The name
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. An obsolete sense of the term was also "the tone or rhythm peculiar to any language". Both of these definitions suggest the story's episodic nature. 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. The story's vignettes bring together the rhythms of the two main characters’, Roberta and Twyla, lives for five, short moments, all of them narrated in Twyla's voice. The story is, then, in several ways, Twyla's "Recitatif".
The story
"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. The beginning of the story took place in the 1950’s when Twyla and Roberta first met as eight year olds. This time period is most notable as the Jim Crow segregation era and the period in which the Civil Rights Movement was launched. 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. The next part of the story is set in the 1960’s. During this time, the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed the United States federal government, outlawing discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and nationality. 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. The last part of the story is set in the early 1980’s, which marked the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. During Reagan’s presidency, issues of race and prejudice were inflamed contributing to ongoing racial and social tensions.
Morrison’s short story was greatly influenced and shaped by these critical historical movements as they affected and determined the plot of the story and the relationship between Twyla and Roberta, the main characters of the story.
