1) Please read the following "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison.
2) Take notes. Read slowly, and try to visualize the characters. When you read, how do you view Twyla? Roberta? Most importantly, explain why. If major changes occur, please take immediate note of the direct quotation(s) that shifted your thinking? How does our discussion of "The Danger of the Single Story" impact your reading of this story?
3) Discuss your reading of the text (using the aforementioned questions above) in a blog response here. Use direct evidence from the text. As before, engage with each other. Take note of how others in the class read the story.
"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison
I'm going to be completely honest when I say I am unsure of Twyla's race. I am aware that Roberta is white but throughout the book it was really unclear of what Twyla's race was. This made it difficult in a way to visualize and comprehend the material. One quote by Roberta that really stood out to me was "Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was." That was the norm for Roberta and in her comfort of living in that norm she enforces it onto Twyla. The ted talk "The Danger of a Single Story" is applicable to the text we read. Given are examples of Roberta constantly providing differing versions of the event involving Maggie. One of the versions implied that Twyla was a bigot because she supposedly pushed Maggie, a black woman who was considered mute, down some stairs. Because Twyla is unable to remember or defend her position, her version of the event is all that readers and Twyla are able know.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the uncertainty of this piece in more ways than one. I too was perplexed with the whole nature of the people and how they each interact with each other - either being quite cruel or kinder. But it would be keeping track of them that was indeed harder, as all the characters seem alike or of the same being but also so very different and individual.
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DeleteThat was interesting that you realized Twyla's race was uncertain. I assumed her race was white when she talked about her mom telling her racist things about blacks, such as them never washing their hair and smelling funny, but now that I look it over, there really is no solid evidence that she is white. The closest it comes is saying that black was "a whole other race," but that really could mean any race other than black. I thought it was interesting and kind of ignorant how I completely disregarded races other than black and white when I was reading the story.
DeleteSo I realized in class that my reply to this was completely wrong. It does explicitly say that one is white and one is black, when it says "a black girl and a white girl meeting in Howard Johnson's ," during the meeting at Food Emporium. Also, when I was commenting, I thought Roberta's race was black, but because of the class discussion, I realized that it was never said that she was black, and how the story was designed to keep you guessing which girl was black and which one was white, along with keeping you guessing at Maggie's race.
DeleteMy perceptions of characters kept changing throughout the story, and I think that is very connected to the idea of a single story. For instance, when I first read about how Twyla's mother told her that blacks "never washed their hair and they smelled funny," I thought she was a horrible person. Then however, during the visit, Twyla's mother tried to be friendly to Roberta's mother, "grinn[ing] and try[ing] to...shake hands," and I realized she was okay. In addition, when Roberta and Twyla were in St. Bonny's, I started out liking both of them. However, once Twyla says "All I could think of was that she (her mother) really needed to be killed," I started really disliking her, for being so mean . Likewise, when Roberta grows up and meets Twyla in the resteraunt but act rudely to her, I start disliking her too. I was really surprised when she meets Twyla again in the store and is much more friendly towards her. This really pointed out the danger of a single story to me, because those two individual moments reveal completely contradictory ideas about who Roberta is. In reality, neither of those moments alone is enough to show us the complete story behind Roberta, and even those two moments themselves without the rest of the story would still be an incomplete understanding of her. What I thought was important about this story is that even in real life, we often judge a person by a single interaction with them. How accurate is that really?
ReplyDeleteI shared a similar reading experience as you did. I too started disliking Roberta from the encounter in the restaurant, and was shocked to see how she acted in the store. I think this highlights the problem with not knowing the full story and making assumptions and judgements based off one encounter. I liked how at the end you connected it back to real life and how we often do the same with just one encounter with someone. I believe that we cannot truly make an accurate judgment of someone based off that one encounter alone.
DeleteIt's kind of funny how you mentioned real life in your reply, because I had an experience this morning that made me go "Whoa, this is just like when I read Recitatif!" So there's this kid at our school that I'll just call A. I've never met A, but I've read stuff A had written online, and from what A had written, I had automatically assumed A was a white girl, without even consciously thinking about it. But yesterday, a friend of mine was talking about his friend named A in our grade, and I was like, oh I know her from the internet, and he was like, wait I'm talking about a boy, and he mentioned that the kid he was talking about was asian. At first, I thought we must have been talking about two different people, but this morning I looked up whether or not there were two kids with the name "A" from our school, and it turns out there was only one. This was a really powerful experience because it showed me how deeply ingrained my gender and racial bias was without my even realizing it, and it reminded me of how when we were reading Recitatif, we automatically assumed the color of characters based on our subconscious biases.
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ReplyDeleteThroughout the story, my views on the characters switched as they became older. As the story opens, I first assumed Twyla would be mean and hateful towards Roberta, as she could barely stomach the idea of sharing a room with “a girl from a whole other race.” But as the story of their childhood advances, they seem to look past their differences and become friends. As the story shifts to a couple years later, my opinion of the two characters shifts with it. When Twyla recognizes Roberta in the restaurant and Roberta brushes her off and almost outright ignores her, I began to see Roberta in a different light. Twyla acknowledges the situation stating, “I was dismissed without anyone saying goodbye, so I thought I would do it for her.” This line made me start disliking Roberta. Lastly, when the two meet again years down at a supermarket, Roberta is suddenly excited to see Twyla, acting as if the last encounter never happened. Roberta catches up with Twyla as an old friend would. In this light, Roberta is painted as a kind and caring friend, as she tells Twyla, "I always hoped you'd be happy.” In relation to the concept of a single story, these three different examples could be their own separate story. Based upon which you read, you may dislike Twyla from the first or dislike Roberta from the second. To fully understand and judge the characters, we must know all of the stories between the two. Without the full story, we cannot make accurate judgments.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point on how the full picture is necessary to make judgement— to know one, you must know all. As I read the story, my perspective was constantly changing especially with Roberta. At some points I admit I was confused on what to think of her, and whether or not her constant reappearances said something as a whole to the story. For example, I got the impression that Roberta was acting superior to Twyla because of her expensive clothing and supplements; it was almost like she wanted to prove to Twyla that she was better off. Later on, however, when she broke down in front of Twyla with the truth, I started to wonder if Morrison was trying to speak a greater message and say that "all that seems perfect really isn't," and as humans we all have flaws. What do you think?
DeleteAfter settling into St. Bonny’s, Twyla and Roberta are primarily portrayed as uneducated, unmotivated, yet innocent children. Roberta’s mother was sick and Twyla’s mother “dances all night.” Unaware of the racism and hatred around them, the two are paired to live together at the orphan house, beginning their turbulent relationship. Twyla explains that her and Roberta “...didn't like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play with [them] because [they] weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. [They] were dumped” (2). However, despite the feeling of not being wanted, they suffered together and build a relationship. They were quickly exposed to many evils as they lived in St. Bonny’s. The older girls would kick and bully Maggie, for she “...couldn't talk. The kids said she had her tongue cut out, but I think she was just born that way: mute” (2). This story about Maggie arises later, when the Roberta and Twyla meet up later in life and recall, and dispute, over their past at St. Bonny’s.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the novel, I struggled to determine the races of the Twyla and Roberta—Was one white? Was one African American? At times I thought I figured it out, concluding that Roberta was African American and Twyla was white. However, later in the story I would believe the opposite— that Roberta was white and Twyla was African American. For instance, when Roberta’s mother and Twyla’s mother first met, Twyla’s mother reached out for a handshake and “[Roberta’s mother] didn't say anything, just grabbed Roberta with her Bible-free hand and stepped out of line, walking quickly to the rear of it” (5). This is an instance where I jumped to a conclusion based on stereotypes. Based off this instance, I believed that Roberta must have been white and Twyla must have been African American, which explains why their parents refused to shake hands.
I believe that Toni Morrison’s purpose of writing this short story was to confuse her readers. She intentionally did not reveal the races of her characters, rather forcing the audience to use their racial biases and form their own conclusions. Morrison does not even tell the audience the race of Maggie, for Twyla “...was puzzled by [Roberta] telling [her] Maggie was black. When [she] thought about it [she] actually couldn't be certain. [Maggie] wasn't pitch-black...or [she]
would have remembered that” (17). I find this interesting because it strongly connects to our discussions about judging people and character’s too quickly. It is impossible to use a “single story” to form an accurate picture of a character. Although we do it subconsciously, we can be aware of our actions and make an attempt understand the person before forming any conclusions. How you believe Toni Morrison intentionally did not reveal the races of the character? How did you react?
Susan Matteucci
DeleteI think Toni Morrison was teaching us a lesson with not revealing the races of her characters. Roberta and Twyla act the same in the beginning. They are innocent kids, like you said. I think that this story really highlights the problem that our default for main characters is caucasian. When in reality, for the first part of the story, Twyla could have been any race and the story would not have changed.
I like how Susan highlighted the universal nature of the story— innocent kids, with a turbulent upbringing, and different outcomes. I agree that must have been Toni Morrison's intention. However, I disagree in that my default for main characters is not caucasian. I rather struggled to figure out what race Twyla and Roberta was, and I believe I made most of my assumptions based off stereotypes and guessing.
DeleteSusan Matteucci
ReplyDeleteI think readers are good at taking punches. Authors usually make readers visualize things differently -- a window appears in a room that has never had a window in it -- stuff like that. So, when I read that the main characters “looked like salt and pepper” an realized that Twyla was black and Roberta was white, I didn’t bat an eye. I merely gave Twyla a new appearance and kept reading. I usually envision the main character as white until told otherwise, mostly, I think, because I am white and I create main female characters in my own image. With all that said I got whiplash when I read “you’re the same state kid who kicked a poor old black lady”. I had the same thought process Twyla did: “Black? Maggie wasn’t black”. I felt ashamed, because I had set Maggie’s skin color in stone from the moment she was introduced. Maggie was caucasian in my mind. Maggie is still stubbornly caucasian in my mind. And I think I know why. Last year, in AP Language and Composition I did a project that required me to research disabled and diverse superheroes. There are an abundance of superheroes in both categories. Daredevil is blind, Hawkeye is deaf, Professor X is in a wheelchair, Deadpool has cancer. The current Captain America is Black as is Black Panther and many other heroes. I noticed, however, that the two categories never mingled. If a superhero was disabled they could not be anything but caucasian. I think I unintentionally did this with Maggie. When I learned that “Maggie couldn’t talk” that “she was just born that way: mute” I immediately labeled her caucasian. As though someone can’t be black and mute. Does anyone else do this? Can anyone think of a fictional character that can fit into both the “diverse” and “disabled” category except for Maggie? Because I am having trouble.
I really appreciate your honesty in the response and feel that these truths and acknowledgment of our assumptions and stereotypes will help further develop our identities as readers. I loved how you pulled in super heroes as an example. It was unexpected and really convinced me about your argument on the assumption of Maggie's appearance. I was looking at the Marvel website and I found a female character named Sorrow that might fit your description.
DeleteI think that you effectively connected Marvel superheroes to the story of Twyla, Roberta, and Maggie. In our traditional superhero stories, with the familiar endings, I do not believe the race of the characters has any significant influence on the audience's impact. Likewise, Toni Morrison was very effective in making the races of Twyla, Roberta, and Maggie irrelevant. While you pictured Maggie as white, I did not see her as a race; I only saw her for her disability, for that was the reason she was being bullied. Nonetheless, I find your point about a character "diverse" and "disabled" very interesting, for I also cannot think of one. Although Anna did mentions the female character Sorrow, who is mute and non-white, I have never heard of her and thus there does seem to be a pattern of white, disabled characters.
DeleteFrom the beginning of the story, I admit I was already experiencing the “single story” phenomenon— because this story was set at a children’s shelter, I got the impression that both of the main characters were troubled. As I read Recitatif, however, I ignored my judgement and focused on Twyla and Roberta’s relationship. When Twyla and Roberta spent their childhoods at St. Bonny’s, I could definitely feel their innocence, free spirits, and curiosity, “We should have helped her up… but we were scared of those girls with lipstick and eyebrow pencil… changed beds every night, got F’s in civic, communications, and gym… we got excited about it and curled our hair…” Their experiences and connected emotions greatly helped shape my perspective on the two characters and provided me personas to build off of. The story takes a turn when the characters mature and split roads. One day, Twyla encounters Roberta at a diner and her actions clearly emphasize the different dynamic between their relationship, “Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix, asshole. He’s only the biggest—Oh wow, forget it.” This moment especially took me by surprise and wiped away my previous impression of Roberta. I also noticed that from then on, Twyla had kept her distance and appeared to be more closed-off towards Roberta. I could also feel Twyla’s growing sense of maturity and independence as I witnessed how she handled Roberta’s reappearances.
ReplyDeleteFrom the reading, I think that Morrison highlights the importance of how impressions can never be certain; this idea is definitely parallel to those we talked about from “The Danger of a Single Story.” My perspectives of the characters were certainly different from the beginning of the read compared to the end, and it was important to remain mindful of judgement as the piece revealed more truth behind the characters and story. Additionally, the familiarity and personable aspect behind Morrison’s writing provides the audience with content that is emotionally relatable, and it is surely interesting to see how the similarities apply to my own changing perspectives.
I also wanted to mention an instance where Morrison highlights an ugly truth behind emotions. Maggie is introduced as one who cannot speak or fight back due to her physical incapabilities, and described when she falls and is laughed at by the “gar girls.” Out of fear, Twyla and Roberta both remain at the scene as bystanders. Through several of Roberta’s re-appearances, however, she falsely changes the story, “We both did. You kicked a black lady who couldn’t scream.” Twyla, rattled with this information, suddenly reflects on Maggie and comes to terms with the truth in her past emotions, “We watched and never tried to help her… I knew she wouldn’t scream, couldn’t just like me and I was glad about that.” Twyla justified her actions as a girl with the parallels between her relationship with her mother. The plot further thickens when Roberta comes to terms with her past as well, “I really wanted them to hurt her… It was just that I wanted to do it so bad that day— wanting to is doing it.” Roberta admits that her and Twyla never attacked Maggie; it was that she had always wanted to and made herself believe that they did. Through this instance in the story, Morrison effectively touches on the reality behind how our thoughts and emotions can take control of the truth, and illuminate the deeper roots of our motives.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you mention how Roberta continuously changed the story. It shows how the perception of one person can change the story in someone else's mind. When Roberta told Twyla the way in which she remembered her past, Twyla was shocked and racked her brain for any memory of what Roberta was describing. Although she did not remember what Roberta said, it challenged her to revisit these experienced and question whether or not her memories were accurate.
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ReplyDeleteA recurring theme in the short story Recitatif by Toni Morrison is the duality of childhood and adulthood. In the beginning of the story, the main character Twyla is introduced as a child, along with her friend and roommate, Roberta. These children live in an orphanage, despite the fact that both of their parents are still living. This is because both of their parents are unfit for raising children, one due to sickness and the other wanting to “dance all night”. At a young age, both were forced to grow up unusually early from being introduced to many adult experiences. In the story, it was frequently seen that Twyla perceived her surroundings in an adult like manner that was abnormal considering her age. For example, Twyla described the “gar girls” as “scared runaways...poor little girls who fought their uncles off but looked tough to us”. Although her and Roberta feared these older girls, Twyla saw them for who they are while acknowledging that they did indeed look “tough” on the outside. Using the phrases “scared runaways” and “poor little girls” reveals a certain level of maturity in Twyla that is surprising at her young age. Despite her being a child, the way in which she thinks and processes her surroundings make her seem like an adult. Later in the story, Twyla and Roberta are both adults who have grown up and lived very separate lives. The story brings them to a protest where women are picketing against integrating schools. Roberta treats Twyla with an unforeseen amount of hostility, prompting Twyla to retaliate in a childish way. They both are picketing for different reasons, Roberta not wanting to integrate schools and Twyla to make Roberta angry. Twyla goes to the protest with signs directly aimed at Roberta that do not make any sense to the other women. She points out that her “signs got crazier each day, and the women on my side decided that I was a kook”. Despite Twyla maturing at a young age, her childish reaction to Roberta’s unkindness reveals that she never completely got over the separation that her and Roberta experienced. It is interesting to see the ways in which Roberta can provoke Twyla to change her usual sensible attitude. It drives us to think about how we are affected by specific people around us and what ways that certain people cause us to change our attitudes. I thought of Roberta and Twyla in many different ways throughout the story. At times, I believed one was more grown up than the other but other instances prompted me to change my thoughts on the character. Their personalities truly depended on what was occurring and were revealing in conflicting manners with every occurrence.
ReplyDeleteI really like your focus on the character's maturity throughout the piece. I think as readers "Recitatif" makes you question your level of maturity in judging not only characters, but people in everyday life. Twyla and Roberta in many ways seem to age in reverse, ending up more childlike than ever before. At the same time, maybe they were just as childish when they were younger, but blocked that part of their memory out, just as Roberta had blocked out and replaced memories of Maggie. I resonated with your idea that certain situations bring out certain aspects of people. There's a gar girl in everyone, as well as a Mary, Twyla, Maggie and Bozo. But it takes a particular person in just the perfect mood on a particular day and time to bring out each of those characters within us. This creates a complicated experiences almost no one can explain. And with that comes the birth of a great story.
DeleteIt seems as if in “Recitatif,” Toni Morrison is trying to catch the reader making assumptions about the characters and exploiting it. She wants people to jump to conclusions based on only reading a single story, and then make the reader realize that they made false assumptions. “Recitatif” is composed of five smaller stories, one for each meeting, and in each one, the statuses of Twyla and Roberta are different. In the first story, at St. Bonny’s, we learn that Twyla and Roberta are of different races. When I read how Twyla did not want to be “stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race,” I assumed Twyla was of higher class as she is being discriminatory to Roberta. However, when both Twyla’s and Roberta’s mothers visited them, Twyla’s mother was not up to the standards of Roberta’s mother, and my initial assumptions changed. In the second story, we see Twyla in a much more superior class than Roberta, and my assumptions flipped again. Then, in the next story, Twyla describes Roberta with “everything lovely and summery and rich.”
ReplyDeleteMorrison is exemplifying the single story phenomenon, how one can’t make an assumption based off of one story. By reading just one of these stories, you would think the social class that Twyla and Roberta belonged to in that specific story would have applied to them their whole lives. In each story, what I thought of Twyla and Roberta would flip, causing me to realize that I shouldn’t be making this assumptions so quickly. Overall, Morrison wants to illustrate how there is much more to Twyla’s and Roberta’s lives than one story.
Susan Matteucci
DeleteThe five separate stories is something I didn't catch at all before. You could say that the race of the two main characters changes with each story. That it is not just the readers trying to guess, but the characters actually change. I agree with you that, in the first story, Twyla talks about how her mother "wouldn't want her staying" in the room with Roberta. You would think, for that section, that Twyla was white and Roberta was black. The reader keeps going back and forth with this, usually for each story. What if Toni Morrison actually wrote the story by changing their races in her minds eye? This might be very confusing to everyone besides me but it's just something I thought of.
Throughout the story, I was unsure of how I was supposed to view Twyla and Roberta. The first indicator of their differing races came from them being described as “salt and pepper” when they would stand next to each other at the orphanage. The term “orphan” paints a picture of someone more raggedy, with my only exposure to orphans in literature being from Oliver Twist. Despite Recitatif taking place in a completely different area of the world, in a completely different time frame. This plays into the Single Story way of thinking, because they are orphans and all I know of orphans is poor conditions and sadness, I am meant to feel bad for them and that they are in a bad situation. As the story progresses, however, that assumption is changed. Twyla didn’t seem to mind her environment, from the food to the bedrooms. Above everything else, what dictated the races of Roberta and Twyla was not their own actions, but the actions of their mothers. During their Easter visit, the cold reaction from Roberta’s mom to Twyla’s gave me the impression that Roberta was white, and Twyla was black. Given the estimated time period, it is no surprise that that kind of interaction would occur. The part of the story that was a turning point for me was the recurring mention of Maggie, the girl that was left alone to be kicked and made fun of. Roberta and Twyla are haunted by their actions, or lack thereof, to the point where they discuss it during all the conversations they have throughout the rest of their interactions. After watching The Danger of The Single Story, my outlook towards the problems faced by the two main characters, from both perspectives, are seen with more insight and thought than if I were to read the story without any pretense.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s very interesting to use the interaction between their mothers as a clue to which girl belonged to which race. I hadn’t considered that but now that you point it out, it does seem to be important seeing as Roberta’s mother clearly felt surperior to Twyla’s at a time when that’s how many white people treated African-Americans.
DeleteDavid Ritter
ReplyDeleteLike several others, I had a rather difficult time deciding which races the two girls were. I went back and forth over the story as Toni Morrison dropped inklings of information to sway our opinions. However, by the time I reached the end, I realized we were never supposed to know. I believe this piece serves as a statement about expectations and assumptions. We find ourselves so preoccupied with trying to decipher the races of the characters when in truth, it’s the exact same story either way. Toni Morrison knowingly dances around this mystery in order to highlight the futility of the game. She makes readers ask themselves important questions. For example, when Twyla’s mother said “they never washed their hair and they smelled funny,” does this get us any closer to realizing which character is white and which is black? Does it even matter? The story goes both ways. We are forced to confront our own feelings as to why certain pieces of information lead us to believe what they do. I feel this piece pairs excellently with the “single story” TED talk because it heavily deals with making great assumptions out of limited information. A great indicator of this is how I felt about Roberta throughout. At first I admired her for her accepting attitude and “the way she understood things so fast.” I felt sympathy for her as a child alone in an unfamiliar place. However later, in the diner I felt strong anger with her when she brushes Twyla off saying “Jimi Hendrix, asshole. He's only the biggest-Oh, wow. Forget it.” I couldn’t believe she would blow off an old friend over something so trivial. As we meet Roberta several more times throughout the story, we are forced to make judgements of her when we are clearly only getting tiny glimpses of her personality. We are only getting a single story.
I liked that you brought up the question of what really matters in stories. Many small things can be worked into larger deals if people want them to be. Different people focus on different things. Twyla focused on food when wished Mary would cook for her. She assumed the food Roberta's mom made was delicious and made with love. This memory is something she held onto for the rest of her life. We all do this in our own lives too; it's natural to want to hold onto to the happiest times and block out embarrassing or harsh moments. This defense mechanism causes many single stories to be spread.
DeleteSometimes you meet people with whom you have an unspoken connection to, a sense of understanding that cannot be described to others. When this connection begins to change, it can be nearly impossible to dissect what really happened. In “Recitatif" by Toni Morrison, Twyla recalls having a deep connection with Roberta at St. Bonny’s and spends the rest of the story trying to dissect and explain what spoiled their friendship. At St. Bonny’s, both girls felt like outsiders because they weren’t “real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky.” The juxtaposition of “beautiful” and “dead” was jarring to me, showing Twyla’s maturity at such a young age. The use of the word “real” plays with a question that continuously shows up as the story goes on: what is real and what is fake? Surely in some capacity the girls were orphans since their parents weren’t raising them, but technically they still had breathing mothers. Although their early connection and separation leaves readers questioning, it was ironically a sense of harmonious certainty that the girls shared, the notion that they “knew what nobody else in the world knew-how not to ask questions,” which started their relationship.
ReplyDeleteBoth felt a connection not only to each other, but with Maggie, the mute lady who worked at St. Bonny’s. With Maggie, the image of her in my mind got more blurry as the story went on. At first I completely believed Twyla's description; I had no reason to question her storytelling. Once I saw her racist tendencies and Roberta’s descriptions, doubt began to fill my mind. Part of Mary is in Twyla and this is highlighted by an exchange in which Roberta exclaims “I’m not doing anything for you” to which Twyla responds “You really think that?” I began to really question what I thought were Twyla’s high morals and maturity, realizing her single story was only part of the whole truth. Since she was mute, it was easy for both Roberta and Twyla to fill what they wanted to have seen and done, forming their complete memory of Maggie. Their realities began colliding into paragraphs, sentences, and scenes, again making me wonder what about their lives and memories were real.
One thing remained undeniable throughout the story: Twyla and Roberta had a special connection. Whether it remained strong, frayed, or broke continues to be unclear. Their initial bond is whatever you make of it and however we feel towards the two girls is not the same as what they felt towards each other. Therefore when things get messy, it is hard to understand what happened and why they still care about each other. Who was Maggie? Who was Twyla? Who would they have all been like without each other? Who would they have all been like with each other?
Your insight on an "unspoken connection" extremely stuck out to me; it is something that I have personally experienced and it was interesting to see how it played out in Twyla and Roberta's relationship. "Unspoken connections," an ambiguous concept, is hard to grasp because it is so unexplainable. I can certainly relate to Twyla's emotions and how she felt lost trying to figure out what happened between her and Roberta. The sad reality is that sometimes we are left without solid answers and must satisfy ourselves with our own conclusions.
DeleteSome may think that this story is black and white, but in New York City, where diversity flourishes, the characters could have been Latino, Asian, or even the same race, rather than just black and white, and I believe, the story would still remain the same. However, while reading this story, identifying the race of the character at the beginning in order to visualize them was not my main concern. What was Roberta's mother sick with? Why did Twyla's mother dance all night? Was she a drug addict or alcoholic? What unseen circumstances got us to this point in their story? While race may have remained an unanswered question, there are plenty of holes in the character's past that will never be filled.
ReplyDeleteTo be completely honest, as the story progressed, my curiosity rose. I just wanted one hint for a glimpse of what the characters really appeared. My neutrality caved during the church scene when my assumptions couldn't help but cave to visualize Twyla's mother as white trash, like Mrs. Wormwood from the movie Matilda. This was based on her severe underdressing and inappropriate behavior for such a conservative setting.
This was also a moment when I perceived maturity in a deceivingly innocent, careless child, who was “eight years old and got F's all the time” (2). When Mary finally came to visit, it wasn’t the mother who looked upon her daughter with praise or disappointment, it was Twyla who seemed to be taking care of her. When Mary says, "That bitch!" at Roberta’s mother Twyla, “squeezed her hand as hard as I could” (5), and questioned, “Why did [Twyla thought] she would come there and act right?” (5). I feel that in this scene, roles are reversed as Twyla takes care of her child [Mary] who can’t behave in the chapel.
While you may not be able to change these initial judgements, you control how you react and improve. We can push ourselves to remember that our behaviors and morals are not defined by the color of our skin, religion, or sexuality, and that the story we read may not be the complete one. Without clear identification, Morrison inspires us to acknowledge that the characters actions result from who they are, their heart, their thoughts, their human instinct, rather than excuse, assume, or marginalize character’s behaviors into stereotypes connected with physical attributes.
After reading the story, I felt terrible for deciding that Twyla’s mother as the antagonist, even went as far to think of her as lazy, selfish, and unqualified to take care of any child. Just as I did to Laura Brown, who I judged for selfishly leaving her son and husband. However, unlike “Recitatif”, “The Hours” explains the complete story: her extreme unhappiness, complex kiss with her neighbor kitty, and how she nearly attempted to kill herself. The only story about Twyla’s mother is that she went out dancing all night and wore trashy clothes to church. But what was life like when she began raising Twyla, or did her mother go out to leave Mary alone and dance all night?
I’m left with this question, What pieces of literature, film, television, ect shaped your own stereotypes and assumptions based on race?
When I was reading I could see how Toni Morrison was trying to trap the reader into making assumptions right from the start. Twyla from the start makes an assumption on Roberta which causes the reader to make assumptions about Twyla. Each of the characters showed a development as the story progressed and there were parts when you could see them. I think a major part of the story is you don’t exactly know what race either of them are but you could tell they were not the same by the way in the beginning Twyla treats Roberta, the middle where Roberta treats Twyla and then at the end.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to the part where they run into each other again and Twyla goes up to greet Roberta and she has this whole standoffish reaction where Twyla “was dismissed without anyone saying goodbye”(7) by Roberta. This made me think really differently of Roberta because when they were children it always seemed like it was Twyla and then Roberta. Also, when Roberta says “Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you're not… You kicked a black lady and you have the nerve to call me a bigot."(16). This also made me think differently of Twyla because when they first described Mary and how they interacted with her it never said that they did anything.
This story traps the reader into making assumptions from the very beginning and then forces the reader to change their assumptions on the characters as they continue to read. But this doesn’t happen only once, the reader changes how they perceive the characters multiple times throughout the story.
Recitatif by Toni Morison, is a truly interesting and introspective story. What I mean is that throughout the story our two main characters Twyla and Roberta are to us as readers so familiar, yet they are complete strangers to us. They are the unlikely friendship that went well. They are people we cannot place. We were not given a label in which told us who they are, or what race they are or even what time is this was around. In my opinion, I found both Twyla, and Roberta to be racially ambiguous. However there were some inklings that say other wise, for instance when Twyla was talking about being put in a room with something of a "...whole other race". Or the seemingly wise piece of wisdom her mother gave to her, "...one of the things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny". Which causes me to believe the racial stereotype Morrison is highlighting here is that of black heritage. However my opinion flips once again as said in Gabe's response, that when their too mothers meet and Roberta's mother "...just grabbed Roberta with her Bible-free hand and stepped tout of line, walking quickly to the rear of it". Changing my opinion once again, causing me to think that possibly Roberta in this case white, and Twyla black. But this is because of our minds easily go back to the one dangerous story we know. Just like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Toni Morrison highlights our desire to place people in boxes of titles or races. It's a vicious cycle.
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ReplyDeleteThe one thing I could not ignore was how quite cruel the girls were to Maggie - where there was just no need for it. Expecting Maggie had, "Nobody inside. Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night. Nobody who could tell you anything important that you could use. Rocking,dancing, swaying as she walked. And when the gar girls pushed her down, and started roughhousing, I knew she wouldn't scream, couldn't-just like me and I was glad about that." But how the behaviour destroyed the racial context; the uncertainty that changes like the flip of a coin.
ReplyDeleteBut the idea of strife seems to flow underline the title of the piece itself. By operating between two extremes of the spectrum, "Strife came to us that fall. At least that's what the paper called it. Strife. Racial strife. The word made me think of a bird-a big shrieking bird out of 1,000,000,000 B.C. Flapping its wings and cawing. Its eye with no lid always bearing down on you. All day it screeched and at night it slept on the rooftops. It woke you in the morning and from the Today show to the eleven o'clock news it kept you an awful company. I couldn't figure it out from one day to the next." (and frankly, we surely won't figure it out anytime soon. But perhaps that's the point).
As the story progressed, my views on both Twyla and Roberta changed. The first thing that struck me about their initial interaction with one another was that Twyla felt sick thinking about being “stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race.” I automatically assumed this story would be about their hatred for one another and was already making assumptions from the first two paragraphs. Something Toni Morrison does is establish that the girls are two different races, but purposely does not state at any point in the story what race they are. This may leave the reader perplexed and wanting to know what race they are, but her purpose is to remove racial bias from the story and force us to not make presumptions about the characters. My views on the girls changed again when Twyla ran into Roberta and her friends while she was working. Roberta seemed rude and condescending to Twyla, as Twyla “was dismissed without anyone saying goodbye, so [she] thought [she] would do it for her.” This made me see Roberta as stuck-up and thinking she was “too cool” to hang around Twyla. Throughout the story, I found myself judging the characters based on their interactions with one another and others in their lives. I know I should not be doing this, as I am not receiving the full explanation, but it is instinctual. This is only from Twyla’s point of view, so we are receiving just her truth. Only knowing one side to the story, we may not be able to make an accurate representation of the events.
ReplyDeleteAs many of the other posts mentioned, the racial identities of Twyla and Roberta are uncertain. The story establishes that Twyla and Roberta “looked like salt and pepper standing there”, so beyond the fact that one girl is black and the other is white, there is little detail on their appearances. Morrison does this on purpose, leaving the audience to rely on their own stereotypes and judgements to visualize Twyla and Roberta. However, does their race really matter? The story revolves around the connection two women have shared since youth. Whether they are happy about it or not, they maintain a bond over their traumatic childhoods and pass each other multiple times over the course of their lives. At the protest, Twyla goes out of her way “Jostling people one minute and lagging behind the next, so Roberta and I could reach the end of our respective lines at the same time and there would be a moment in our turn when we would face each other”. The race of Twyla and Roberta is not the plot of Recitatif, yet it is what we are most stumped over. This was also an intentional choice by Morrison, because not only does it shed light on our own stereotypes, but reveals our obsession with putting people into categories.
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