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Recitatif (1983)

• Toni Morrison

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Toni Morrison (b.1931)

• Winner of 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, first
  African American to receive this prize
• Born in Lorain, Ohio, basis for some of her
  fictional settings
• B.A., Howard Univ. M.A., Cornell, thesis on
  Woolf and Faulkner taught at Howard Univ.
• Editor for Random House publishers
• Novels include The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula
  (1974), Song of Solomon (1977), Beloved (1987),
  Jazz (1992), Paradise (1988), Love (2003)

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Toni Morrison (b.1931)

• Criticism Playing in the Dark Whiteness and the
  American Literary Imagination (1992)
• Professor of Humanities at Princeton University
• Themes American race relations, history and
  memory
• Recitatif (1983) is Morrisons sole published
  short story
• A recitatif or recitative is a vocal style
  in which a text is declaimed in the rhythm of
  natural speech with slight melodic variation
  (American Heritage College Dictionary, 3rd ed.,
  1997). The story is Twylas recitatif.

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Doubles

• Recitatif is a story of doubles, one black and
  one white, but the reader cant say for sure
  which is which
• Similarities to Poes William Wilson
  first-person narration early institutional
  experience (school/orphanage) meetings at
  intervals later in life narrator is challenged
  and hurt by the double
• But Recitatif ends with their reconciliation

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Doubles

• Both are misfits in the orphanage they dont
  have beautiful dead parents in the sky (2255)
  their mothers are alive
• Twylas mother dances late
• Roberts is sick
• Bad students
• Twyla couldnt remember things (2254)
• Roberta cant read

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Racial Ambiguity

• 2253 Roberta a girl from a whole other race
  (but which?)
• 2254 like salt and pepper
• 2259 Everything is so easy for them. They think
  they own the world
• 2262 how it was in those days blackwhite
• 2262-65 bussing (to integrate schools black
  white) Twylas son Joseph is getting bussed but
  Robertas kids face the same prospect

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Historical Structure (age 8 is definite, later
ages are estimates)

• Twyla and Roberta meet at different ages, in
  different settings
• at 8 (orphanage, 4 months)
• at roughly 18-20 (Howard Johnsons on thruway
  near Kingston, NY, August)
• Twyla a nightshift waitress
• Roberta passing through with two men, going to
  see (Jimi) Hendrix, whom Twyla calls she
• Roberta and men laugh at Twyla, dont say goodbye
  

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Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
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Historical Structure

• at roughly 30-32 (Food Emporium, Newburgh, NY,
  late June)
• key to ages on page 2260 about 20 yrs after
  orphanage 12 yrs after Howard Johnsons Twylas
  son Joseph in junior high school (about 12 yrs
  old)
• Twyla married to James Benson, a fireman, with
  son Joseph middle class
• Roberta married to Kenneth Norton, in computer
  industry wealthy--limo servantsin a
  neighborhood full of doctors and IBM executives
  (2259) 4 stepchildren

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Historical Structure

• At roughly 30-32 (Picket-lines, Fall)
• Twyla, pro-bussing
• Roberta, anti-bussing
• I wonder what made me think you were different
• I wonder what made me think you were different
  (2263)
• Roberta betrays Twyla refuses to help no
  receiving hand was there (2263)

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Historical Structure

• At roughly 30-32 (Picket lines, Fall)
• Twylas and Robertas identities are defined in
  relation to one another Actually my sign didnt
  make sense without Robertas (signs depend on
  one another) (2264)
• Later 30s (coffee shop, Christmas Eve) Joseph in
  college (about 18)
• Reconciliation, but Maggie issue still unresolved

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Historical Structure

• This story of doubles is suspended through recent
  American history
• Race relations
• Bussing (to integrate schools)
• Computer industry
• Changes in town of Newburgh, New York once
  upstate paradise, then half on welfare, with
  new wealthy tech class working for IBM

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Archetypal Structure

• Easter (2255), Christmas (2265)
• Story of Maggiea mute womanalso partakes of
  archetypal structure this is a story of primal
  guilt which (like the story of Adam and Eve)
  takes place in a garden, an apple orchard
• See 2254
• gar girls (corruption of gargoyles, the evil
  stone faces 2260) associated with evil, like
  the gargoyles of medieval Gothic cathedrals

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Gargoyles, Notre Dame, Paris
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The Significance of Maggie

• Shifting memories/ shifting meanings
• Maggie fell (2245)
• Maggie didnt fall, was knocked down (2261)
• Twyla and Roberta both kicked Maggie, who was
  black (2264)
• Twyla didnt kick Maggie, but wanted to
  (associated Maggie with her mother) (2265)
• Roberta didnt kick Maggie, but wanted to
  (associated Maggie with her own mother) (2266)

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Consumer Culture name-brand products,
corporations, TV shows, pop icons

• Klondike ice cream bars
• Tab
• Yoo-Hoo
• Chiclets
• Elmers glue
• IBM
• AP

• The Wizard of Oz
• The Price Is Right
• The Brady Bunch
• Jimi Hendrix

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Setting

• Recitatif takes place in impermanent, transient
  settings. What effect or significance might this
  feature of setting have?
• Orphanage
• Howard Johnsons
• New shopping mall/parking lot
• Picket lines
• Coffee house

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Conclusion

• As doubles, Twyla and Roberta share an
  uncomfortable past
• Roberta challenges Twyla to remember parts of her
  past Twyla prefers to forget
• Reality and repressed desire get mixed up
• In the present, they are one anothers racial and
  class other
• They collaborate to reconstruct their shared past
  and bridge their differences of class and race
• But what happened to Maggie?