Compare And Contrast Twyla And Roberta In Anthony's

Twyla and Roberta reminisce about the past which brings back memories about what went on at St. Bonny’s. These memories make the girls question what really happened back at the orphanage. Did things happen the way they remembered, or did they chose to remember what they wanted to be remembered? Why does Morrison include Maggie in the story if she isn’t an active character? Morrison does this because Maggie being the most significant in the passage basically creates the whole story. Without Maggie, Twyla and Roberta would have never gotten a greater understanding about themselves and about the correlation between both their mothers and Maggie. Twyla, her mother Mary, and Roberta are mirror images of Maggie which marks Maggie as the most significant

“Deaf, I thought and dumb. Nobody who would hear if you cried in the night” (Morrison 11). Maggie being deaf is the same as Mary who wasn’t able to listen to Twyla if she cried at night. She was always out dancing and wasn’t able to listen to her daughter if she cried or needed a motherly figure by her. “I knew she couldn’t scream, couldn’t-just like me” (Morrison 11). The way Maggie was mute and couldn’t speak is the same way Twyla not being able to scream for her mother when she needed her because she was never there for her, she was out dancing all night. Twyla here compares her feelings of helplessness with those of Maggie’s. At the diner Roberta also confesses that she wanted to kick Maggie when the other girls were. Roberta too recognizes her feelings of abandonment with Maggie. She compares Maggie with her mother who abandoned her because she was sick. Both girls feel the pain of abandonment when their mothers leave them, this is a major reason as to why they become so close with each other despite their racial differences. Maggie resembles a child with her “little kid hat” the same way as Mary being incapable of growing up, “she waved like she was the little girl looking for her mother-not me” (Morrison 3). During the Easter service, Twyla wants to “kill” her

“Oh Twyla, you know how it was in those days; black-white. You know how everything was” (Morrison 9). When Roberta was out with a couple friends she didn’t really acknowledge her and Twyla’s friendship because of racial tensions back in the day. Roberta could have possibly felt embarrassed to be friends with someone not of her color. Twyla feels angry toward Roberta for not apologizing about what happened at Howard Johnsons’. Morrison shows how both African American and Caucasian people can feel odd interacting with one another due to different races and the tensions between the two. Twyla disagrees with Roberta and believes