Recitatif By Toni Morrison: Character Analysis

In Toni Morrison's "Recitatif", Morrison decides to withold the racial identity of her characters to show the struggle of two girls who connected when they were younger despite their racial differences in an era where it is such a huge ordeal to most others. Throughout the story Twyla is characterized as one of the two orphan's who "weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky," (Morrison 201) and Roberta is the only other that understands her struggles because her mother is sick, and Twyla's likes to "dance all night." (Morrison 201) Maggie is an older, disabled lady that works at the orphanage who doesn't speak because she is mute. She also wears a "dumb, kid's hat with ear flaps," (Morrison 202) as Twyla would describe her.