广东技术师范学院
外国语学院
07 外译（2）班
虞淦淦
28 号
Analysis of Recitatif
Recitatif was a short story written by African--American novelist Toni Morrison.
It first published in 1983. It tells a story about the development of friendship between
two girls—one black and one white. While telling the story, it also reflected some
historical movements and racial problems in America.
Toni Morrison has depicted many characters in this story, while three of them are
the major ones. They are Twyla, Roberta, and Maggie. Twyla, as the major character
here, is also the narrator of this story. In Recitatif, it most focuses on two themes: race
and friendship. Here, I mainly talk about the racial problems.
Race is the most ambiguous issue in this story. Though at the very beginning, it
has told us that Twyla is white while Roberta is black, after reading it, I find that
Twyla is more like a black people while Roberta is more like a white one. There are
three points that can backup my opinions.
First of all, food. From the beginning of this story, we learn that both Twyla and
Roberta were sent to an orphanage school called St. Bonny’s because of different
reasons—Twyla ‘s mother danced all night so she had no time to take care of her
while Roberta’s mother was sick so she couldn’t look after her. When entering the
school, Twyla showed that she liked this school very much, especially the food, while
Roberta didn’t like eating at all no matter Spam, Salisbury steak or jello with fruit
cocktail and she always gave the food to Twyla. From the very stereotype of the black
people and the white people in our mind, the black people are always very hungry
because they are too poor to have enough food. Therefore, whenever they come to a
place where plenty of food is, they will certainly eat them up no matter how ugly the
eating looking is. On the contrary, the white people are much richer, and they always
can have delicious and nutritious food. Thus, when they come to a new place, they
will not show much interest in the food. Besides, another occasion in this story can
also backup this point. That is, while Twyla’s mother and Roberta’s mother came to
visit their daughters on one Sunday, Twyla’s mother hadn’t brought any food there,
and they just ate the jelly beans which had fell down on the floor before. But
Roberta’s mother had brought chicken legs and ham sandwiches and oranges and a
whole box of chocolate –covered grahams to her. How delicious the food was. When
the visit was over, Roberta brought a stack of grahams up to Twyla. How generous
Roberta was. Again, from the very stereotype on our head, the white is always giving
some food to the black in the real world. Therefore, in this story, Twyla is more like a
black people while Roberta is more like a white people.
Then, words and deeds. This can be shown from their mothers’ behavior in a
visit on one Sunday. It is a sermon in a church, but Twyla’s mother just on those green
slacks and ratty fur jacket, and also she kept groaning and saying dirty words and
even didn’t look at the words on the page while doing the church. However, on the
other hand, Roberta’s mother wore a big cross on her chest and she kept smiling.
While she was introduced to Twyla’s mother, she looked down on her and just didn’t
want to shake her hand at all as though her hand was very dirty. As we know, the
white people are always being recognized to be elegant, well—behavior and are the
believers to the God. While the black people are always very dirty and poor behavior
and even say dirty words. Besides, when Twyla and Roberta met again 8 years later
after they left the school, Twyla came up to greet Roberta first and feared that Roberta
would have forgotten her. This scene may lead us to think that Roberta’ grade is
higher than hers. Therefore, we can easily conclude that Twyla is more like a black
people while Roberta is more like a white people.
Last but not least, economy. After 20 years, they both had got married. Twyla
married to a big family who belong to the middle—lower class and lived in an old
place in Newburgh. Twyla always had to do the housework and shopping herself.
While she went shopping, she just can ride a truck there and always cared about the
prices. What’s more, while she had a word with Roberta, she even feared that the
ice-cream that she had just brought would melt. However, Roberta married to an IBM
executive and lived in Annandale known as a rich place. Roberta drove an expensive
and beautiful car, limousine to go out. She dressed so elegantly and she looked so
pretty that made Twyla jealous very much about. Besides, Roberta also owned two
servants and they did computers and stuff in Roberta’s home while Twyla had not.
Twyla thought that “everything is very easy for them and they think they own the
world.” Coming back to the reality, the white people are actually richer than the black
people, they often own servants and it seems that they can do anything they want.
They are admired by the black people. Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that
Twyla is more like a black people while Roberta is more like a white people.
From all of the three points that I have mentioned above, we can easily draw a
conclusion that Twyla is more like a black people while Roberta is more like a white
people.