“Recitatif” Essay

The short story “Recitatif” talks about two friends, Twyla and Roberta, who
met in an orphanage when they were children. Throughout the story they
grow up and meet different times in different situations. Though at the
beginning they are presented as similar, even though they have different races,
as growing up they take different paths; Roberta becomes rich, while Twyla is
part of lower-middle class.

In this story is very clear Morrison’s intent. He doesn’t state the two main
characters’s race, in fact we just know that one of the two is black and the
other one is white. This is important because he wants the reader to focus on
the fact that even though the two girl are aesthetically opposite, they are in
fact very similar: they share a similar situation because their mothers aren’t
dead like the other’s kids in the orphanage.

The author does that for a specific reason: throughout the story Morrison tries
to reveal the reader’s personal assumptions and prejudices about races. This
happens not just by not stating the two friend’s race but also because both of
the two girls have a negative attitude towards the other one’s race because of
the society’s perception of it.

Another important aspect is the character of Maggie, a disable lady. Roberta

thinks that Maggie is black while Twyla thinks she is not. This is another
example of ambiguous racial identity: again the racial identity is not explicitly
given and the reader reveals his own stereotypical thoughts. Maggie
ambiguous race also tells us about the two protagonists racial stereotypes.

In conclusion it would not be wrong to say that in the story races is presented
as not relevant regarding bonds and relationships, and that they are just a
social construct.