Recitatif Toni Morrison Analysis

Viewing life through a lense that focuses on race and physical features, rather than one that looks deeper than the skin distracts you from seeing all someone or something has to offer. In the story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison, the author purposely tests the reader as to what lense they are viewing the story through by never revealing the race of any individual character. In the beginning of the story, when Big Bozo first introduced Twyla and Roberta, Twyla says, “My mother won’t like you putting me in here,” and, “we looked like salt and pepper standing there.” (204) Readers may often see this imagery provoking piece of dialogue as meaning Twyla is white. Readers often jump to this conclusion as it is a stereotype that, in earlier times when
It is about how detrimental biases of race and disability can be to a society. We know that the girls are of different skin color and we see in the story that this leads them to live completely different lives. The author communicates that, unfortunately, people do discriminate based on your appearance. In the diner when Roberta pretends to care little about Maggie, she later explains that her motive behind her rude, belittling attitude was that, “in those days: black--white… everything was.”(218) The bias stood between Twyla and Roberta’s friendship. Another bias that stood in the way of their friendship were those towards Maggie. Twyla would make fun of Maggie calling her “bow legs,” and, “dummy” (206) and both girls would watch her get beat up by the older kids and not do anything to stop it. At the diner, when they were trying to remember what had happened, they argued over Maggie’s race. Twyla didn’t want to have watched a black woman get kicked so she convinced herself that Maggie was white as if that was better, but when neither can remember what race she really was they realize that doesn’t