4, Roberta insists that Maggie was black and that they joined with the adoles-
cents in kicking Maggie when she was down.
Twyla is vulnerable to Roberta’s accusations precisely because the two of
them had been an intermental unit. Roberta in effect says, “I know what you
did because I know what I did and you and I were a single unit.” Twyla is also
vulnerable because of her shame. In addition, rhetorical readers’ triple source-
tracking leads them to consider the consequences of Roberta’s insistence that
Maggie was black. If Twyla is white, then her kicking a black woman is a sign
of her racism. And if Twyla is black, then her kicking is evidence of some
self-hatred. Twyla’s angry, defensive response—she calls Roberta “liar!,” which
leads Roberta to hurl the accusation back at her—shows both that the accu-
sation stings and that their former dyad has almost completely come apart.
Furthermore, Morrison guides her rhetorical readers to recognize the complex
ways in which Maggie figures in the relationship between the two women.
On the one hand, they share the negative judgment of their former behavior
toward Maggie, but on the other, they reduce Maggie to a counter in their
own conflict.
At the end of part 4, however, Morrison has Twyla reflect on Roberta’s
memories and accusations. After concluding that she cannot be sure about
Maggie’s race, Twyla goes on and achieves a remarkable epiphany:
It dawned on me that the truth was already there, and Roberta knew it. I
didn’t kick her; I didn’t join in with the gar girls and kick that lady, but I sure
did want to. We watched and never tried to help her and never called for
help. Maggie was my dancing mother. Deaf, I thought, and dumb. Nobody
inside. Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night. Nobody who
could tell you anything important that you could use. Rocking, dancing,
swaying as she walked. And when the gar girls pushed her down, and started
roughhousing, I knew she wouldn’t scream, couldn’t—just like me—and I
was glad about that. (259–60)Twyla can know that Roberta already knows the truth because of their
experience as a social mind. But the rest of the passage highlights Twyla’s
internalist perspective, her individual mind, and her realization that Maggie
was a stand-in for her mother.
In addition, the triple source-tracking works like this: if Twyla is black,
then the source of her identification with Maggie’s powerlessness is her race,
her class, and her gender; if Twyla is white, then the source of her identifica-
tion is her class and her gender. Morrison’s meta-communication is about
the similarities among racial, class, ability, and gender bias. At the same time,
TONI MORRISON’S DETERMINATE AMBIgUITY • 163