Previous
Joseph Benson
Although Jimi Hendrix does not make an active appearance in the story, Roberta and her two male friends are supposedly on their way to see him when they stop by at Howard Johnson’s. Hendrix was an African-American rock musician who was hugely influential during his short career before his death at the age of 27. Associated with psychedelic rock, drugs, and 1960s counter-culture, Hendrix is a symbol of Roberta’s youthful rebelliousness and glamour, which contrasts to Twyla’s more sensible, ordinary life as a small-town waitress.
Jimi Hendrix Quotes in Recitatif
The Recitatif quotes below are all either spoken by Jimi Hendrix or refer to Jimi Hendrix. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Recitatif Quotes
Shoes, dress, everything lovely and summery and rich. I was dying to know what happened to her, how she got from Jimi Hendrix to Annandale, a neighborhood full of doctors and IBM executives. Easy, I thought. Everything is so easy for them. They think they own the world.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
We went into the coffee shop holding on to one another and I tried to think why we were glad to see each other this time and not before. Once, twelve years ago, we passed like strangers. A black girl and a white girl meeting in a Howard Johnson's on the road and having nothing to say. One in a blue-and-white triangle waitress hat, the other on her way to see Hendrix. Now we were behaving like sisters separated for much too long.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Recitatif LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Jimi Hendrix Character Timeline in Recitatif
The timeline below shows where the character Jimi Hendrix appears in Recitatif. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Recitatif
...with them, but instead Roberta tells her that they are on the way to see Hendrix. Twyla responds enthusiastically, asking what “she is doing now.” Roberta clarifies that she meant “Jimi...
(full context)
...Johnson’s, still feeling hurt and wondering how Roberta has gone from going to see Jimi Hendrix to living in a fancy suburb.
(full context)
...from their time at St. Bonny’s, and Twyla asks what ended up happening with Jimi Hendrix, but Roberta doesn’t respond. Instead, she tells Twyla about her husband, Kenneth, and their two...
(full context)
