Reimagining Canonical African American Literature: Racial Formation in Toni Morrison's "Recitatif"

Abstract

This thesis explores Toni Morrison's only published short story, "Recitatif" (1983). "Recitatif" follows the lives of two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who meet in an orphanage at 8 years old. Early in the narrative, Morrison unveils that one of these characters is white and the other is Black, but withholds which character occupies which racial identity for the entirety of the story. Through this removal of racial codes, Morrison establishes interpersonal, intergenerational, and interracial relationships as sites for racial formation. Despite its apparent absence, race functions as a vehicle through which a narrative-long, dynamic negotiation of identities occurs. In this way, despite the fact that "Recitatif" has received relatively less attention and recognition than Morrison's other works, the short story functions as a revolutionary work of African American literature that consciously draws on African American literary tradition through its astute engagement with the relationship between language and race – the limitations of language when it comes to qualifying the master category of race.

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