Recitatif Textual Analysis
In the short story, “Recitatif,” Toni Morrison uses being an outcast and unwanted as one
of her characterization for characters throughout the narrative. That follows throughout the story
including the insight of each character and how they deal with being an outcast. The story first
introduces Twyla and Roberta who are two different races and in the beginning do not like each
other but as the story goes on they become major outcast because they are not declared "true
orphans" by the older girls at the orphanage. The older girls are also some sort of outcast being
that they put on tough faces. Although children are the main focus at St.Bonny's, Maggie, the
racially disabled women who works in the kitchen, is also an outcast and unable to respond
because she is deaf and mute but later on becomes a main focus in the story. The characters face
their own episodes of being outcast.
Early in the story, Morrison starts the story off with the narrator, Twyla, speaking about
her first day at the St.Bonny’s orphanage. She ended up there as a result of her mother enjoying
to dance all night or in other terms was an exotic dancer and was unable to focus on Twyla. On
Twyla’s first day she is introduced to her roommate Roberta who was also “dumped” by her
mother who was sick as the narrator tells it. During their first encounter the two girls are not to
fond of each other because they are different races and were told disgusting things from each of
their mothers about the other race. In this section of the story Morrison introduces the concept of
race and in comparison is a form of being outcasted