How Does Roberta Become A Target For The Gar Girls

Due to her disability, which renders her mute and possibly deaf, Maggie becomes a target for the “gar girls” to torment and release their frustrations on. Throughout Morrison’s short story, Twyla and Roberta connect over their experiences with Maggie at various stages of their life, though their perceptions of Maggie change throughout the story. As a result of her disability, Maggie is unable to speak out against the other girls and lacks agency as a result, mirroring the helplessness of Twyla and Roberta, who are both confined to the children’s home due to no fault of their own. After witnessing the “gar girls” beat Maggie in the orchard, both Twyla and Roberta experience significant guilt at their failure to help Maggie. At first, Twyla claims

During this scene, it became clear that Twyla and Roberta had taken very different paths in life, which only intensified as the story continues and Roberta manages to marry into an affluent family, while Twyla marries a firefighter and works as a waitress. Interestingly, Twyla describes Roberta’s appearance, as she says that Roberta “made the big girls look like nuns”. I thought this was interesting because of how Roberta’s mother was introduced earlier in the story, as a very proper and religious woman, while Twyla’s mother, Mary, embarrasses Twyla with her loud, immature behavior. In a way, it seems that both girls had become reflections of each other’s mother, as Twyla chooses a more conservative path, while Roberta experiences a rebellious stage, before eventually choosing to marry into a wealthy community, which surprises Twyla. After meeting Roberta in the grocery store, Twyla remarks that “everything is so easy” for people like Roberta who “think they own the world”. This comment stood out to me as one example of the seemingly racially charged comments Morrison includes throughout the story, although it is ultimately unclear what Twyla means by this comment, as the races of each character are never