Welcome to the newest class of AP students!
This will be your first chance to practice a journal entry. No, you don't have to answer every question below, but here are some questions to guide your thinking.
What IS this thing? What is the point of view? Who is the old woman? What is the bird? What do you think this all means? What is confusing? What does this have to do with literature anyway? What kind of writing is this--formal, informal, a little of both? Why do you think Toni Morrison is giving this speech while accepting a prize for being an amazing writer? Who do you think she is talking to? Are there metaphors? Themes? Dialogue? How many KINDS of writing can you identify? What phrases or words struck you? What did you think the tone was? How about the mood? Did it change or was it the same throughout? Were there archtypes you recognized?
Unpack!
Lauren
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I think this is an interesting story to tell for a speech.The pov in the beginning(pg 2) is from the old blind woman.I think the point of this story is to tell the audience that sometimes the best answer is the one you're not expecting.Maybe that trying to trick an old wise person who knows the way of the world is silly and instead we should learn from them. And as she tells this story,I think that she is aiming for us,the young and naive students. I interpreted that she would want us to seize what's right in front of us instead of waiting around for something better that may never arrive.I felt that some parts were confusing but for the most part I understood.I also interpreted that the old woman's language will not die or be infected by an outsider and that the whole world can communicate if we just listen to one another. I found many metaphors in this speech and I agree with Toni Morrison's choice of dialect.
What do you mean by her choice of dialect? What were the metaphors? Where were they and was there a central one? We will need to work on you being much, much more specific in your journal entries. You will have to really dig into the material and digest it. Right now you are treating it like an appetizer,and I need you to think of it as a meal. Can you answer some of the other questions I posted? :-)
I think the story was extremely meaningful. I beieve that Toni Morrison used a stiory she heard from personal experience to convey a very powerful message and arise a new perspective of what you are made to believe the story is first trying to convey. i believe that this old woman was used to symbolize us and who we are as people, this is due to the "uncertainty" of Toni's description of the person. I viewed the bird as a test by others, for example during the speech Toni conveys the point that we use language to try to sugar coat things and make them sound acceptable. Toni is streesing the importance of communication. language is constantly personified and used with metaphor. A phrase that really stuck to me was "iterate the voice of speechlessness." The mood definatley changed throughout the speech. It moved away from the woman being wise, to the woman being ignorant, which at first confused me. Finally the archtype that i recognized was the "wise old woman" archtype.
This speech, by Toni Morrison, was complicated to read and also to understand the first time. I had to read certain paragraphs twice or three times in order to understand. For example, on page two the author says, “The blind woman shifts attention away from assertions of power to the instrument through which that power is exercised.” I am confused about what exactly the “instrument” is. A conclusion I’ve come to is that the instrument can be one of the children’s hands – since the birds fate is determined by the children’s hands. The old woman, in the beginning of the speech, comments that it is their decision whether or not the bird lives. She also comments that it also depends on how far they want to take the question they are asking her.
There were a few different points of views in the speech. In the beginning, the point of view was in third person. An example of this is when the author says, “Among her people she is both law and its transgression.” Another point of view that the author writes about is first person. On page two, the author writes, “So I choose to read the bird as language and the woman as a predicted writer.” She is giving her opinion on what she believes the woman and the bird represents.
This was an extremely inspirational speech and I can see why you assigned it to us. I feel the orator giving the speech s trying to imbue upon us the ideals of language by using an anecdote. I was hit with several meanings to the speech. First, the one that was most obvious to me was that fate is your responsible, for all your actions and there are consequences [pg. 2 line 9-13]. Second, language can be the eyes (and all the other senses) for the world. Embrace while it lives on and to keep it. Languages have come and gone as it is. Finally, but I’m positive it isn’t the last, society has become a mockery to or world. People trying to conform themselves and not exploring all the aspect the world holds. As technology advances literature as faded into the wind. Reading has become a nuisance and writing has willowed away into a form of instant messaging and become less than an art form that it should be.
This was merely a free write due to how I felt after reading the speech. It actually made me do my H.W.
I love this speech. Its very inspirational. It makes you really think about what the blind lady was thinking and the point Tony was trying to get out to people. The part that really caught my attention was when she said "In her country children have bitten their tounges off and use bullets instead to iterate the voice of speechlessness........or expressing love." Which intern I think means that alot of people these day rather keep their mouth close and talk with their fist or bullets. when you think about it all over that is really going on. I like how she swithed up the point of view from first to third person it was kind of cool but confusing also. This speech has opened my mind to alot. Alot of vocabulary, alot of meaning and things that I have never thought of before. "Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limite of knowledge; it limits knowledge." And I beleive in that one hundred percent.
Toni Morrison Nobel prize speech was truely a speech for the ages. The way she is explaining the importance of literture through storys. One of the storys involed was about a blind lady who was supposely very wise. One day that women was visited by young people who went up to her to ask her a question. This question was "I hold in my hand a bird , tell me if it is dead or alive". The lady was merly being tested by these young people. Figurtive language was used in asking that question. In my opinion the real question that was being asked was what is the meaning of life, do we hold in our hands the power to decide who lives and who shall die? Throughout her speech the mood changes from calm to a assertive person who is gettin there feelings about literature and the power it holds to the world. Also how literature breaks barriers. In reading Toni Morrison`s speech I found myself to be confused at certain parts , mostly when she was telling the storys. The way she transition into them is what I think had me confused.
This impacting speech by Toni Morrison has greatly expanded my thoughts on how important language is to our society. Toni uses the anecdote of the "old blind woman" to bring forth her point of view on language, by comparing it to a fragile bird that is believed to be in the hands of a young person. We can see the importance of this fragile bird by the way the old woman responds to the question they ask, with a "soft but stern" tone of voice replying,"What i do know is that it is in your hands." This soft but stern reply reveals the responsibility that we all have of using our words/language wisely. We all have this bird in our hands, we have to make sure that we don't kill it.
Another verse that i greatly admire is found in {pg.3, on the last paragraph, second sentence} when Toni says,"Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence..." This verse is very powerful in that the author explains how our language effects our whole lifestyle. The way we speak is the way we are. And the way we speak is the way that other people will portray us!
Thank you Lauren for giving us this assignment, I greatly benefited from it.
I think that I will start off very straightforward, and describe the speech in specific parts as well as a whole. In its entirety, the way the author uses a single concept (language) to describe a myriad of things associated with human life is immensely astounding. I noticed that as a whole, the speech's metaphors and personifications had to do with human behavior and life to a through extent. On the surface, this speech may start out like a story, then lead into an informal information insight, then conclude with another, rather the end of the story, but on many subsequent levels the author is giving us insight on human behavior, and how our language reflects it at different times, and in different scopes of questioning.
Starting in the beginning, the blind woman is approached by visitors, and after the visitors show an act of disrepect towards her disabled state, she reproaches them with words of wisdom. Her Point of View in this instance is that people shouldn't pick on those that appear to be less "fortunate" than you. The author then goes on to symbolized both the woman and the bird as a writer and language respectively. Using that symbolism, the author throughly explains how language that we use, is correlated to the pains and gains of human life. By using metaphors like the one on Page 3: "...language smitheryed to sanction ignorance and preserve privilege is a suit of armor polished to shocking glitter..." In the metaphor, the common everyday or official language is being compared to a suit of armor, or more specifically as a guard of some sort. The included parts of the metaphor: "smitheryed to sanction ignorance" and "preserve privilege" seems to indicate that this language is nothing more than a frivilous attempt at keeping a normalcy while something is being stowed away in the abyss of discontent.
Towards the bottom of Page 3, I noticed the author's reference to the state and power merchants, and surmised that the author was indicating how different social classes might use language. For example, a very prestigious person may have a very eloquent and fluent dialect whereas a lower classman might have a slightly less developed dialect and use slang or "shortcuts" like how people communicate over the internet in chat rooms. To conclude my analysis of Page 3, I noticed the phrase "Oppresive language" on line 37, and thought it was an example of personification because it is essentially giving a human quality to an idea, since Oppresing is a human action.
On Page 4, in the first paragraph, I noticed the author's tone intensify in the form of strong, and empowering words and phrases such as "tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability...", and I thought that the author's use of diction and syntax was adequate at expressing it.
Closer to the end of the speech, the visitors tone towards the blind lady also changes. On Page 7, the quotes "That silence is deep, deeper than the meaning available..." and "To the barrier you have erected between generosity and wisdom?" show the visitors' identification of the blind lady's sagacious nature and thus affect how they talk to her.
However, the visitor's tone changes again on Page 8, this time to feelings of disgruntled. In the first paragraph, the visitors have this frustrated tone as they continue their response to the blind lady's actions (or lack thereof) from Page 7. The author expresses their feelings with words like cruelty and mediocrity. The author also uses these quotes " Do you think we are stupid enough to perjure ourselves again and again with the fiction of nationhood?" and "How dare you talk to us of duty when we stand waist deep in the toxin of your past?" Both quotes mean that the visitors believe that the actions of those in the past signify how the future goes; therefore they are frustrated with the blind lady because they believe that her failure is why they are where they are now.
To conclude, the author uses amazing metaphors and rhetoric to convey her feelings, thoughts and ideas. I also think that the symbolism of the bird was useful in identifying with the course of human life. Finally, I did notice two archetypes which are seemingly identical: hero and heroine from Page 7. I must say, that I am impressed and enlightened by this piece of literature.
From reading the speech by this author I was able to learn a lot and see how the author was able to refer to the bird in every element that she was trying to impliment. This author used many different ways to show her opinion and thoughts to the children. she also showed in much language the feelings of the children and how they used the bird as a way to get the attention of the old woman. For her to also give them and explanation as to why she wasn't able to reach out to them and give them guidance and to show them her wisdom which comes from age and experience. The author was able to show the use of point of view through the eyes of the children as they felt that they had to trick the older woman into thinking that they has a bird in their hands which was either alive or dead to seek the attention of the woman and also to get words from her from experiences in the past so they can now be able to learn how to be the person they should be. The author was also able to show figurative laguage as she spoke very stern and angry to express the feelings of these young children toward the woman,also to show how the woman was telling the story of the young man and woman and the situation they were in. The author was very was very clear to me as of her intentions of where she was going with her speech about the bird and how it represents more than wat it is physically but it also has a double meaning to it.
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