Memory and the Possibility of Reconciliation in "Recitatif" Anonymous College

As humans, we experience hardships, in some cases more drastic than others, over the course of our lives. Subconsciously, we may repress memories depending on the degree to which they physically and/ or emotionally damage us as means to best cope with the situation. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif” shares a story of two girls who found each other in an orphanage and, despite their racial difference, are able to form a bond established upon the nature of their mothers’ inability to take care of them. The young girls in this narrative are introduced to parallels of racism and stereotypes throughout their time in the orphanage to when they become young adults. Helane Adams Androne analyzes the protagonists’ involvement in traumatic mothering situations as revealing an absence/presence paradigm. From her take away, “characters heal from trauma only when they interrogate and confront the meaning of archetypal figures from their memories” (Androne, 133-134). However, the repression of memories beckons the question of whether confrontation can even occur following the manipulation of a memory. Memory is realized to be a misconstrued perception of not only what has happened in the past, but also provides a link to the present.

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