Having been embedded into the very fabric of nearly every society since the dawn of humankind, racism has drastically shaped the lives of African American people. In her famous 1983 story, ‘Recitatif,” Tony Morrison examines the problem of racism through the lens of the complex relationships of two women in a vignette of their brief yet memorable encounters. Morrison utilizes the element of characterization and imagery of her characters in the story to portray the idea of internalized racism to the audience as it plays with the reader’s mind by being ambiguous about the characters’ race.
What makes Morrison’s approach to characterization particularly smart is her appeal to the reader’s inherent biases. Specifically, without naming the characters’ race, Morrison introduces characterizations often attributed to the African American race due to prejudices and racial stereotypes. Moreover, Morrison brilliantly avoids pinning the same stereotypical characterizations on one of the characters, sprinkling these traits between the two protagonists evenly instead. For instance, Roberta’s inability to read is an obvious reference to the offensive stereotype of African American people being illiterate: “And Roberta because she couldn’t read at all and didn’t even listen to the teacher” (Morrison 2). However, as a reader with implicit bias or internalized racism makes a mental note of Roberta being African American, Morrison introduces a range of characterizations of Twyla that can be seen as a stereotypical and even offensive portrayal of African American women.
Specifically, the author ascribes a range of descriptions that would be usually associated with a discriminatory and even offensive perspective on African American women. For instance, Twyla’s mother is portrayed as of lesser social status and with more questionable taste compared to Roberta’s more elegant and refined mother (Morrison 3). Peculiarly, the specified description is offered through the lens of Twyla herself, which could imply internalized racism of the leading character if the author stated her race explicitly: “She had on those green slacks I hated and hated even more now because didn’t she know we were going to chapel?” (Morrison 4). However, with no visible descriptors of either of the girls, readers are left with guesswork and their own internalized biases, making Morrison’s point regarding racial prejudices and stereotypes clear.
Remarkably, not all of these characteristics are inherently explicit. For instance, one of the less subtle hints at the racial background of each character is dropped as Morrison describes Roberta’s participation in a protest regarding integration: “What do you mean, ‘What for?’ They want to take my kids and send them out of the neighborhood. They don’t want to go” (Morrison 14). With Twyla being visibly upset and even offended at Roberta’s protest, the assumption that Twyla is of African American descent becomes especially probable. However, even with the specified incident, the nature of the protest and, therefore, the intentions of Roberta and the message that she was trying to convey are still left quite obscure.
By making it intentionally ambiguous which character belongs to which racial background, Morrison reaches the pinnacle of subtle characterization, introducing the concept of internalized racism to the reader. Though some of the situations in which the characters find themselves, particularly, the protest in which Roberta takes place as the protagonists become older, hint at their race, the nuanced portrayal of both Roberta and Twyla makes the reader question themselves throughout the entire novel. As a result, the book raises not only the problem of racism in American society but also the issue of internalized racism.
Work Cited
Morrison, Tony. Recitatif. Chandler Unified School District, 1983.