... Maggie and Meaning in Toni Morrisons Recitatif B re t V o llm e r I n a 1983 interview with Claudia Tate, Toni Morrison confronts both reader subjectivity and opening her texts to that subjectivity. She explains that her language has to be quiet; it has to engage your participation...[it] has to have holes and spaces so that the reader can come into it. Morrisons short story Recitatif is remarkable for the deliberate gaps created by an absence of narrative resolution and the intentional holes Morrison leaves in her characterization of the protagonists Twyla and Roberta; although Morrison introduces the two girls-both left at an orphanage by their absentee mothers--with the suggestion that one is black and one is white, she never identifies which is which. Instead, Morrison engages reader participation and subjectivity in asking how we might locate characters identity in a story in which the coded language of racial difference has been erased. Morrison similarly demonstrates through the racially ambiguous character Maggie, that our fabricated notions of race exist only as categories of difference rather than as positive entities. In these ways, Recitatif asks how its characters and readers alike might negotiate questions of identity, history and trauma in the absence of false social binaries. Much in Recitatif resists deterministic reading. This foregrounding of reader subjectivity is perhaps most immediately apparent in Morrisons refusal to re- veal the race of the storys narrator Twyla or her counterpart Roberta. In her essay The Color Fetish, Morrison identifies Recitatif as her first attempt at this technique of racial erasure: rather than relying on the coded colorism that exists in American literature as the ultimate narrative shortcut, Morrison describes her choice to withhold racialized physical descriptions as an effort to annihilate and discredit the routine, easy, available color fetish. In place of rote references to complexion, Morrison employs a meticulously ambivalent system of class and social signifiers that, depending on reader subjectivity, can be read as indicating the protagonists race, but never definitively. True to Morrisons sociological commentary, the storys existing identifiers typically appear as symmetrically functioning codes...deconstruct[ing] the black / white binary to reveal the limitations of Americas rigid racial discourse (Benjamin 89). In short, efforts to parse the racial identities of Twyla, Roberta or later Maggie fall into the very conventional cliches of reading that the story has been so carefully crafted to challenge (Tally 104). Morrison goes on to explain that insofar as the technique of racial erasure exists in her novels, she theatricalize[s] the point by not only refusing to rest on racial signs but also alerting the reader to [her] strategy (Morrison, Color Fetish). In Recitatif, Morrison dramaINSIGHTS, SPRING 2020 1 Maggie and Me aning in Toni Morrison s Recitatif tizes the slippage of racial coding--and the foregrounding of reader subjectivity--via Twyla and Robertas respective reading of Maggie. Morrison demonstrates the limitations of relying on what she terms the discredited difference of race and disability through Twyla and Robertas competing, racialized readings of Maggie (Morrison, American Africanism 1674). Significantly, Twyla describes Maggie as old and sandy-colored which is the only racialized physical description of any character in the story (Morrison, Recitatif 2155). However, it is also a description marked by ambiguity: Maggie could potentially identify as black, white or of mixed heritage. Despite its indeterminacy, the independent nature of the descriptor sandy-colored also differentiates Maggie from Twyla and Roberta who have racial identity only through difference from one another, thus affirming Maggie as a positive entity existing in the space between binaries (Ioanes 118). Nevertheless, Twylas most comprehensive description of Maggie is also markedly insubstantial: she is the orphanages kitchen woman with legs like parentheses, a characterization that suggests Maggies initially parenthetical role in Twyla and Robertas story (Morrison, Recitatif 2154). As a figure of marginalization, Maggie is both represented and obscured by the metonym of her disability: as Twyla explains, I dont know if she was nice or not. I just remember her legs like parentheses and how she rocked when she walked (Morrison, Recitatif 2155). Maggies position as an object of Twylas memory reduces her to that which Twyla (and later Roberta) subjectively projects onto her--specifically, Maggies rocking which Twyla later admits to associating with her own absent, dancing mother (Morrison, Recitatif 2164). This acknowledged process of projection is crucial to interpreting Roberta and Twylas 2 INSIGHTS, SPRING 2020 racialized readings of Maggie amidst the school bussing debate. In reuniting as adults on opposite sides of the school desegregation debate, Twyla and Robertas competing, racialized readings of Maggie--a figure from their now-repressed childhood at the orphanage--overshadow the womens understanding of their shared trauma and their present disagreement over their childrens future. When Roberta believes Twyla has call[ed her] a bigot, Roberta shifts this charge back to Twyla by accusing Twyla of being the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady (Morrison, Recitatif 2163). This racialized description of Maggie is conspicuously contextualized as helping Roberta deflect Twylas accusation of racism--an accusation that Roberta infers but which Twyla never makes explicit. Similarly, Twyla reflexively overlooks Robertas accusation of violence, but is puzzled by [Roberta] telling [her] Maggie was black, concluding she actually couldnt be certain (Morrison, Recitatif 2164). In both instances, the protagonists racialized reading of Maggie subsumes more immediate questions of violence, guilt, repression and reconciliation. Not only does Twyla and Robertas puzzlement over Maggies race mirror the readers own possible insistence on identifying the race of the protagonists, it dramatizes the aggravat[ing]...tremor that breaks into discourse on race (Morris 173; Morrison, American Africanism 1676). The fact that the womens highly personalized fight manifests in the context of a picket line and the contest of signs...works as a self-referential moment, pointing us to the fact that the whole story is about reading signifiers (Morgenstern 819). That the question of Maggies race supersedes the question of Maggies trauma illustrates how the grammar of racial difference can obscure discussions of the underlying realities of subordination and violence. Twylas ten- Maggie and Me aning in Toni Morrison s Recitatif tative conclusion via negation--that Maggie wasnt pitch black...or [she] would have remembered--similarly affirms that such racial dichotomies mean only in relationship to one another, not as independent positive entities (Morrison, Recitatif 2164; Morgenstern 819). Twyla and Robertas eventual acceptance of Maggies racial ambiguity represents a newly-realized commitment to recover[ing Maggie] from the recesses of cultural memory, thus exposing the flawed ideological basis of that cultural memory--specifically the definition of identity via racial difference (Morrison, Recitatif 2165; Stanley 74). In a story in which the un-fixedness of racial binaries invite competing readings of identity markers, Morrison anticipates reader responses to Recitatif that prioritize determining the racial identities of its characters. Similarly, Twyla and Robertas oppositional reading of Maggies race dramatizes Morrisons strategy of highlighting reader subjectivity. However, Maggies association with ambiguity and trauma also places her at the unresolvable center of Recitatifs narrative. In addition to exposing the limitations of reifying discredited difference, Maggie embodies the narrative inconclusiveness that punctuates Recitatif. In this respect, Morrison forces the reader to confront the initial assumption that Maggie is parenthetical at all. Although she initially constitutes a spectral presence in Twylas narration, Maggies literal and figurative silence also demands critical interpretation from Twyla as she recalls that [t]he kids said [Maggie] had her tongue cut out, but I think she was just born that way: mute (Morris 171; Morrison, Recitatif 2154). Indeed, if Maggies limited characterization seems at first glance to indicate her objectification, Morrison continually reaffirms the need of her characters to fill in the gaps of [Maggies] minimally represented self (Sklar 151). To this end, Twyla as an adult narrator confronts the unsympathetic conclusions of her former self--that Maggies muteness also implied deafness--stating, I think we were wrong. I think [Maggie] could hear and didnt let on. And it shames me even now to think there was somebody in there after all who heard us call her those names and couldnt tell on us (Morrison, Recitatif 2155). In remembering her and Roberta calling Maggie dummy, Twyla instinctively recognizes the power of language to legitimate value for one group and to impose the role of social and corporeal inferiority on another (Stanley 78). Such reflection becomes increasingly central to Recitatif as the narrative and symbolic significance of Maggie becomes more and more apparent in each of Twyla and Robertas encounters where they continually restag[e] the repressed ideological and psychological interactions that occurred in the orchard (Stanley 80). Although Twyla is initially elliptical in referring to the trauma on the day...Maggie fell down, the subsequent investigation into Twyla and Robertas repression--the pitched battle between remembering and forgetting--emerges as the storys central narrative drive (Morrison, Recitatif 2155; Morrison, Carve Out). Through this process, Maggie comes into view not merely as a figure of marginalization or a site for projection, but as a a parenthetical element, a person really, who challenges the supposedly superfluous quality of the parenthesis itself (Benjamin 91). The consolidating, concluding question What the hell happened to Maggie? represents not only the unresolvable narrative gap at the heart of the story, but also a means of recovering personal memory and identity for the storys protagonists (Morrison, Recitatif 2164; Ioanes 118). The interrogative nature of What the hell happened to Maggie? provides a framework through which Twyla and RoINSIGHTS, SPRING 2020 3 berta learn to locate their past and present selves via a shared dialogue. In her speech Unspeakable Things Unspoken, Morrison describes the act of questioning as an egalitarianism that places us all (reader, the novels population, the narrators voice) on the same footing, and it is the question of Maggies trauma that puts Twyla, Roberta and the reader all on the same footing in considering a common past--even despite the distancing effects of race and diegesis. Even during their fight amidst the bussing debate, Twyla concedes that my sign didnt make sense without Robertas, thus confirming their mutual reliance to make meaning of their world (Morrison, Recitatif 2163). Despite the contentiousness of Twyla and Robertas adult encounters, it is only through the dialogic, the interaction, the taking of the time to address one another that the story of the exchange...represents our hope of discovering some space of possibility, of freedom (Busia 167). After their argument at the picket line, Twyla and Roberta reconvene to reflect on their shared experience at the orphanage: We were kids, Roberta. Yeah. Yeah. I know, just kids. Eight. Eight. And lonely. Scared too. (Morrison, Recitatif 2165) By locating the emotional reality of their past and current selves, Twyla and Robertas sustained dialogue illustrates the importance of investigating communal trauma even if the specific question, What the hell happened to Maggie? remains unanswered. Indeed, Recitatif emphasizes one of Morrisons primary themes, the assertion that shared emotional experiences, although often profoundly distorted by perceptions of difference, are the most accurate and solid foundation available for authen4 INSIGHTS, SPRING 2020 tic human connection (Gillespie 162). As a figure that exists in the space between distorting binaries, Maggie embodies a shared narrative that provides common ground for the protagonists to rewrite, even if they are unable to resolve their conflicting versions of history (Benjamin 91). In a story in which the language of racial difference has been erased, racially ambiguous Maggie embodies the elusive truth of a traumatic communal history. Morrisons adult protagonists initially suffer under the distancing influence of a reductive racial dichotomy by refusing to acknowledge their childhood connection and trauma. By learning to empathetically investigate Maggies silence and trauma--a violent event that links all three characters--rather than just her race, Twyla and Roberta eventually emerge as individuals defined by their shared experiences rather than their racial differences. Morrison makes clear that these are lessons not only for her characters, but also her readers; by withholding the grammar of racial contrast from her characterizations, Morrison exposes the more pressing realities of violence and social subordination. Similarly, the storys central yet irresolvable question, What the hell happened to Maggie? inspires Twyla and Roberta to overcome their repression through dialogue, thus providing an epistemic framework for a fractured society. In having her protagonists learn to negotiate identity through empathetic exchange rather than categories of difference, Morrison demonstrates the potential of recognizing our common vulnerability as a means of seeing past the distorting influence of false binaries. Maggie and Me aning in Toni Morrison s Recitatif WORKS CITED Benjamin, Shanna Greene. The Space that Race Creates: An Interstitial Analysis of Toni Morrisons Recitatif . Studies in American Fiction, vol. 40 no. 1, 2013, p. 87-106. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ saf.2013.0004. Burton, Zisca. Blooms How to Write About Toni Morrison. Edited by Harold Bloom, Blooms Literary Criticism, 2008. Campbell, W. John. Toni Morrison: Her Life and Works. The Wonderland Press, 2003. David, Ron. Toni Morrison Explained: A Readers Road Map to the Novels. Random House, 2000. Gillespie, Carmen. Critical Companion to Toni Morrison: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work. Facts on File, 2008. Ioanes, Anna. 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