Morrison's Speech

Not only are Morrison’s novels especially rich in participatory oral forms like fables but she has extended her use of fables and folktales beyond her novels and into her speeches (Middleton 64 ). In 1993, Morrison became the first African-American women to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature award and in her acceptance speech The Nobel Lecture in Literature she decided to retell a story, a fable heard in many cultures around the world ( The Nobel Lecture in Literature 198 ). The story is about a wise old woman, a rural prophet where fame extends beyond her community and to the city where her legend is the source of amusement ( NLL 198 ). In the speech, Morrison claims that language is a powerful medium that can be both good and violent and implies that whatever the intentions of a writer or speaker may be, the words that they choose have a profound impact on their …show more content…
The fable allows for the audiences listening and reading to feel emotions that they would not have otherwise considered without the fable in the speech. By employing a fable into her lecture Morrison communicates sensory impressions, bringing emotion into her speech allowing the audience to respect and feel empathy for the old wise woman and anger towards the delinquent children. In addition, by using a fable recognized among various cultures she allows for all people to connect to her story, there are no barriers, the meaning of her words becomes comprehensible to all readers. The employment of a fable universally known allows for readers of one culture to understand a concept of another culture that is unfamiliar to them ( Sullivan 291 ). In other words, the use of fables in Morrison text allows for the lecture and her novels maintain inclusiveness among all