Recitatif

Though this is a short story, Morrison still demonstrates her great ability to describe characters without really forcing a racial view of the characters.  This allows the reader to decipher the situation based on their personal experience, assumptions, etc.  One teacher noted that in her many years teaching high schoolers, her students predominantly focused on the racial status of the main characters instead of other situations in the story. 

One example is how one situation remained in the two girls thoughts from the time it happened into their adulthood.  They try to determine reality compared to memory and which is more accurate. 

How these girls interact with each other and those around them, what happens to them as they grow older, and how that alters their opinion of each other when they reconnect.  This is very relate-able because people transition from human stage to the next, individuals change within themselves and how they respond to others.

Home

As usual, Morrison uses the past that some would like to forget or ignore as inspiration for her book.  This time she doesn't out right tell the readers the racial backgrounds of the characters.  Instead, as it is read, the readers take note of clues based on their knowledge of historical context.  This demonstrates what is common knowledge and how much it is embedded into the culture.

She also brought attention to eugenics.  Though been around a lot, in the 20th century, more experiments were being done without people's knowledge.  The most well-known is the Tuskegee Experiment where the government was helping poor African Americans who had ciphilos.  Instead, they chose not to treat everyone so that they could discover the full affects of the disease.

A Mercy

Once again, Morrison uses accurate historical context for your inspiration.  She goes back to early colonialism as the backdrop for this book.  Instead of focusing on just the African American experience, she merges other cultures in the mix and how they may interact with each other by focusing on the common female experience.

The African American's experience is the usual oppressed situation based on slavery and the ramifications of such.  Then we have Native American's view of the colonial situation that delves into loss of land, disease, death, and difference of religious and work expectations.  Finally we have the European side of what were the available options for ladies of the time, an idea of how life it can play out, and how different cultures can interact when left in their own smaller community. 

As I read this book, there were many times that I caught on to the accurate historical references and enjoyed the fact that they were things that are usually forgotten, ignored, and so on.  This book is a quick, brief, good book to read.

Paradise

In Paradise, there are multiple historical references that are used to demonstrate African American community.  As the book begins, the migration of African Americans after the end of slavery is brought up again.  This time the migration is headed to the west as the recently freed slaves try to start their new lives.  Because of the standard discrimination in the Southern portion of the United States, they find it difficult to establish themselves in existing towns.  This led to African Americans pooling their allotment of land into solid black communities in Oklahoma.  As they thrived through time, they hit bumps just like other towns.  Just like others, the dust bowl hindered their expansion, the youth's need to explore and find their own place in the world, and so on would end up bringing strife to the communities. 

Later in the book, she uses another historical context or belief.  Marcus Garver's "Back to Africa/Diaspora" theory was utilized to illustrate this conflict of opinion in the black community.  Two of her characters have a discussion about who their ancestors are, how far back they should consider when looking at their community influence, pride, and such. 

This book can be hard to keep the characters straight because of the amount of characters, how they come, go, and interact.  But it is worth reading as you gain insight in opinions, debates, interaction, and so on.