“Recitatif ” (1983)
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison (b.1931)
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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)
Toni Morrison (b.1931)
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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 Morrison’s 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
Twyla’s recitatif.
Doubles
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“Recitatif” is a story of doubles, one black and
one white, but the reader can’t say for sure
which is which
Similarities to Poe’s “William Wilson”: firstperson narration; early institutional
experience (school/orphanage); meetings at
intervals later in life; narrator is challenged
and hurt by the double
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But “Recitatif” ends with their reconciliation
Doubles
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Both are misfits in the orphanage: they don’t
have “beautiful dead parents in the sky”
(2255); their mothers are alive:
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Twyla’s mother dances late
Robert’s is sick
Bad students:
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Twyla “couldn’t remember” things (2254)
Roberta can’t read
Racial Ambiguity
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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: black—
white”
2262-65 bussing (to integrate schools
black & white): Twyla’s son Joseph is
getting bussed; but Roberta’s kids face the
same prospect
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 Johnson’s on thruway
near Kingston, NY, August)
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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, don’t say goodbye
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
Historical Structure
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at roughly 30-32 (Food Emporium, Newburgh, NY,
late June)
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key to ages on page 2260: about 20 yrs after orphanage;
12 yrs after Howard Johnson’s; Twyla’s 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 & servants—in “a neighborhood full of
doctors and IBM executives” (2259); 4 stepchildren
Historical Structure
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At roughly 30-32 (Picket-lines, Fall)
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Twyla, pro-bussing
Roberta, anti-bussing
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“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)
Historical Structure
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At roughly 30-32 (Picket lines, Fall)
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Twyla’s and Roberta’s identities are defined in
relation to one another: “Actually my sign didn’t
make sense without Roberta’s” (signs depend on
one another) (2264)
Later 30s (coffee shop, Christmas Eve);
Joseph in college (about 18)
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Reconciliation, but Maggie issue still unresolved
Historical Structure
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This story of doubles is suspended through
recent American history:
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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
Archetypal Structure
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Easter (2255), Christmas (2265)
Story of Maggie—a mute woman—also
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
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See 2254
“gar girls” (corruption of gargoyles, “the evil stone
faces” [2260]): associated with evil, like the
gargoyles of medieval Gothic cathedrals
Gargoyles, Notre Dame, Paris
The Significance of Maggie:
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Shifting memories/ shifting meanings:
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Maggie fell (2245)
Maggie didn’t fall, was knocked down (2261)
Twyla and Roberta both kicked Maggie, who
was black (2264)
Twyla didn’t kick Maggie, but wanted to
(associated Maggie with her mother) (2265)
Roberta didn’t kick Maggie, but wanted to
(associated Maggie with her own mother)
(2266)
Consumer Culture: name-brand products,
corporations, TV shows, pop icons:
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Klondike ice cream
bars
Tab
Yoo-Hoo
Chiclets
Elmer’s glue
IBM
A&P
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The Wizard of Oz
The Price Is Right
The Brady Bunch
Jimi Hendrix
Setting
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“Recitatif” takes place in impermanent, transient
settings. What effect or significance might this
feature of setting have?
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Orphanage
Howard Johnson’s
New shopping mall/parking lot
Picket lines
Coffee house
Conclusion
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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 another’s racial and
class “other”
They collaborate to reconstruct their shared past
and bridge their differences of class and race
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But what happened to Maggie?