Recitatif By L-Li Morrison Analysis

“Recitatif” is a story about Twyla and Roberta; two characters of different race that accidently meet every couple of years. From the onset of the story, Morrison introduces the story with a racist thought from Twyla, stablishing the story’s main topic is race. The story in general is to get the reader to contemplate on the significance of the story. She does this by never unveiling the race of either character. Instead she uses various social codes to help the reader identify the race of each character. Also, “Morrison has explored the experience and roles of black women in a racist and male dominated society. Besides revealing the hurt caused by racial discrimination and segregation to the black women, she has also described their inner psychological world twisted by the dominated white society” (Li-Li, WANG). Furthermore, Maggie is also another significant character. Twyla and Roberta detested Maggie and thought Maggie deserved all the hate and suffering. Most importantly, “Recitatif” is a “work exposing society’s unspoken racialized codes” (Stanley, Sandra Kumamoto). Therefore, the message Morrison is reflecting is the issue that lies in our society. In
In other words, whether we are black or white we tend to discriminate if it is not the norm of our society. Ironically, even though blacks are discriminated upon in the United States that does not mean only white people discriminate. Blacks discriminate too. Discrimination is not always about race but also towards other people who are different to the social norms. For example, Maggie in “Recitatif”, she is discriminated because of her disability. Therefore, “Recitatif” a type of literature that requires close judgement from the reading process: “promising wonderful opportunities for epiphanies that are no longer about a theme or character but about the reading process itself” (WANG