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Twyla And Roberta In Recitatif By Toni Morrison

556 Words3 Pages

“Recitatif”, among other things means recital. The characters of Toni Morrison’s short story have a connection with hidden mysteries and subtle qualities that contribute to the significance of the text. At the end of “Recitatif”, Twyla and Roberta explore the “truth” of what they had seen at St. Bonny’s many years earlier. The two main characters of the story discuss Maggie and the types of events that occurred at the orphanage. Based on the text, the reader can understand that Twyla and Roberta’s conversation was an honest confrontation. However, the story never explicitly states who out of the two is colored. Neither Twyla nor Roberta are reliable as their opinions constantly change based on what happens throughout the story. For instance, at the end of the story Roberta states, “What the hell happened to Maggie?” (Morrison, page 214) The constant switch …show more content…

Subtle hints have been provided, allowing the reader to make assumptions. I personally began to make assumptions when Twyla's mother insisted, “...they never wash their hair and they smell(ed) funny.” (Morrison, page 201) Throughout the story, I continued to expand my thoughts on the two main characters to help in understanding the point of the story. The main theme being racial identity, community and prejudice. The audience sees that Roberta is of higher class in her later years while Twyla is of lower class. Morrison’s choice to withhold information about the character's’ race and class helps contribute to the essence of the story. It is apparent that this story was written based on times of segregation and racial inequality. This can be proven through the following statement made by Roberta, “Oh Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was.” (Morrison, page 209) In doing so, Morrison offers mysterious context that serves as confusion to illuminate the reader’s

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Twyla, the narrator, has a prejudiced mindset that becomes clear throughout the work. Almost immediately into the story, one can see Twyla’s thoughts about Roberta: “it was something else to be stuck in a

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That’s why we were taken to St. Bonny’s” (Wagner-Martin and Davidson 159). It is hard to image a more solemn, dirge-like, and restrained opening to a short story. Though Twyla (Morrison’s protagonist and narrator) is not literally an orphan, she is left at St. Bonaventure’s orphanage by a mother who is unable or unwilling to care for her. When she talks of her mother’s difficulties, Twyla only states that she “likes to dance all night,” which seems to hint at either alcoholism, drug addiction, or some form of mental illness (Wagner-Martin and Davidson 159).

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We know that she has insecurities because of the false accusations about Twyla kicking Maggie. In the weeks to follow Roberta and Twyla protest on opposite sides of the civil rights movement. It is here that we find out that Roberta might be the white character and Twyla may be the african american. This is significant because it shows the mysterious ways that the author is used to develop Robertas

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Morrison’s incorporation of stereotypes when describing the characters and their situations causes the reader to examine their own view of race. These stereotypes work in “compelling readers to interrogate their own suppositions about racial signifiers” (Benjamin 87). Some of these stereotypes are more blatant than others. Regardless, they are all contributions to the reader’s view of the characters and their own notions of race. One of the less obvious stereotypes included when Twyla described how her mother’s “idea of supper was popcorn and a can of Yoo-Hoo.”

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Racial strife as the paper called it was occurring. Mother’s were protesting because their children were going to be sent out to different schools. Roberta was one of the many mothers protesting. Twyla asks her what she is doing and in response the two begin to feud on their different opinions on this matter. Roberta then accuses Twyla and herself in taking part of bullying Maggie.

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Toni Morrison is a famous American author who used to write about racial segregation in the United States. In this perspective, she wrote "Recitatif". In this short story, she talked about the particular story of Twyla and Roberta, two girls from different racial origins. She has shown that their friendship faced many rebounds depending on their age and the place they were. The goal of this essay is to analyze their friendship during each period of their lives.

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Recitatif was written by Toni Morrison, which is a profound narrative, which I believe was meant to invite and let readers wondering to search for a buried connotation of the experiences that the main characters, which are Twyla and Roberta are face as children, and as their reunited again as adults, which some of the story’s meaning and values involving around race, friendship and the abandonment began to emerge as the plot thickens, and more messages became hidden and remain unrecognized even until the last sentence of the story. In the story from the very first paragraph, there were several details that wasn’t mentioned, that required further deeper thought and that made the story very appealing for me. First, from the beginning

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They meet in a supermarket in the slightly littler town of Newburgh, and this time, Roberta is excited to see Twyla out of nowhere instead of brushing her off like she did at the restaurant. Roberta is dressed very nicely and has seemed to have turned her character around into someone who has gotten married and pieced her life together. Twyla has also gotten married in their time of being disconnected from each other, and she seems very content with her life as well (Morrison 204-205). It is very interesting for the reader to see how these two ladies have changed since the last time that they had crossed paths, but Twyla also brings up a good point when she asks herself why they once acted like strangers, one black and one white, to acting like long-lost sisters on their way to go and get a cup of coffee and catch up (Morrison 206). While they’re catching up, they have a bit of a misunderstanding with each other about what happened to Maggie and how she fell, and this caused to part ways yet again because of discomfort and contradicting point of

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A constant comparison and contrast between Maggie and Dee is prominent structural feature of the narrative. This structural strategy helps in conceptualizing the plurality of female experience within the same milieu. This strategy encapsulates another dimension of womanism, viz. , womanism refuses to treat black woman as a homogeneous monolith. Unlike feminist position, womanism is sensitive to change with time.

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