Recitatif is one of Morrison’s stories (Goldstein-Shirley, 1996). The story narrates the experiences caused by racism. Morrison wrote this book to express her political views against racism through fictional writing. The place of the story is at St. Bonaventure, that is a children’s home. The story took place around 1960, when racial discrimination held its root in the USA. The story’s setting is relevant because it starts with the characters as children. The characters include Roberta and Twyla. The two main characters do not know their racial orientation since they are orphans brought up in an orphanage.
The second meeting of Twyla and Roberta is significant because they are old enough to know their racial differences, but friends are still friends (Goldstein-Shirley, 1996). Their third meeting is worst since it involves the introduction of racial discrimination. The third meeting occurs when there is intense racial hatred in Twyla’s town. The setting of the story matters a lot since USA’s history is full of matters of racial discrimination. The time of the story is also very appropriate since it portrays the time when there was intense discrimination of the African-American race in the USA.
The story is an example of postmodernism. The world has done a lot to fight racism and discrimination. Modernly, there are still cases of discrimination in the world. The story teaches against racism. Roberta is the protagonist of the story (Goldstein-Shirley, 1996). The author views Roberta as a racist person. She was not sympathetic since she failed to come to aid Twyla when she was attacked by protesters. Morrison uses Roberta’s unsympathetic nature to show the effects of racism on friends (Goldstein-Shirley, 1996).
References
Goldstein-Shirley, D. (1996). Race: Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif.” Journal of short stories in English, 27 (1), pp. 85-95