Race and Racism
Racism plays a very important role in this story, as Roberta and Twyla are of different races. When they are young, they think little of it, but they learn from their mothers what it means to discriminate. As they get older, they dislike each other more for who they are, and they find it hard to feel sympathy for other races when they are neglected. In the final encounter that they have with each other, they begin to move to an understanding of who they are in relation to each other (with Maggie as the conduit). Morrison also asks her readers to think about race and what the internalized cues they have regarding which character is white and which is black.
Youth and Innocence
Twyla and Roberta meet each other when they are just little girls in a state home for children without mothers who can take proper care of them. At this point, the children are quite innocent, and the only conflicts they have are silly ones. They see right past the other's race, only learning what it means to discriminate from the older generations. As the story goes on, we see how each of them loses their youth, their innocence, and their ability to accept everyone as equals.
Memory
Memory is not only a site of relived trauma but also an act of coming to terms with one's pain and failings in order to move forward and become a better person. The girls engage in memory retrieval and analysis to connect with each other, but sticking to simple things like Easter baskets and the older girls isn't possible: they always end up veering into the more challenging memories of their time at St. Bonny's, opening up old wounds and, in Twyla's case, locating sites of absence and suppression. Engaging with memory means confronting their complicity in cruelty and in the ways in which they displaced their own pain. By finally confronting memories head-on, they are hopefully able to begin to heal and atone.
Mothers and Daughters
Morrison probes the fraught nature of mother-daughter relationships. We don't learn anything specific about Roberta's mother or Mary, but neither of them fits into society's expectations of what a mother is and should be. They neglect their daughters and send them to a state home when they cannot take care of them. This adversely affects the girls, who grow up hating their mothers, bemoaning their absence, and looking for ways (and people on whom) to excise their pain and loneliness.
