 1997, pp. 77-86. Cite this page as ...
Recitatif by Toni Morrison
Acclaimed author Toni Morrison published "Recitatif," her only short story, in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women in 1983. The story follows two girls, Roberta and Twyla, from ...
Recitatif: Toni Morrison Essay
Recitatif: Toni Morrison Essay. In 1983, Toni Morrison published the only short story she would ever create. The controversial story conveys an important idea of what race is and if it really matter in the scheme of life. This story takes place during the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. The idea of civil rights was encouraged by the ...
"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison Analysis
Subsequently, Recitatif was on the front line of literature and art, which changed the paradigm of social thought in regards to intercultural relations. The purpose of this essay is to examine the context behind Recitatif and its powerful message sent by Toni Morrison. We will write a custom essay on your topic tailored to your instructions!
PDF Toni Morrison Recitatif
Toni Morrison Recitatif. My mother danced all night and Roberta's was sick. That's why we were taken to St. Bonny's. People want to put their arms around you when you tell them you were in a shelter, but it really wasn't bad. No big long room with one hundred beds like Bellevue. There were four to a room, and when Roberta and me came, there was ...
Recitatif
"Recitatif" is Toni Morrison's first published short story. It was initially published in 1983 in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women, an anthology edited by Amiri Baraka and Amina Baraka, and is the only short story written by the acclaimed novelist.The story was reissued as a stand-alone book, introduced by Zadie Smith, published in February 2022.
"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison
The story "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison is about the times when racial discrimination was already not so frequently and vividly observed but when the color of the skin was still crucial for some people. The main characters of the story are the two girls, Roberta and Twyla and the ambiguity of their race is what the story relies upon.
'Recitatif,' Toni Morrison's only short story, is now available as a
Toni Morrison — the late author and Nobel laureate whose work focused on Black life and culture — published 11 acclaimed novels, several essay collections, about half a dozen children's books ...
Essay on Recitatif by Toni Morrison
Recitatif by Toni Morrison. '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 ...
Recitatif Themes
Many people read "Recitatif" as a story whose primary theme is disability. Although the main disabled figure in the story, Maggie, at first appears to be a background character, by the end of the story she takes on a central (if still passive) role.Maggie's disabilities—she is mute and possibly deaf, with "legs like parentheses"—make her even more vulnerable than the children at ...
Recitatif Themes
Ask Your Own Question. "Recitatif" essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison. "Recitatif" study guide contains a biography of Toni Morrison, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
Recitatif Essay Questions
Essays for Recitatif "Recitatif" essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison. The Exclusivity of Racial Categories: An Analysis of the Racial Ambiguity in Toni Morrison's "Recitatif" A Grammatical Analysis of Toni Morrison's Recitatif
The Meaning of Maggie in Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif'
Toni Morrison's short story, "Recitatif," appeared in 1983 in "Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women." It is Morrison's only published short story, though excerpts of her novels have sometimes been published as stand-alone pieces in magazines, such as "Sweetness," excerpted from her 2015 novel "God Help the Child."
Recitatif Essay Thesis
Recitatif Essay Thesis; Recitatif Essay Thesis. 988 Words 4 Pages. In Recitatif by Toni Morrison, two girls, Roberta and Twyla, grow a bond with each other while in an orphanage called St. Bonny's. They did not really fit in with the other girls, which gave them a reason to stick together. The other girls were orphans, but Roberta had a mom ...

"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison

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Recitatif Summary

Background of the Story

Literary Context

Characters Analysis

Roberta’s Mother

The Gar Girls

Joseph Benson

Friendship vs. Family

Outcasts, Outsiders and the Unwanted

Sickness and Disability

Childhood vs. Adulthood

Race and Prejudice

Literary Analysis

The Orchard

The Klondike Bars

Protest Signs/Placards

Point of View

More From Toni Morrison

Short Stories

“Recitatif” by Toni Morrison Analysis

“Recitatif” by Toni Morrison Essay

Works Cited

Black History Month 2022

Toni Morrison's only short story is available in book form for the first time

Toni Morrison, Whose Soaring Novels Were Rooted In Black Lives, Dies At 88

Author Interviews

Toni Morrison

Friendship vs. Family

Outsiders, Outcasts, and the Unwanted

Sickness and Disability

Childhood vs. Adulthood

Race and Prejudice

by Toni Morrison

Recitatif Questions and Answers

Study Guide for Recitatif

Essays for Recitatif

Wikipedia Entries for Recitatif

The Meaning of Maggie in Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif'

'Recitatif' Meaning and Final Thoughts

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