[5] Récitatif is the French form of recitative, a style of musical declamation that hovers between song and ordinary speech, particularly used for dialogic and narrative interludes during operas and oratories.
Each of the story's five sections happens in a register that is different from the respective ordinary lives of its two central characters, Roberta and Twyla.
"Recitatif" is set in three different time periods, in which racial tensions and African-American progressive movements peaked, contributing to a shift in culture in the United States.
Also, during this period, the Supreme Court delivered the ruling of the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, which effectively outlawed racial segregation in learning institutions.
As a result, protests erupted throughout the country in response to African American students enrolling in previously segregated schools.
Four years later, civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, leading to the expansion of the Civil Rights Movement, and ultimately, an extensive culture shift in the United States as prejudicial social standards were increasingly rejected and progressive politics were increasingly embraced.
During Reagan’s presidency, issues of race and prejudice were inflamed contributing to ongoing racial and social tensions.
Recitatif is told from the perspective of Twyla in the 1960s, during a period of her childhood when her mother was not able to properly take care of her.
They become allies against the "big girls on the second floor", whom they call "gar-girls" (a name they get from mishearing the word "gargoyle"), as well as against the home's "real orphans", the children whose parents have died.
They share a fascination with Maggie, the old, sandy-colored woman "with legs like parentheses" who works in the home's kitchen and is unable to speak.
The next time the two women meet, "racial strife" threatens Twyla's town of Newburgh, NY, in the form of busing.
Twyla realizes that her signs did not make any sense to an objective observer but she used them to rebut Roberta's take on the protest.
In the midst of their argument, Twyla and Roberta both emphasized the arbitrary nature of racial identity and both women's generally negative views regarding the other race.
In addition, Roberta states that Twyla kicked Maggie, who she called a "poor black lady", into a garden, displaying her racial prejudice.
The ambiguity of Maggie's racial identity is a key literary component of her puzzling significance within the story as it is used to show how race and prejudice is primarily an arbitrary social construction, which exists in reality because of prejudices and racial concepts that develop in people's minds.
As Twyla and Roberta's mothers are also essential characters in this story, they are the primary reason why the girls were put in the orphanage and they contributed to their bonding.
Although the girls encounter several racial barriers and tension, they ultimately find similarities within one another, developing their relationship beyond skin color.
Morrison's layered literary work depicts the parallel, complex relationship of Roberta and Twyla while simultaneously complicating the understanding of the story by the reader to challenge their racial perceptions and stereotypes.
Morrison's use of specific social and historical descriptions of the girls forces readers to reevaluate how racial preconceptions and stereotypical assumptions affect the overall understanding of a literary character.
In the story, similar to the theme of race, Morrison never explicitly states what Maggie's disability is, leaving the other characters to speculate and form their own conclusions about her.
The two girls test Maggie's hearing ability by calling her derogatory and stereotypical names such as "Bow legs" and "Dummy".
Ultimately, the girls feel ashamed as they later consider the possibility that Maggie may very well hear them and their offensive comments.
However, this does not prevent the girls from engaging in their biases and false assumptions later in the story, Twyla questions if "there was somebody in there", referring to Maggie's body.
Continuing the literary utilization of ambiguity, Morrison never explicitly reveals the diseases of either of the girls' mothers' illnesses.
Twyla also equated her mother to Maggie as she highlighted that both of their disabilities rendered them deaf, although it is unclear if they have a literal inability to hear sound.
In the story's opening, Twyla is introduced as an eight year old girl that was brought to an orphanage because her mother frequently neglected her.
However, throughout the story, Twyla's character develops into a more understanding and open-minded individual because of her friendship with Roberta and her experiences at the orphanage.