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Katarina Börjeson Martins Literature and Culture English A, Fall 2018 Charlott Neuhauser 2018-11-05

THE SYMBOLISM AND IMPORTANCE OF "MAGGIE" IN TONI MORRISON'S "RECITATIF"

Memory is something that can change overtime. There can be different reasons, different situations where something can be repressed in one's memory, or looked at differently. One reason could be to protect oneself from hard feelings like shame or guilt over something one has done or not done. We can change our memories depending how we feel about them, and wish how they could be different or not exist at all. In the story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison there are two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who have different memories of Maggie, a worker in the orphanage "St. Bonny's" where the girls grew up together. Maggie is introduced as a minor character but comes later on to take an important significance in the story. She is connected to all of the story's characters and is brought up various times, including the ending. She is the last person the reader is left to wonder and think about. There are different memories about her and it's unclear how she was as a person and what exactly happened to her. This is why I believe she is the most important character and symbol in the story. Twyla (the narrator) initially describes Maggie as "the kitchen woman with legs like parentheses" (Norton, Morrison, 240). The children at St. Bonny's claim Maggie's tongue was cut out, but Twyla believes she was born mute. Twyla also describes her as old and "sandycolored". She and her friend Roberta bullied Maggie by calling her “dummy!” and “bow legs!” (240). They don't get any response and Twyla is feels later guilty that Maggie heard them calling her all those names. Twyla also fixates/obsesses over the hat that Maggie wears. Through the events in the story it becomes clear that the girls have an angry attitude toward

Maggie, which is based on the fact that she represents their mothers. Her physical disability and way of walking reminds of Mary's (Twyla's mother) "dancing all night". Maggie in a way symbolizes the girls' vulnerability. Twyla and Roberta develop new and different aspects and memories throughout the story and disagree on what actually happened with Maggie in the orphanage. Roberta claims that both of them knocked Maggie down together with the other girls in the orchard. She also claims that Maggie is black. Twyla contradicts all of it. The two girls are forced to confront the fact that even if they didn't actually hurt Maggie, they wanted to. Roberta confesses to this saying toward the ending of the story "It was just that I wanted to do it so bad that day wanting to is doing it". (Norton, Morrison, 251). The uncertainty of Maggie’s race and Twyla's and Roberta's wish to stay far from Maggie's helplessness symbolizes their own intricate relationship with race. The short-story ends with Roberta sobbing, "What the hell happened to Maggie?" (Norton, Morrison, 252). This question can refer to different things; what they actually did to Maggie; what happened after they left the orphanage; what made Maggie mute; what happened to the girls' mothers... it depends how you look at the question. It is important to understand the significance of the question, how it mostly focuses on Twyla's and Roberta's disability to remember Maggie as a person and to acknowledge what she went through. The purpose of ending the story this way is to give the reader a strong impression and an afterthought. Why did the girls not remember, or why did their memory change over time? What made them not feel sure about anything concerning Maggie? In conclusion, Maggie is the most important character and symbol in Toni Morrison's short-story, who brought together Roberta and Twyla, two different girls from different families with different skin colors. Maggie basically created their friendship, they bonded through her and had a connection to the way they felt about her during the time they spent at

the orphanage. Their difficulty in remember exactly what happened to her shows the importance of the character in the story. There is usually a bigger reason to why a memory is repressed, or why two people that have been through the same things have different memories of an event or a person. In this case, it concerns the way the girls treated/ wanted to treat Maggie and how they go through a hard time realizing and confessing it....