Unconscious bias informs people’s worldview.

Morrison intentionally omits Twyla and Roberta’s respective races at the outset to teach the reader about their own unconscious biases. The girls are described only as “salt and pepper,” so that the reader knows one girl is Black and one is white. Morrison uses vague but juxtaposing character descriptors to test the reader’s unconscious assumptions about what makes either character more likely to be Black or white. The portraits Morrison paints of each character include arbitrary social constructions that could be interpreted either way, or attributed to either race. The message here is that these details tell nothing at all about their race, and instead propose that whatever conclusion the reader comes to is completely informed by their own unconscious biases. For example, if the reader assigns their own race to Twyla because she is the protagonist, what does that teach them about themselves, and vice versa. 

Morrison does not dismiss that race is often an important component of identity. She simply asks readers to examine how their own identity and experiences influence their worldview. Morrison’s challenge is an introspective one about why, how, and where stereotypes are learned and internalized. The story is not intended to be a mystery where the central riddle is to determine the races of Roberta and Twyla. Rather, it is a conversation about racism, prejudice, and how unconscious biases influence one’s worldview.

Shared trauma can create deep bonds.

Both Twyla and Roberta experience the pain of childhood abandonment and cling to each other over this shared trauma. Their lives are forever linked by their time at St. Bonny’s. The endurance of the girls’ bond transcends their different personalities and racial backgrounds, which forges a kind of sisterhood between them. The relationship is complex and often fraught all the way up through their adult lives as each encounter causes the women to relive their days at the children’s shelter, and thus to relive their trauma. Before Twyla approaches Roberta at Howard Johnson’s, she wonders if Roberta will want to remember her because she recognizes their time together as painful and possibly shameful. Still, Twyla is hurt by Roberta’s rejection, and Roberta seems aware of her ability to inflict this pain, which reinforces the power they hold over each other’s feelings.

The second time Roberta and Twyla meet, they are older and more stable in their lives, and they are able to laugh about their time at St. Bonny’s. Twyla even refers to their behavior as that of long-lost sisters. It is significant that they each remember the day in the orchard differently. As is often the case with trauma, the details are muddled in both Twyla and Roberta’s memories. When Roberta and Twyla meet again at the protest, Roberta’s assertion that Maggie was Black and that Twyla and Roberta assaulted her causes Twyla to once again doubt her memory. Although their encounters are often full of conflict and tension, the women are repeatedly drawn to one another as the sole witnesses to a significant chapter in each other’s lives. The refrain at the end of each meeting where the women ask after each other’s mothers cements this connection.

Childhood trauma robs children of their innocence.

Though Twyla and Roberta are both eight years old while at the shelter, they are forced to grow up very quickly. They lean on each other for survival instead of on the adults that should be caring for them. The day their mothers visit, they each try to hide their excitement so as not to seem like the vulnerable children they are. Twyla lets her guard down when she hugs her mother, as she needs a mother’s love like any child would. However, this moment of childlike vulnerability is paralleled by her fury that her mother calls her “Twyla, baby!” in front of the gar girls, unwittingly providing them with ammunition with which to torture her daughter. Twyla hardens her heart as a form of self-defense. She desperately wants her mother to take care of her, but it is not safe for her to simply be a child in this environment.

The gar girls also represent this contrast of childhood and adulthood. They seem old and intimidating, but Twyla reflects as an adult that the gar girls were actually just scared children themselves. When Twyla sees Roberta dressed up with big hair and earrings on her way to see Jimi Hendrix, she compares her to the gar girls. The comparison illustrates that Twyla now views Roberta as one of them, and even finds her a little intimidating. Ironically, this type of maturity is performative, a cartoonish version of adulthood, comparable to the way they mimed toughness and maturity at St. Bonny’s. Similarly, Maggie is an inverted example of childhood lost. She is an adult but looks and acts like a child. This reversal leaves her vulnerable to the gar girls’ attack, a frightening example of what could happen to Roberta and Twyla if they don’t shed their own innocence.