New Criticism

Liza Long

New Criticism

Why Maggie

AMy stroud

In “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison, the two main characters Twyla and Roberta when first introduced do not initially enjoy each other’s company. Only when they both participate in the harassment of Maggie, the kitchen woman, do they form a friendship. While Maggie’s physical presence is only during the girl’s stay at the orphanage, her impact is felt throughout the story, being mentioned each time Twyla and Roberta meet throughout their life. With the purposefully placed mention of Maggie at the end, being cried out by Roberta, “When she took them away she really was crying. “Oh shit, Twyla. Shit, shit, shit. What the hell happened to Maggie?” (Morrison 20), it is clear Maggie’s role in this story is significant to Twyla’s and Roberta’s story. In “Recitatif” Morrison uses Maggie to represent the issues of discrimination and victimization while keeping the ethnicities of any characters discreet so readers can reflect on personal bias and connect with Twyla’s and Roberta’s inner turmoil with their past.

From the beginning, the intentional exclusion of specific racial identifiers for Twyla and Roberta is notable. When Twyla first meets Roberta she states, “It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning-it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race.” (Morrison 1) or “ I liked the way she understood things so fast. So for the moment it didn’t matter that we looked like salt and pepper standing there and that’s what the other kids called us sometimes.” (Morrison 1). While racial identifiers are never mentioned throughout the story, racial stereotypes are frequent, done purposefully to make the audience decide who is Black and who is white. In the beginning the racial stereotypes were unapologetic and purposeful:

Mary (Twyla’s mother) dropped to her knees and grabbed me, mashing the basket, the jelly beans, and the grass into her ratty fur jacket. “Twyla, baby. Twyla, baby!”… She was big. Bigger than any man and on her chest was the biggest cross I’d ever seen. I swear it was six inches long each way. And in the crook of her arm was the biggest Bible ever made. (Morrison 4-5).

In this example, the reader’s unconscious biases come to the forefront: Do they decide Twyla is Black because her mother is overreactive, or do they decide Roberta is Black because of her mother’s heavy stature and her pronounced religious presence? Both women portraying common African-American stereotypes that at first might seem to undermine the purpose of removing race but considering that Morrison’s purpose is to pull from known biases, the ambiguity is clearly intentional. Miehyeon mentions in her article “Sympathy and Indeterminacy in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”,” “the subject inaugurates its reflexivity and ethical agency in the context of an enabling and limiting field of constraints in relation to a set of imposed norms” (Miehyeon, section 1). The stereotypes being used need to be recognizable for the majority to understand what they are alluding to while encouraging the readers to question why those stereotypes, whether they believe in them or not, are being thought of. The removal of racial identifiers allows the readers to self-reflect on unconscious biases and stereotypes. However, this device limits the narrative in its discussion with its main themes discrimination and victimization. Maggie’s role within “Recitatif” reconciles these limitations.

Maggie is the only identifiable character in “Recitatif” whose physical traits are mentioned: “Maggie couldn’t talk. The kids said she had her tongue cut out, but I think she was just born that way: mute. She was old and sandy-colored… I just remember her legs like parentheses and how she rocked when she walked” (Morrison 2). She is ostracized by all the kids in the orphanage because of her disability, even by the main characters Twyla and Roberta. As Sandra Stanley states in her analysis “Maggie in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”: The Africanist Presence and Disability Studies,” “Disability studies shares with multicultural studies. Both draw from current theories emphasizing the multiple constructions of otherness and the exploration of often articulated, potentially oppressive social codes” (3). Maggie’s role can be interpreted to represents discrimination of ethnicity and disability, and the connection between the two allows Morrison to explore the complexities of discrimination has on the victim and the perpetrator through Maggie while allowing the audience to self-reflect on their unconscious biases through Twyla and Roberta. While Twyla and Roberta endure their own discrimination at the orphanage for being the only “orphans” with living mothers, Maggie is not a character they find commonality with. Rather, Twyla and Roberta join in on the discrimination against her: “”Let’s call her,” I said. And we did. “Dummy! Dummy!” She never turned her head “Bow legs! Bow legs!” Nothing. She just rocked on, the chin straps of her baby-boy hat swaying from side to side” (Morrison 3). A moment that originally united the girls ends up setting a course of personal reflection for both characters as they question the actions of their past. Perhaps this is done to reflect on the readers own self-reflection, being joined by Twyla and Roberta. This reflection creating a divide between Twyla and Roberta as they try to come to terms with their past.

Twyla’s path in self-reflection vastly differs from Roberta’s path as they question their actions. In the end, their reason is the same: Maggie reminded them of their own mothers. Twyla’s mother was never fully present in her life, even if she was around. Twyla’s description of her mother’s first appearance paints the reality of her relationship with her mother, “she smiled and waved like she was the little girl looking for her mother- not me” (Morrison 4) and “Mary would have kept it up-kept calling names if I hadn’t squeezed her hand as hard as I could. That helped a little, but she still twitched and crossed and uncrossed her legs all through service.” (Morrison 5). Twyla is forced into the role of being the adult in the relationship, managing her mom as if she was a toddler. This connects to the same reasons why Twyla hates Maggie: “Even for a mute, it was dumb-dressing like a kid and never saying anything at all” (Morrison 2). In Twyla’s eyes, Maggie is just as childish as her mother.

Maggie’s inability to speak also reflects the distant relationship between Twyla and her mother, Twyla never having the ability to communicate with her mother. This is revealed by Twyla herself in her last encounter with Roberta: “Maggie was my dancing mother. Deaf, I thought, and dumb. Nobody inside. Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night. Nobody who could tell you anything important that you could use. Rocking, dancing, swaying as she walked.” (Morrison 19). While Roberta also comes to the same conclusion, “I thought she was crazy. She’d been brought up in an institution like my mother was and like I thought I would be too.” (Morrison 19). When Roberta looked at Maggie and saw the reflection of her mother, perhaps she feared going down the same road as her mother. Maggie became a reminder of her potential fate. For her, it was easier to push the thoughts away from herself and blame Twyla by accusing her of being the girl to push Maggie down in the orchard instead of addressing her feelings against Maggie. For Twyla, she embraces her reason for disliking Maggie believing even though she didn’t physically injure Maggie, she wanted to, just as she wanted to hurt her mother every time she saw her: “All I could think of was that she (Twyla’s mother) really needed to be killed.” (Morrison 5).

“Recitatif” is a story of self-reflection and the exploration of discrimination. The readers go on their own journey of self-reflection on their unconscious biases and reflect on stereotypes. They are joined by Twyla and Roberta throughout the story as they reflect and struggle to face their past traumas, ostracization, and their treatment of Maggie. Maggie’s role is more complex than just symbolizing Twyla’s and Roberta’s mothers, she represents the struggles of discrimination and victimization due to societal codes that oppress ethnical and disabled communities in America. Maggie may be a minor character in the surface story, but her role in the reader’s journey of self-reflection and influence on Twyla’s and Roberta’s story is present throughout “Recitatif.” This is why Maggie role is important to Twyla’s and Roberta’s growth, giving them an avenue to face their childhood trauma.

Works Cited

Miehyeon, Kim. “Sympathy and Indeterminacy in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”” Oak, Feminist Studies in English Literature, Volume 23, Issue 1, April 2015, p133-166, https://oak.go.kr/central/journallist/journaldetail.do?article_seq=20110&tabname=mainText&resource_seq=-1&keywords=null

Morrison, Toni. “Recitatif.” 1983.The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine, shorter 9th ed., vol. II, W.W. Norton, 2017, pp. 1-20.

Stanley, Kumamoto Sandra. “Maggie in Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”: The Africanist Presence and Disability Studies” Oxford Journals, Oxford University Press, Vol. 36, No. 2, Summer 2011, p71-88, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23035281

Work Cited