This final step asks you to revisit the process by which you…

This final step asks you to revisit the process by which you arrived at your interpretation. Keep in mind: No interpretation is perfect or can account for every element of a text. Nonetheless, if these reflections have led you to think that your interpretation is less than compelling, then you are free to revise your responses to the previous steps. Again, literary interpretation is a process—especially with a text as rich and complex as “Recitatif.”
Now that you have advanced an argument, re-read the passage again and highlight any places that continue to confuse or trouble you. Then, answer the questions below:
We both giggled. Really giggled. Suddenly, in just a pulse beat, twenty years disappeared and all of it came rushing back. The big girls (whom we called gar girls—Roberta’s misheard word for the evil stone faces described in a civics class) there dancing in the orchard, the ploppy mashed potatoes, the double weenies, the Spam with pineapple. 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. Those four short months were nothing in time. Maybe it was the thing itself. Just being there, together. Two little girls who knew what nobody else in the world knew—how not to ask questions. How to believe what had to be believed. There was politeness in that reluctance and generosity as well. Is your mother sick too? No, she dances all night. Oh—and an understanding nod.
What elements of the passage does my interpretation neglect or set aside?