Recitatif Essay

Published in 1983, Recitatif is American novelist Toni Morrison's first published short story. The story follows the friendship of two girls, Roberta and Twyla, from childhood to adulthood through interactions over several decades. Their friendship faces many ups and downs due to contrasting backgrounds. Morrison does not reveal the racial identities of the girls as an experiment regarding perceptions of race in society. In the context of Recitatif, cultural differences between Roberta and Twyla overpower their friendship. The political function of friendship in the story is to explore the unconscious views society has on race and relationships. Cultural differences can create instability in friendships between adolescents, explaining the rocky

But the eyes are still there. I would know them anywhere.” (Morrison 6). Based on their conversation, Roberta seems to be living a completely different life than Twyla. Roberta was traveling to the West Coast with friends to meet Jimi Hendrix, whereas Twyla worked a lowly job and did not know who Jimi Hendrix was. Realizing how much has changed between them, Tywla asks about Roberta’s mother and walks away. Twyla’s reaction towards popular culture showed how the girls changed in the time they were apart from one another. Several years later, they meet again as mothers and wives in a new grocery store in Annandale. Roberta recognizes Twyla, but is transformed once again, leaving Twyla confused for a moment. Compared to their interaction at Howard Johnson’s, there is less awkwardness and a sense of nostalgia around them. As they drank their coffee, they discussed what happened since they last saw each other, plus their time together at St. Bonaventure’s. Twyla wondered how Roberta changed as she went from a “small-town country dropout” to a literate, polished wife. As referenced in the text, “I was dying to know what happened to her, how she got from Jimi Hendrix to Annandale, a neighborhood full of doctors and IBM

I have to tell you something Twyla. I made up my mind, if I ever saw you again, I’d tell you’” (Morrison 17). Roberta clears the air with Twyla regarding the situation at St. Bonaventure’s and Maggie, the kitchen lady at the shelter. In the end, the friendship between Roberta and Twyla is unclear, displaying the awkwardness and tension experienced over the years. Toni Morrison wrote the short story, Recitatif, as an experiment on race and identity. She makes the decision to not explicitly disclose the races of Twyla and Roberta, the main characters of the story. In doing so, she forces readers to utilize social clues and bias to determine if the character is black or white. An article by Elizabeth Abel states, “By forcing us to construct racial categories from highly ambiguous social cues, ‘Rectiatif’ elicits and exposes the unarticulated racial codes that operate at the boundaries of consciousness” (472). Abel continues to explain how she and another feminist critic, Lula Fradg, disagreed on which character was white and black due to personal reasonings. This discussion of race is the rationale behind Morrison’s