Recitatif
Reading this short story, the only one published by Morrison, really made me pause, and read myself. Recitatif forced me to examine my preconceived notions of race and ethnicity. It contained little to no imagery, something we have not seen in past pieces we’ve read, which further caused me to grapple with the issues of race and class. The text reiterated to me, the basis that racial distinction is not judged based on physical appearances but rather by our imaginations at work.
Because we are never given background information on both Twyla and Roberta apart from their mothers, Morrison is forcing us to use our own judgements while attempting to characterize both Twyla and Roberta. Both characters are at the start in the same position-placed in the orphanage. Both have mothers who give them away. Both have mothers who visit them on the same day. At first glance, the girls seem of equal stature. Yet, as the story progresses, the girls move on and blossom into adulthood. Twyla and Roberta entered opposite realms of the world, contrasting professions and lifestyles, yet their race is still undeterminable to me. It may sound provocative, even un-pc for me to admit but I was forced to associate Twyla with the black race due to her circumstances and assume Roberta was part of the rich and famous class. Because of their surroundings, I judged them. I determined the color of their skins based on imaginary colors. I painted their faces black and white, black or white due to the information given to me by Morrison which I feel was deliberate.
The anymonity of both characters and their colorless bodies is the heart of the issue. Not only do Twyla and Roberta exemplify the notion of our imaginative and segregaded minds, but Morrison introduces yet another character to shed light on this sad reality we all succomb to. When Roberta rehashes her memories of the incident with Maggie at St. Bonny’s, the two have clashing recounts of the color of Maggie’s skin. Twyla even questions her own self: “What was she saying? Black? Maggie wasn’t black” (1184), and Roberta’s rebuttlement is “Like hell she wasn‟t, and you kicked her. We both did. You kicked a black lady who couldn’t even scream.” (1184). Morrison has taken the traumatic memory of Maggie’s victimization and transformed it into a paradigm for her own feelings of victimization, replacing herself for Maggie. She introduced Maggie as well to deepen this idea of our made up versions of who we really are.
After reading this short story, I went back to the introduction on Toni Morrison to find where her voice as an author shined in this story. What I found most interesting is that Morrison asserts that up until now, authors wrote primarily to a white audience, they assumed the color of their audience, just like we as readers assume the race and ethnicity of the characters in our stories. Morrison reveals to us that she wrote Recitatif to “challenge such assumptions [and] envision the possibilities of transcending racial division and embracing a common humanity.” (1173)
3 responses so far
The story seems to revolve around Maggie even though she’s not one of the protagonists but a victim to bullying. Especially at then lines you pointed to in 1184, I haven’t thought that she was possibly bullied because of her skin color but only because she didn’t speak (since that was emphasized in the beginning). Twyla and Roberta’s argument made me think that maybe Maggie’s skin color is light brown so that to Twyla she’s not black but to Roberta she is. The really interesting point that Morrison points to by omitting the description of Maggie’s skin color in addition to Twyla and Roberta, seems to be that skin color is what we choose to designate, that there’s a fine line that blurs the immediate boundaries of skin color.
Maggie was the most confusing and, at the same time, fascinating character for me. At first, she seems to be just a random character. However, the last sentence (“What the hell happened to Maggie?”) made me realize that she might have had a bigger role in the story. It’s interesting that none of the characters are described as being a specific race, but what surprised me is that neither Twyla nor Roberta were certain of Maggie’s race, indicating that the mistreatment, abuse, and discrimination she faced did not necessarily result from her skin color.
I think what Maggie ultimately stood for was someone physically or mentally weak; someone who could easily be victimized. She was an easy target for people to bully, because she could not defend herself. What Morisson might have been trying to hint at through the character of Maggie was that humans, in general, are capable of being very vicious. If they see someone weaker than them, they will harrass them just because they know the victim will not fight back. This idea is not necessarily a matter of race; rather, it is a matter of human nature and wickedness.
What makes this story so interesting is that no matter how hard we try – consciously or not – it’s very, very difficult to decide which of the two girls is black, and which of them is white. The story may lead you to believe one outcome, but then there’s always an inconsistency that makes you double-guess. It’s the notion that we “need” to colorize these characters that makes the story so compelling: it makes the reader confront their own stereotypes. I’m sure this story could be used as some kind of social litmus test, and it’s generously crafted to allow for all kinds of possibilities to arise out of the mystery of race, but it never gives us a solution.
The biggest mystery is the character of Maggie, who, as you said, turns out to be much more than a passing figure from the girls’ past, as the last scenes of the story offer up conflicting, partial accounts of what happened to her. The girls’ constant flip-flopping over which race Maggie supposedly was, along with the way they may or may not have treated her, makes me think Maggie is supposed to represent the girls’ own thoughts and struggles with race. Regardless of the races of the girls, neither of them can fully commit to saying they were completely nice to Maggie, and the issue of her unknown skin color seems to highlight the racial tension that always existed between the girls – even if it was never spoken about between them.