Recitatif is a short story by Toni Morrison that deals with two old best friends of different races who keep meeting at different points of their life. However, their meetings are always unique in the way the protagonists treat each other. Writers can use characterization techniques to make characters come to life. ‘Recitatif’ uses these techniques incredibly well to create complex characters with evolving personalities, individualize thinking, and qualities such as anti-hero. Twyla and Roberta are very complex characters, which Morrison portrays throughout the story. Readers get to watch the characters change with every interaction throughout the years.”We got along alright, Roberta and I.” (Morrison 133). This is the first interaction the characters have together, and it sets the baseline of their relationship. The next time these characters meet is in a diner where Twyla works. “She laughed then a private laugh that included the guys but only the guys” (Morrison 137). Even though they were best friends at the orphanage, Roberta had changed in those years apart and wasn’t as friendly to Twyla as she …show more content…
once was. Each situation following this also has a different atmosphere surrounding it. Some meetings are friendly, some are not. These changes in personality between the meetups mean that these two characters are round and dynamic characters, who change throughout a story. [Transition sentence] Both of these characters are highly individualized characters.
“ We were eight years old and got F’s all the time. Me because I couldn’t remember what I read or what the teacher said. Roberta because she couldn't read at all and didn’t even listen to the teacher.” (Morrison 132). Even though they both got similar grades, they both have their own unique story. They go their own ways in life, but they keep running into each other, weaving their life stories together. “‘My boy is being bussed too, and I don’t mind. Why should you?’” (Morrison 143). This also shows how they view things differently. Both of the major characters are in the same situation, their kids getting bussed to different schools, and they have very different reactions to it. They both take up picketing this situation, however they are on conflicting sides of the road and
issue. [Transition sentence] Both of the protagonists in ‘Recitatif’ have anti-hero qualities throughout the story. Neither of the characters are larger than life, and they are not perfect. In the story, Roberta claims that the groundskeeper was black and that both of the characters had kicked her. Twyla thought this wasn’t the case, but it causes her to question her past. “I really did think she was black. I didn't make that up. I really thought so. But now I can’t be sure. … And you were right. We didn’t kick her. It was the gar girls. Only them. But, well, I wanted to. I really wanted them to hurt her.” (Morrison 146). Roberta was so sure that Maggie was black, but she admits she could be wrong. She also states that while they never actually kicked Maggie, she wanted her to be hurt. A traditional hero would like to helpe the groundskeeper, but Roberta wants her to be hurt. That makes her an anti-hero since she differs from a traditional hero. [Transition sentence] Characterization of the characters is what truly makes the story good. Recitatif characterize these characters to have complex personalities, such as individualize thinking, evolving personalities, and made them have qualities which qualify them as an anti-hero. However, the possibilities are limitless.
Morrison uses juxtaposition to pinpoint the concrete differences between Twyla and Roberta. Twyla is “stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole different race” (Morrison 243). This clear contrast between Twyla and Roberta clearly signifies the initial hostility that Twyla has against Roberta, due to her being different from Twyla. But as time progresses, Twyla and Roberta eventually become friends as they are the only non-orphans in the shelter. When they are together, other kids in the shelter tease Roberta and Twyla by saying that they look “like salt and pepper” (244). Salt and pepper are a definite difference between Twyla and Roberta. Though they are different in a physical level, they both complement each other “like salt and pepper” and work together to perfect their recipe or relationship. If blacks and whites were to be together in harmony, they will perfect society as a whole by adding their combinations of ingredi...
What is a healthy confusion? Does the work produce a mix of feelings? Curiosity and interest? Pleasure and anxiety? One work comes to mind, Beloved. In the novel, Beloved, Morrison creates a healthy confusion in readers by including the stream of consciousness and developing Beloved as a character to support the theme “one’s past actions and memories may have a significant effect on their future actions”.
“We should all be together. Me, him and Beloved. Ma’am could stay or go off with Paul D if she wanted to. Unless Daddy wanted her himself, but I don’t think he would now, since she let Paul D in her bed. Grandma Baby said people look down on her because she had eight children with different men. Coloredpeople and whitepeople both look down on her for that. Slaves not supposed to have pleasurable feelings on their own; their bodies not supposed to be like that, but they have to have as many children as they can to please whoever owned them. Still, they were not suppose to have pleasure deep down” (241-242).
I decided to explore the effect that a white male audience has on the tone of a writer who primarily caters to a non-white audience when the speaker, subject, and context remain the same. I questioned how audience and purpose affect a text’s structure and content and found that by changing the audience, I was forced to go into descriptive detail to explain the oppression imposed upon African Americans to white men. By writing a speech, Toni Morrison’s serious and passionate tone towards both race and gender equity are not erased. I refer to the audience as “you” and bring up that they’re in a position of power to force a separation between Toni, an African American woman, and the audience, white men, because the point is not to establish a
Morrison, Toni. “Recitatif.” Elements of literature, 5th Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2007. 154-160.
While serving as an incredibly impactful piece of indirect characterization for Denver, there are many dynamics of this paragraph that I found intriguing. There are so countless powerful phrases within the short excerpt making it almost too difficult to decide where to begin. Nevertheless, I think beginning with my relation to the words is an acceptable starting spot. This girl is clearly hiding from the world that she fears, whether it be from personal experience or what her mother has taught her, she is afraid to face the world and attempts to take refuge in a secret room. This is so similar to all human being as running away from our problems or fears is a common instinct that, in fact, propels the dilemma to greater proportions. I know
The characters are some of the major parts of any narrative. The ways in which they have been developed to satisfy the ideological purpose of the story determines the direction that they take in achieving the roles and the aspects of the stories. Based on this information, the sole purpose of this paper is to determine the characterization of two of the characters in Recicitatif. The paper will develop and explain some of the key ways in which Toni Morrison has developed the characters to satisfy the ideological needs of the novel as well as the development of the major themes that have been portrayed in the novel. The identification of what the character is like through the direct and indirect methods and the ways in which they portray their
Morrison, Toni. “Recitatif.” Elements of literature, 5th Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2007. 154-160.
While other political authors dedicate their written word to a more exact version of rhetoric, very few writers can enchant lines that are both fascinating and politically energized in the same circumstances. Toni Morrison combines literature and diplomacies into a consolidated figure, that one can describe as a brilliant choreography of exposition. Specifically, Morrison dedicates most of her work toward the organization of oppression. Precisely, the topic of segregation that is placed on display within novels such as Sula and Love; where one is the tale of African-American accomplishment under the suffocating umbra of segregation while the other interjects an African American entrepreneur who derides the African American community and endeavors
Cruelty is the idea of gaining pleasures in harming others and back in 1873, many African American slaves suffered from this common ideology according Heather Andrea Williams of National Humanities Center Fello. Toni Morrison, an African American author who illustrates an opportunity for “readers to be kidnapped, thrown ruthlessly into an alien environment...without preparations or defense” (Morrison) in her award-winning novel Beloved as method to present how cruel slavery was for African Americans. In her fictional story, Beloved, Morrison explained the developement of an African American slave named Sethe who willingly murdered her own child to prevent it from experiencing the cruel fate of slavery. Nonetheless, Morrison
In Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel Beloved, the past lingers on. The novel reveals to readers the terrors of slavery and how even after slavery had ended, its legacy drove people to commit horrific actions. This truth demonstrates how the past stays with us, especially in the case of Sethe and Paul D. The story focuses on previous slaves Paul D and Sethe, as well as Sethe’s daughters Denver and Beloved, who are all troubled by the past. Although both Paul D and Sethe are now free they are chained to the unwanted memories of Sweet Home and those that precede their departure from it. The memories of the horrific past manifest themselves physically as Beloved, causing greater pains that are hard to leave behind and affect the present. In the scene soon after Beloved arrives at 124 Bluestone, Sethe's conversation with Paul D typifies Morrison’s theme of how the past is really the present as well. Morrison is able to show this theme of past and present as one through her metaphors and use of omniscient narration.
“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined” is a quote that from Toni Morrison’s book (225). Beloved that describes the basis of slavery in both books. The definers mentioned in the quote are white people and the defined are the slaves. The definitions can refer to anything from education to personality. Slaves had no option, no personality, and were not differentiated from other slaves. They were just a piece of property and not human beings. Each book talks about the horrors of the past of slavery and how it affects the future and the main characters. There was specific character in each book that represented the past. In Kindred it was Rufus and in Beloved it was Beloved. Both Rufus and Beloved played a huge part in the development of the major characters, as well as being a faithful reminder of the past. Kindred and Beloved used characters, such as Rufus and Beloved, and other elements to represent the horrors of the past; which drastically changed the main
In the 500 word passage reprinted below, from the fictional novel Beloved, Toni Morrison explains the pent-up anger and aggression of a man who is forced to keep a steady stance when in the presence of his white masters. She uses simple language to convey her message, yet it is forcefully projected. The tone is plaintively matter-of-fact; there is no dodging the issue or obscure allusions. Because of this, her work has an intensity unparalleled by more complex writing.
In Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, Morrison uses universal themes and characters that anyone can relate to today. Set in the 1800s, Beloved is about the destructive effects of American slavery. Most destructive in the novel, however, is the impact of slavery on the human soul. Morrison’s Beloved highlights how slavery contributes to the destruction of one’s identity by examining the importance of community solidarity, as well as the powers and limits of language during the 1860s.
In "The Necklace" and "Recitatif," class differences affect the ways in which the characters interact with one another. Nowhere in the story "Recitatif" is this more apparent than in the meeting between Roberta and Twyla's mothers at the orphanage. Twyla describes Roberta's mother as tall, prim, and proper. She adds, "on her chest was the biggest cross I'd ever seen..." (page 213). In direct contrast to this is the image of Twyla's mother, a woman who wears revealing pants and a ragged old jacket and curses in church. Roberta's mother clearly looks down upon Twyla's because she is of a lower class, as illustrated by her refusal to shake her hand. In "The Necklace," class differences between Mathilde and Mme. Forestier put an obvious restriction upon their relationship. By the end of the story, Mathilde becomes a member of the lower class - "the woman of impoverished households - strong and hard and rough..." (page 71). When the two ladies meet again in the last lines of the story, Mme. Forestier is "astonished to be addressed by this plain goodwife" (page 72). In a parallel event from "Recitatif," Roberta looks down upon Twyla when they meet in a Howard Johnson's. She sees Twyla in her "blue-and-white triangle" uniform, "[her] hair shapeless in a net," and "[her] ankle...