Recitatif Essay Questions

Why does the author start out the story with Twyla and Roberta as children? Why are they at a state home, rather than at a normal house—and how does this origin story inform the broader narrative?

At the beginning of the book, we see both Twyla and Roberta as innocent children of opposite races. Their youth plays an important role in the story: it shows what people should act like, not discriminating against others. Both of the girls are at a state home because their mothers could not provide proper care for them, and the fact that they are there instead of somewhere else plays a huge role in the story. For one, they meet Maggie, who is most likely black. She is disabled and cannot talk, and she is a target of mockery for all the girls at the home. Later in the story, we see that Maggie is a text that Twyla and Roberta "write" in order to engage with their own complicated understanding of who they are and what their relationships with their mothers are.

Why is the story divided into "encounters" instead of chapters or no divisions at all?

Recitatif is divided into encounters, showing the girls at different times and different ages. Each encounter is unique, and it shows what age can do to a person. When they are young, the girls are great friends. When they are teenagers, they don't like how the other is living and find that their different races and social circumstances matter to them. When they are married, they are able to feel more comfortable with the other. When they get older and cannot escape the political/racial turmoil of the day, they cannot easily relate to each other. This method of storytelling gives the reader a more accurate description of the time that has passed: the girls didn't really keep in touch with each other although they wanted to; the bonds of girlhood and shared childhood trauma are strong, but the rest of the world intrudes upon those bonds and complicates them.

What is the narrative effect of the reader never being outright told which character is black and which character is white?

Morrison wants her readers to understand the primacy of race but also the fallacies it engenders. Readers will endeavor to figure out who's which race using stereotypes and implicit biases, but Morrison ultimately frustrates those readings. She asks her readers to consider how arbitrary these codes are and the fact that they are inventions that perpetuate white supremacy and division of the races. She doesn't say that race is unimportant—it clearly is for these characters, and for real people throughout history—but that we must inspect the origins of our assumptions in order to eradicate harm and cruelty.