Recitatif

Use these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity. 

ACTIVITY 1: “Interludes”

Morrison’s short story “Recitatif” is titled with the French translation of “recitative,” an operatic interlude. Watch "Recitative vs. Aria and How to Tell the Difference" to identify the mood and tone associated with a recitative, or an interlude. Interludes are often overlooked in stories because readers are trained to look for the main events and climaxes in a narrative. Watch the composer Leonard Bernstein explain the importance of a recitative in propelling a story. Consider the importance of interludes to a human life and to a story. In groups, write, direct, and act out a script in which interludes feature as the prominent implication of theme instead of the main events.

• Use an organizer to think through situations in which the “in-between” is as important, if not more important, than the central conflicts.

Situation

Ex) A high school senior awaiting her college acceptance notifications comes home from school and checks her mailbox. In the mailbox there are two acceptances and three rejections from universities.

Central Conflict or Event

• The future awaits.
• The acceptances may be for colleges she is most hoping for, or the rejections may be from the colleges she is dreaming about.

Recitative(s)

• the bus ride home
• friends who have already heard from their college applications
• opening the mailbox
• opening the envelopes

Significance of the Recitative(s)

• tension inherent in major life decisions
• the stress of not being able to control a college’s decision
• the lesson of disappointment
• the issue of choice

• Choose one of your situations and write a skit that depicts the recitative as most important to the development of the character.

Teaching Suggestion: Focusing on recitatives is a different way of looking at a narrative and is possibly a type of reading analysis that students are unaccustomed to. It is not that the main events are not important, but sometimes character and human development happen in the moments in between the major life events. In titling her story “Recitatif,” Morrison is asking her reader to fill in the years between Roberta and Twyla’s chance encounters. The mystery of a recitative is crucial to the development of tension and characterization. While they may find this type of reading and analysis challenging, encourage students to think about their real world. What situations do students face that are heightened not by what happens but what happens while they’re waiting for the thing to happen?

Paired Text Extension:

Use the paired texts to provide students with more examples of the possibilities of the “interlude.”

• "Interlude: Paradisiaque" by JoAnna Novak. This poem is an abstract, stream-of-consciousness piece that uses moments of recitative or interlude to hide and highlight the central theme.
• "Barn Burning" by Haruki Murakami. This short story, published in The New Yorker, hides the secrets of psychological conflict between the lines of interludes. (Access to this short story may require a subscription.)