Recitatif Toni Morrison Character Analysis

The diverse characters in the story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison gives a view of how stereotyping was back in the 1950s and how today it's still occurring. Twyla and Roberta both were sent to St. Bonny’s and they were the only orphans that had mothers. The girls in the beginning had a bond, they started to hang with each other very often also, they were teased by the older girls, and very alike they even had bad grades together. As time passed on, Roberta leaves and the girls contact faded away. Few years passed they later bump into each other, the first meeting was unpleasant, then seeing each other again couple more years later and talked about the truth about Maggie and that Maggie was black. Twyla doesn't believe the story about Maggie, and that cause tension between the women. After around Christmas years later the women meet again Roberta come out and says that Maggie was black and that Twyla didn't push her …show more content…
she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny”. (Morrison 239) Morrison doesn't mention which race is who but either way everyone has a different smell. then judgmentally fall between earlier when the moms meet at the orphanage and Roberta mom didn't want to stand in line with Twyla's dancing mother. In one of the occasions when Twyla and Roberta were talking and asked a question, Roberta replied "Oh,Twyla,you know how it was in those days:blacks-whites.You know how everything was" (Morrison 247).Twyla thought different she saw the blacks and whites are friends together.
Toni Morrison’s story was written in 1983.The story took place in between the 1950s through 1980s in New York. Back then, the blacks and whites weren’t getting along such as they do now and day. But still in 2017, we still have stereotypes about the different races. We can see through the characters that is why “Recitatif” is still relevant today because of the racism and being