DISCUSSING RACE THROUGH TRICKSTER:

A Study of Toni Morrison’s ‘Recitatif’

HANDS UP! NOW GIVE ME THE RACE

The dialectics of race involve the notion of self through the notion of the other.

Determined by arbitrary choice of the dominant race, racial codes lose their

significance and function. Toni Morrison’s short story ‘Recitatif’reveals the lack and

relativity of racial codes through a trick dwelling on the plot. Myth of trickster centers

on the childish naivity and the cunning ambiguity in the presentation of characters as

well as the simple tone of the story. Conveying her message within no utterance,

seeking the truth for the sake of clarifying, Morrison actualizes the myth of trickster.

Starting the story with references to the race issue, Morrison pretends to donate

both the characters and the reader with the notion of race. Never revealing races of

two major characters while at the same time implying the existence of race issue

Morrison gradually robs both races of all codes. Through the trick in her story

‘Recitatif’ Morrison calls the reader to reconsider his/her own reading of racial codes

and prejudices. The question of ‘Who is dirty according to whom, in turn who is black

and who is white’ functions as both the major problem the story deals with and the

minor detail the reader is void of ever learning.

Beneath the narrative level of the story lies the myth of the trickster playing the

fool technically . For the sake of childish innocence, the characters try to ignore the

racial problem, and wear their masks. As both characters and the narrator know their

own races but never reveal once, trickster keeps on playing the fool. That Morrison

breaks the ‘response’ to the black tradition ignoring reader’s expectations from a black

author, indicates trick even in authorial layer. A pioneer of race studies, Henry Louis

Gates would have considered Morrison ‘the postmodern version of the trickster’ as

she gives a message about race presenting a complicated nothingness and void through

a fake simplicity.

In ‘Recitatif’ Morrison robs the characters and the reader of the racial codes and

signs, finally leaves them at the heart of race discussions. In turn playing the

trickster, Morrison brings the arbitrariness of race issue into question. Questioning

his/her previous judgements and associations about race, the reader ends up void,

robbed and naked as in all postmodern works. The carpet under the reader’s feet is

taken away and behind his mask, the trickster keeps on laughing at the expected fall

of the reader. Through ‘Recitatif’ Morrison urges the reader ‘hands up!’ and takes all

codes of race away.