You can’t separate the skin from the reader…
Vanessa G. Valente Response to “Recitatif”
What influence does one’s color and culture have on the way a text is to be analyzed? Clearly the reader brings to the table a plethora of preconceived notions which shape the way the text comes to life for them. Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif,” with its ambiguous protagonists calls on social constructs to assign color. Ultimately the reader, with all his or her own loaded images, is left to decide which color fits which character.
When I read this story, I saw Twyla as white. Just as Elizabeth Abel delineates the evidence for Twyla’s whiteness, so too does she support this idea. “Twyla’s sense of social and physical inadequacy vis-à-vis Roberta, like her representation of her mother’s inferiority to Roberta’s, signaled Twyla’s whiteness to me by articulating a white woman’s fantasy (my own) about black women’s potency. (829) This notion comes from Abel’s own fantasies that she reads the story with. I brought my own experience as I read. When Twyla says she thought her mother would be mad about her rooming with Roberta (88), I interpreted that to be some sort of white superiority. Maybe I read it that way because I am white and that’s all I have ever known. I didn’t grow up hearing black people think that they were better than whites. I suppose another reader might assume something else, depending on what they’d been exposed to in their own life. Where you are reading the text may also inadvertently affect the who, what, where, how and why you read in a particular text.
What really seems so thought provoking about reading “Recitatif” is that it calls on preconceptions on so many levels. As Abel alludes to in her article, the stereotypes we call on are at a subconscious level. (828) What do we assume about clothing? Who do we envision wearing tight green pants? Who wears a larger than life crucifix and who doesn’t? What about looks and smells? Are they important clues? Roberta couldn’t read in this story. Should the reader use that fact to assign her a race? Which of the parents would be a “dancer” and whose would be mentally ill? Which of the girls do we envision wearing pink scalloped socks? Morrison’s story is oh so clever, but equally disturbing. She doesn’t have to tell us which one is which- our own lives do it for us. How can a reader come across any text at all and see it as a clean slate? It’s really an impossible feat.
When Elizabeth Abel dissects black feminist Lula Fragd’s interpretive reading of “Recitatif,” it is an equally viable analysis. Fragd envisions Twyla black and Roberta white. Abel concedes “even in her evading of this first half of the story, Lula’s interpretation differed from mine by emphasizing cultural practices more historically nuanced than my categorical distinctions in body types, degrees of social cool, or modes of mothering.” (829) So what does this signify? Two equally skilled critics were able to approach the same text through two completely different lenses. The greater ramification is that no two readers will ever see a work in the exact same light. What a reader brings in their reading is a large stuffed valise, enveloping all the ideas and beliefs their past has brought their way. Ultimately it is up to the individual how he or she sees to it to unpack that luggage. Race will undoubtedly be of significance.
March 26, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. When reading “Recitatif,” each reader will draw from their own experiences to relate to whichever character. i don like to think of myself as one who will stereotype, but when reading the short story and your essay, I’ve realized that I too assumed that Twyla was black and Roberta as white, and it must be from the ” subconscious level” you talked about.
However, I don’t think we’ll ever figure out whose who, and I believe that Morrison intended it to be that way. She wanted us to bring to the surface this subconscious stereotyping, which I thought never existed within me, but was I wrong to categorized Roberta as white and Twyla as black through the descriptions Morrison gives us.
Good job on the essay!
March 26, 2009 at 7:08 pm
What is ironic about when I read your essay is that it is so similar to mine — but we have a different opinion on the race of the girls. It is in fact quite difficult to approach a text and leave all preconceived notions of what you have read in the past behind. I certainly found it challenging the second time that I read “Recitatif.” But, I also think that is Morrison’s primary point: to make reader’s question the way they approach the text.
In that sense, I agree with Professor Weingarten, “Recitatif” does appear to be written for the reader to analyze the way in which we go about reading. Good job.
March 28, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Naturally, in order to really become apart of a piece of literature, the reader will use his/her own experiences from their lives in order to connect with the characters from the stories. So, when reading a short story like “Recitatif,” the reader will draw to themselves in order to understand the protagonists, Twyla and Roberta. I, as well, am not by any means one who stereotypes groups. However, I did find myself, as others, assuming Twyla was black. But I don’t agree with the whole “subconsious” theory. If it was being done subsciously, we wouldn’t be discussing this now because we would not be aware of it!
It does seem rational that Toni Morrison intentially did this so that the reader CAN be aware of the sterotpying. However, it may be thinking too much into it. As readers, we can only label to what is given to us. Morrison’s descriptions are a bit tricky at times. In the beginning of the story, it was hard to differieniate who was black and who was white. I think this was done intentionally to confuse the reader.
March 31, 2009 at 5:04 am
In Recitatif, Morrison basically leaves deciding the race of the two girls to the reader. Your argument that your perception of race stems from personal experience seems to be completely accurate. I found my assumptions completely baseless and my evidence proved to be basically my opinion. The idea certainly stems from a conditioning we have from living in our society. Certainly this conditioning can be seen as stereotyping, yet I don’t think it should be held in a negative context. I think its human nature to assume things based on names and personalities etc… I feel like Morrison gives enough evidence to argue the case each way and wants to basically leave it ambiguous. It’s pretty much impossible to give firm evidence either way. I think the way you worded your ideas was pretty clever especially how you described our own lives decide the race of the girls. I also agree with your argument that it is pretty much impossible to suppress any sort of societal conditioning.
April 2, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Toni Morrison’s short story Recitatif is brilliantly and cleverly written. She never reveals the true identity of Twyla and Roberta. Morrison’s ability to remove all racial codes from the story is brilliant. Each reader is forced to go through their own process of interpreting the identities of the two girls. I appreciate how you constructed your essay, but our opinions differ in the race of the girls. I remained loyal to my opinion that Twyla was black, and Roberta was white, from the beginning to the end of the story.
I think that Morrison’s aim is to show us how our own experiences shape how we read. In doing so, I formed my own opinion about the Twyla and Roberta’s identity.
May 1, 2009 at 12:48 am
One of the things that stood out most about “Recitatif” to me, was how important the reader’s personal thoughts, history, and beliefs were. Considering the length of time spent in class discussing the post-structuralist view and how it was near impossible for readers to take the text “as is”, I found it interesting that Morrison put this idea to the test. One can read the story as is, sure, but that leaves too many unanswered questions. However, even when the reader thinks they’ve figured it out– there’s no way of knowing for sure.
I think your essay hit the nail on the head, when it talks about being forced to question the way we read, and why we read that way.
May 13, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I certainly see your point of readers interpreting a text differently because of personal experiences and ideas. I think this also puts in a bit of a laugh for Morrison, because she knows that we, as readers, construe images differently and we place our preconceived notions onto what we read in the story. Regardless of whether Twyla is white or black, the matter of the fact remains that the preoccupation of skin color goes way back into a deeper and more troublesome psychological issue that we have not been able to resolve. The interesting fluidity in which a reader can interpret Twyla’s skin color puts this issue to test – how much are we willing to give in to our own prejudices and how much do we want to know the truth of her character? Essentially, whenever we read, would we be reading what is on the page or reading what we want to read on the page.
May 18, 2009 at 12:10 am
I completely agree that the ambiguity with which Morrison assigns race to her characters is cleverly disturbing and disturbingly clever. In fact, in my first reading I was so certain of which character belonged to which race that it was not until three-quarters of the way through the story that I realized that Morrison had never actually given us any definite answer. Though we may like to believe that we live above the stereotypes our culture and society purport, none of us are free of the experiences that shape our understanding of racial classifications. Our own individual readings of “Recitatif” expose our preconceived notions, leave us (or at least it left me) slightly ashamed, and proves the concept that the author dies the minute he/she produces a work of literature.
But, in this case, the author is not dead. After reading Abel’s article, I was not only disappointed that Abel succumbed to the temptation to ask Morrison to clarify Twyla’s and Roberta’s racial identification, but even more saddened by the fact that Morrison actually answered. With this work, ignorance is truly bliss. Now that I know that Morrison did envision a specific character as black and one as white, the narrative suddenly feels so heavily constructed. In answering Abel’s question, Morrison exposed the seams of her story, and instead I now read the story in order to find the racial classifications that Morrison employed in describing Twyla and Roberta instead of appreciating the beautiful ambiguity that so impressed me in my first reading.