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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Morrison's style throughout "Recitatif" is simple and uncomplicated, likely to reflect her narrator's lack of formal education and her inability to move on from her childhood. She is developmentally stuck, and accordingly, she struggles to see the world in more abstract terms. The writing is sensory and doesn't frequently engage in theoretical ideas—this stylistic decision contributes to the sense that the world is unintelligible to Twyla in adulthood.
The narrator glosses over details that might be important to the reader (such as Roberta or Twyla's race) while also using rapid-fire images to paint vivid pictures of certain scenes. This fuzzy, montage style replicates and depicts Twyla's own sense of her memories. They are amorphous, frenetic vignettes that seem impenetrable and inaccessible. She often uses dialogue with no speech tags to further this impressionistic sense for the reader. It becomes intentionally confusing at times—who is speaking which line?
Twyla can't make perfect sense of her memories, and the story itself doesn't try to either. Every memory is full of holes, questions, and multiple interpretations—as is "Recitatif" as a whole. Morrison's style—which may appear plain at first—is actually a demonstration of the exact phenomenon the story is concerned with.
