Race Twyla And Roberta In Recitatif By Toni Morrison

In the story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison, she introduces two characters that have been through similar situation in their lifetime, although the author states certain events in the characters lives, Morrison does not notify the reader on what race Twyla and Roberta are. One has to use context clues in order to figure out the character’s race and class. At first, one started to make assumptions on the races of the characters when the author stated that Twyla and Roberta look like salt and pepper next to each other. Therefore, I assumed either one was Caucasian and African American. As the story continues, Morrison states that Twyla lives in the suburbs, that is when I came to the conclusion that Twyla was African American, but the author added