b) at the strife. Discuss their encounter at the strife. The Strife was in the 60s when some were fighting against non-segregation. How does Morrison tease the reader by challenging our set ideas of culture differences?
When Twyla and Roberta meet again, it is against the backdrop of the racial tensions over busing and integration (see the “Other” section of this ClassicNote). The issues between the two women that were kept at bay or only simmered now break out into outright animosity. They come with distinct feelings on racial busing (though Twyla’s are less developed than Roberta’s), but they use this conflict mostly to poke at each other. They see the other as a member of another race, and the simple and tenuous ways they connected in childhood no longer suffice. Their friendship is, as Susan Morris notes, “mitigated and mediated by oppressive power relations that are highly visible and important even when race is radically destabilized (at least for the reader).” Twyla and Roberta struggle for autonomy but do so within a “matrix of domination” that means that even as they elevate their social class, they still face difficulties with societal dynamics regarding race and gender.
Recitatif
