1. Author Presentation Andrea Burton

2. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.

3.  Biography

4.   Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, a small town populated with immigrant Europeans, Mexicans, and Southern blacks who lived next to each other.  She was the second of four children born to George, a welder, and Ramah, a homemaker.  The Wofford’s often shared songs and tales of Southern black folklore at home. Morrison later credited her parents with instilling in her a love of reading, music, and folklore. Early Years

5.   Toni was an excellent student and graduated with honors from Lorain High School in 1949.  She graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English, she then went on to Cornell University and received a master’s degree in 1955.  Toni Wofford then began her teaching career, and in 1957 returned to Howard University to teach English.  There she met her husband, Harold Morrison, with whom she would have two sons with before divorcing in 1964.  After the divorce, she moved to New York to work for Random House as a senior editor, where she edited works for such authors as Toni Cade Bambara and Gayl Jones. Early Years

6.   Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. It received warm reviews, but did not sell well.  It told the story of a young African-American girl who believes her incredibly difficult life would be better if only she had blue eyes.  Her next novel, Sula (1973), explores good and evil through the friendship of two women who grew up together and was nominated for the American Book Award. Literary Star

7.   Song of Solomon (1977) became the first work by an African-American author to be a featured selection in the book-of-the-month club since Native Son by Richard Wright. It followed the journey of a man as he searched the South for his roots.  Morrison was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 1980.  The following year, Tar Baby was published. Literary Star

8.   Her next work, Beloved, would prove to be one of her greatest masterpieces.  The main character is haunted by her decision to attempt to kill her children rather than return them to a life of slavery.  She won several literary awards for this work, including the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  The book was turned into a movie in 1998. Literary Star

9.   Toni Morrison was a professor at Princeton University until her retirement in 2006.  In 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was the eighth woman and the first African-American woman to do so.  In 1999, Morrison branched out to children’s literature. She worked with her son, Slade, on several books, including The Big Box, The Book of Mean People, and The Ant or the Grasshopper?.  She also explored other genres, including a play and composing lyrics for several songs and an opera. Branching Out

11.  “Recitatif” A “recitatif” is a vocal performance in which a narrative is not stated but sung.

12.   ‘‘Recitatif’’ is the only published short story by Toni Morrison.  It tells the story of the conflicted friendship between two girls—one black and one white—from the time they meet and bond at age eight while staying at an orphanage through their re-acquaintance as mothers on different sides of economic, political, and racial divides in upstate New York.  While Morrison typically writes about black communities from an inside perspective, she takes a different approach with this story. Recitatif

13.   It explores how the relationship between the two main characters is shaped by their racial difference. Morrison does not, however, disclose which character is white and which is black.  Rather than delving into the distinctive culture of African Americans, she illustrates how the divide between the races in American culture at large is dependent on blacks and whites defining themselves in opposition to one another.  Through her use of description, characterization, and language she explores how they can and do reinforce stereotypes in some American literature. Recitatif

14.   The issue of race and racism is central to the story. Twyla’s first response to rooming with Roberta at St. Bonny’s is to feel sick to her stomach. ‘‘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.’’  Throughout the story Twyla and Roberta’s friendship is inhibited by this sense of an uncrossable racial divide, played out against the background of national racial tensions, such as the busing crisis. Race & Racism

15.   The other aspect of this story, in addition to race and class, is power.  Sometimes people are powerful, and sometimes they are powerless. People with more power do not always treat those with less power very well.  Chain of power:  At the top is the Bozo, then the big girls, then the real orphans “with beautiful dead parents in the sky,” then the “dumped kids” like Roberta and Twyla, and finally Maggie, who is picked on even by Roberta and Twyla. Power

16.   The story opens with a description of St. Bonny’s where Twyla, the narrator, meets Roberta, the story’s other main character, when they are both eight years old.  Twyla recalls that her mother once told her that people of Roberta’s race smell funny, and she objects to being placed in a room with Roberta on the grounds that her mother wouldn’t approve.  Twyla, however, soon finds Roberta understanding and sympathetic to her situation because neither one of them have “beautiful dead parents in the sky”.  Twyla’s mother dances at night  Roberta’s mother is “sick” Recitatif Summary

17.   Roberta and Twyla are isolated from the other children at St. Bonny’s and are scared of the older girls, so they stick together.  Twyla remembers St. Bonny’s orchard in particular.  She recounts an incident in which Maggie, a mute woman who worked at St. Bonny’s kitchen, fell down in the orchard and the big girls laughed at her.  Twyla reports that she and Roberta did nothing to help her. They also called her names and she ignored them, perhaps because she was deaf.  Looking back, Twyla is ashamed. Recitatif Summary

18.   Twyla and Roberta’s mothers both come to visit one Sunday.  Twyla is embarrassed by Mary, her mother, because of her casual appearance, but also proud that she is so pretty.  When Roberta attempts to introduce her mother to Twyla and Mary, her mother refuses to address them or to shake Mary’s extended hand, presumably because of racial prejudice. Mary says “That bitch!” right there in the chapel and further embarrasses Twyla by groaning during the service.  Roberta’s mother wears a huge cross and carries a large Bible.  Not long after this, Roberta leaves St. Bonny’s. Recitatif Summary

19.   The next encounter is when the girls are approximately in their twenties.  Twyla is now a waitress, and Roberta comes in to the Howard Johnson’s where she works.  Roberta is with two men and tells Twyla that they are on their way to see Jimi Hendrix, but Twyla doesn’t know who Hendrix is. Roberta laughs and dismisses Twyla.  Twyla responds by asking about Roberta’s mother and cattily reports that her own is still “pretty as a picture.” Roberta leaves without saying goodbye. Recitatif Summary

20.   Tywla’s narration picks up again when she is married. She describes her home, husband, and family life.  Twyla goes one day to shop at a gourmet supermarket. There she runs into Roberta, now married to a wealthy executive, for the first time since their hostile encounter at Howard Johnson’s.  Roberta greets Twyla warmly and asks her to a coffee. They laugh and the tension between them seems to dissolve.  As they are reminiscing, the incident with Maggie comes up. Roberta claims that Maggie didn’t fall down in the orchard, but that the big girls had knocked her down.  This is not what Twyla remembers and she starts to feel uncomfortable.  She asks Roberta about their encounter at Howard Johnson’s and Roberta answers, “Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white.” They part ways, promising to keep in touch. Recitatif Summary

21.   That fall racial tension descends on Newburgh as a result of busing, instituted to ensure integration in the schools.  Twyla’s son Joseph is one of the children who has to take a bus to a school in a different area. Twyla is driving near the school Joseph will attend and sees Roberta picketing against busing.  Twyla stops and they discuss the issue. They argue and soon the group of picketers surrounds Twyla’s car and start rocking it; Twyla reaches out to Roberta for help, but Roberta does nothing. Police finally come to Twyla’s aid.  Just before she pulls away, Roberta approaches her and calls her “the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground.” Twyla responds that Maggie wasn’t black and that Roberta is a liar. Roberta responds that she is the liar and that they had both kicked Maggie. Recitatif Summary

22.   Twyla begins to stand on a picket line holding up slogans that respond directly to Roberta’s.  Over the course of the six weeks that the schools are closed due to the controversy, Twyla’s signs become more personal, in response to the ones that Roberta is holding up. Recitatif Summary

23.  Picket Signs Roberta  Mother’s have rights too! Twyla  And so do children *****  How would you know?  Is your mother well?

24.   Twyla and Roberta have no interactions for what appears to be several years, since Joseph has graduated, but Twyla remains preoccupied with what Roberta said about Maggie.  She knows that she didn’t kick her, but she is perplexed about the question of whether the “sandy-colored” woman might have been black.  One night she runs into Roberta, who is coming out of an elegant party at a downtown hotel. She approaches Twyla and says she has something she has to tell her.  She admits that they had never kicked Maggie but says that she really did think that she was black.  She confesses to having wanted to kick her and “wanting to is doing it.”  Roberta’s eyes fill up with tears. Twyla thanks her and tells her, “My mother, she never did stop dancing.” Roberta answers that hers never got well and begins to cry hard, asking “What the hell happened to Maggie?” Recitatif Summary

25. “If you want to fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” Toni Morrison