Dec 11, 2009

Recitatif | Introduction

‘‘Recitatif’’ is the only published short story by luminary African-American novelist Toni Morrison. It appeared in a 1983 anthology of writing by African-American women entitled Confirmation, edited by Amiri and Amina Baraka. ‘‘Recitatif’’ tells the story of the conflicted friendship between two girls—one black and one white—from the time they meet and bond at age eight while staying at an orphanage through their re-acquaintance as mothers on different sides of economic, political, and racial divides in a recently gentrified town in upstate New York.

While Morrison typically writes about black communities from an inside perspective, in this story she takes a different approach. The story explores how the relationship between the two main characters is shaped by their racial difference. Morrison does not, however, disclose which character is white and which is black. Rather than delving into the distinctive culture of African Americans, she illustrates how the divide between the races in American culture at large is dependent on blacks and whites defining themselves in opposition to one another. Her use of description and characterization in the story underscores the readers’ complicity in this process. Morrison has considered similar issues in her book of criticism, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, which explores how language enforces stereotypes in the work of classic American authors such as Melville, Poe, and Hemingway. ‘‘Recitatif’’ may therefore be understood as part of Morrison’s ongoing response to the mostly white and male classic literary tradition of the United States.

Recitatif Summary

The story opens with a description of ‘‘St. Bonny’s’’ or St. Bonaventure, the shelter where Twyla, the narrator, meets Roberta, the story’s other main character, when they are both eight years old. Twyla recalls that her mother once told her that people of Roberta’s race smell funny, and she objects to being placed in a room with Roberta on the grounds that her mother wouldn’t approve. Twyla, however, soon finds Roberta understanding and sympathetic to her situation. While most children at the shelter are orphans, Twyla is there because her mother ‘‘dances all night’’ and Roberta is there because her mother is sick. Roberta and Twyla are isolated from the other children at St. Bonny’s and are scared of the older girls, so they stick together.

Twyla remembers St. Bonny’s orchard in particular but she doesn’t know why it stands out in her memory. She recounts an incident in which Maggie, a mute woman who worked at St. Bonny’s kitchen, fell down in the orchard and the big girls laughed at her. Twyla reports that she and Roberta did nothing to help her. They called her names and she ignored them, perhaps because she was deaf, but Twyla thinks not and, looking back, she is ashamed.

Twyla and Roberta’s mother come to visit one Sunday. The girls are excited and get dressed up to meet them at church services. Twyla is embarrassed by Mary, her mother, because of her casual appearance, but also proud that she is so pretty. When Roberta attempts to introduce her mother to Twyla and Mary, her mother refuses to address them or to shake Mary’s extended hand, presumably because of racial prejudice. Mary says ‘‘That bitch!’’ right there in the chapel and further embarrasses Twyla by groaning during the service. Roberta’s mother wears a huge cross and... » Complete Recitatif Summary