What Makes Toni Morrison's Acceptance Speech

Toni Morrison is a renowned American Novelist. Her works are famous for their impactful elements of visual descriptions of characters and scenes paired with a variety of themes. One of her most famous works was her acceptance speech of her Nobel Prize in literature. Her style of language is that of a continuous story with vivid metaphors that discuss the life and death of “language”. Arguing that language of the future is in the hands of the next generation and how it is used can create catastrophic results or bring about “paradise.” What makes her argument convincing is by structuring it into a story as she plays the storyteller.

The story Mrs. Morrison tells is the story of an old wise, blind woman who is visited by “some young people” that seem to disprove her credibility and reveal her as the “fraud” they believe her to be. So they ask her a question that uses her “profound disability.” Her blindness. They state how they have a “bird” in their hand and ask if it is “living or dead.” Her response was that whether ir is dead or alive, “It is in your hands.” From their Toni
It creates a pathos/ethos experience with it’s classic “Once upon a time” line that automatically syncs to a story with meaning. Along with the role of a storyteller of third person, she shifts to first and second that semi-reveal her personal standpoint but remains in third to allow the audience to have their own views. Her opinion isn’t forced but obvious. And she doesn’t clarify some meanings compared to the beginning where she explains what the bird may represent and what is meant when she states “It is in your hands.” No, in fact at the end she immediately ends her story without much clarification and leaves it with the old woman congratulating the young people of finally understanding her motives and that she trusts them with the bird for they have “truly caught