Why are Twyla's and Roberta's diverging memories of Maggie so important? Consider Maggie's race, her muteness, and her abuse by the schoolgirls. What does Morrison suggest about why people remember things in certain ways?

Twyla and Roberta are the main characters of Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif", which tells 5 encounters of these girls, from Twyla's narration. They first met in St. Bonny's orphanage, where, although they don't have the same skin color, they found out that they have similar lives, as their mothers can't take care of them, they don't like the so-called "gar girls" because they are abused by them, and they have a certain fascination with Maggie, the old woman that works in the orphanage's kitchen and that can't speak and that is bullied by the "gar girls", too.

When they left the orphanage, Roberta and Twyla ended up resenting each other, and only as the encounters pass by, you understand that it has something to do with Maggie. Now, the memories of both girls where different about what happened to her: Roberta remembered that Maggie was black, while Twyla thought she was white. Also, Roberta blamed Twyla of kicking Maggie, while Twyla denied it and blamed the "gar girls". Actually, Maggie's color is sandy and Twyla said she didn't kick Maggie, even though she didn't stop the "gar girls" from doing it.

The life of both girls where difficult and they felt as they were a parenthesis of society, just as Twyla described Maggie's legs, with no voice, just as Maggie; and a target of abuse by the "gar girls", as Maggie was.

They projected themselves or someone they knew in Maggie: Roberta as herself and Twyla as her mother. Roberta saw in Maggie a black woman that was kicked out by bullies, like she felt she was; while Twyla saw in her an embarrassing immature girl with no voice as her mother was to her.

So, the correct answer to the first question is that: the fact that they had so diverging memories is important to understand how Twyla and Roberta saw themselves in the hard situation of being left out by their mothers.

The correct answer to the second question is that: Morrison is suggesting that people remember things in certain ways because they are not only remembering the facts but also projecting their own feelings and thoughts on the things that actually happened mixing actual things with projections of one self in the story.