Recitatif By Toni Morrison

In the story, Recitatif, by Toni Morrison, the theme is to people should never do stuff that they’ll regret because it will stick with them for the rest of your life. In the story, when Twyla, the main character, goes out to lunch with her friend from her orphanage, they discuss a girl named Maggie. Maggie was deaf so people physically abused her. Twyla thinks that Maggie fell down on her own, but in reality “They knocked her down. Those girls pushed her down and tore her clothes. In the orchard.” Twyla was shocked by this revelation, she claims that, “[she didn’t], that’s not what happened.” This dialogue illustrates the repetition of Twyla not remembering any of the things that happened. This shows how much the experience is troubling her

Twyla is haunted by her old experiences because she’s now starting to doubt her own memories. If she wasn’t still troubled by the memory, then she would sound more confident to herself and wouldn’t be unsettled by the conflict that happened many years ago. Lastly, Twyla thinks back to what Roberta said earlier, Twyla makes up her mind that she “didn’t kick her; [she] didn’t join in with the gar girls and kick that lady, but [she] sure did want to. We watched and never tried to help. Maggie was my dancing mother. Deaf, [she] thought, and dumb.” In these sentences, the author uses comparisons to show the theme. Twyla is comparing Maggie to her mother because they both did nothing for themselves or someone else. This made Twyla feel anguish about her childhood. Through this comparison, Twyla is showing how much people regret doing stuff because of the effect it has on others in the future. Although Twyla didn’t do anything specifically, it shows how much people hurt others which causes trauma to the perpetrator after the fact. In the end, Twyla ultimately hates the stuff she had done in the past. It is clear it haunts her and teaches others to not the same terrible stuff she