Empoword

Part Two: Text Wrestling 177 Model Texts by Student Authors Maggie as the Focal Point 69 Shanna Greene Benjamin attempts to resolve Toni Morrison’s emphasis on Maggie in her short story “Recitatif”. While many previous scholars focus on racial codes, and “the black-and-white” story that establishes the racial binary, Benjamin goes ten steps further to show “the brilliance of Morrison’s experiment” (Benjamin 90). Benjamin argues that Maggie’s story which is described through Twyla’s and Roberta’s memories is the focal point of “Recitatif” where the two protagonists have a chance to rewrite “their conflicting versions of history” (Benjamin 91). More so, Maggie is the interstitial space where blacks and whites can engage, confront America’s racialized past, rewrite history, and move forward. Benjamin highlights that Maggie’s story is first introduced by Twyla, labeling her recollections as the “master narrative” (Benjamin 94). Although Maggie’s story is rebutted with Roberta’s memories, Twyla’s version “represent[s] the residual, racialized perspectives” stemming from America’s past (Benjamin 89). Since Maggie is a person with a disability her story inevitably becomes marginalized, and utilized by both Twyla and Roberta for their own self-fulfilling needs, “instead of mining a path toward the truth” (Benjamin 97). Maggie is the interstitial narrative, which Benjamin describes as a space where Twyla and Roberta, “who represent opposite ends of a racial binary”, can come together to heal (Benjamin 101). Benjamin also points out how Twyla remembers Maggie’s legs looking “like parentheses” and relates the shape of parentheses, ( ), to self-reflection (Morrison 141). Parentheses represent that inward gaze into oneself, and a space that needs to be filled with self-reflection in order for one to heal and grow. Twyla and Roberta create new narratives of Maggie throughout the story in order to make themselves feel better about their troubled past. According to Benjamin, Maggie’s “parenthetical body” is symbolically the interstitial space that “prompts self-reflection required to ignite healing” (Benjamin 102). Benjamin concludes that Morrison tries to get the readers to engage in America’s past by eliminating and taking up the space between the racial binary that Maggie represents.