Twyla And Roberta's Friendship

1. Describe Twyla and Roberta’s friendship. What do they have in common and how are they different when they first become friends?
Twyla and Roberta’s friendship is one that happens due to both their mothers not being able to adequately care for their children. It is a friendship that happened by chance. To start, these two girls have a few things in common. They both have mothers that cannot take care of them so they end up at a shelter where they are eight years old, lonely, and scared. Also, they both were failing in their studies at St. Bonny’s and were ignored by everyone else in the orphanage. They were both ignored because they did not have parents who had died, but instead parents who didn’t take care of them. As well, they both
never secured a bed in their bedroom, but instead slept in a new bed each night. Lastly, the older girls taunted both of them. Contrastingly, there are differences between the two girls. The biggest difference was their skin color. Roberta is black while Twyla is white. Also, Roberta did not like the food that was provided at St. Bonny’s and Twyla did. Twyla did because her mother didn’t give her adequate meals when they were living together. There are differences between their mothers that are shown when visitation happens and Roberta’s mom has packed chicken, orange juice, and desserts, but Twyla’s mom brought nothing for them to eat. Roberta cannot read and Twyla can. Finally, the last difference is that Roberta leaves the orphanage earlier than Twyla, but ends up back there two more times as she gets older. This can represent the true instability of Robert’s mother. Overall, these are the differences and similarities between Roberta and Twyla.
2. What are the three times they meet as adults? How do social forces shape each of their lives and their relationship as they age? What does Twyla and Roberta’s disagreement re: school integration reveal about each of them? To start, the three times that Twyla and Roberta meet as adults are:
1) In Food Emporium
2) Outside the school when Roberta is picketing.
3) In the diner when it is snowing outside. Social forces shape each of their lives and their relationship as they age.
At the first time they meet, the two immediately inquire about each other’s lives and act as close friends. The social forces are that there is the two of them together without anyone else and they only know the situations that each other has faced in the past. In the second meeting, the social forces shape their lives so that they are hostile towards each other. The social forces are the different opinions on whether the schools should be integrated or not and the rights for families that are affected by this standing. Roberta wants the school to be integrated so her kids don’t have to go to a school out of the neighborhood while Twyla does not see the issue with her child going to an out of neighborhood school. In the third meeting, the social forces have allowed them to make peace with each other and have maturity. They understand what they have done wrong and how their lives are similar. Moving forward, the school integration disagreement reveals that Twyla does not understand the struggles that Roberta is facing. She gets angry with the women for picketing, but they are standing up for what they want and she does not get that. Also, it reveals that, at this point in time, they look at each other for their color of their skin and not for the hardships that both have faced or the fact that they are bonded by being mothers. All in all, these are the instances where their social understandings affect their
meetings.
3. Why is the incident with Maggie significant for both Twyla and Roberta? Why didn’t they help Maggie? The incident with Maggie was significant for both of them. It was significant for Roberta because she admits that on that day, Roberta wanted to kick Maggie because Maggie was brought up in an institution and Roberta was scared that’s where she would end up too. Roberta did not kick Maggie, but truly wanted to and equates that wanting with actually doing it. This causes her to tell Twyla, over the years, that Maggie was black and that they did kick her. This was not true though for Maggie was possibly black and the older girls kicked her; it was not Twyla or Roberta. The shame of wanting to kick her led to Roberta lying about what happened. For Twyla, the Maggie incident was significant because she knows that Twyla and Roberta didn’t help her when they should have. Also, Roberta’s rearranging of what happened caused Twyla to feel that they had truly done something wrong when the two girls hadn’t. Moving forward, the reason for not helping was that they were scared of the older girls. Also, Maggie was mute so they believed her to be crazy. This led to the girls believing she was not good enough of a person to need their help when she fell.