While I do admire the message in Toni Morrison’s Nobel
Lecture, I can’t help but have different views concerning her extended “wise
old woman” metaphor. Morrison’s general call to action in her lecture is that
we are all responsible for how we use and carry on language. Whether we have
“killed” language or not, its in our hands. She alludes that the treatment of
language is somehow a group effort. In the metaphor, she allows the possibility
that the bird may be dead, which of course symbolizes that language may be
dead. She says that language could be used to obscure the truth and oppress
people (and it can, I’m not disagreeing with that). If language is being used
like that, most would probably say it was dead. So who is the killer? The
lecture alludes that it is not only the oppressor and liars fault, but
humanity’s. I find it hard to blame all of humanity for the death of language.
Its saying all the kids in the village are responsible for killing the bird.
Its saying that those who are oppressed are also to blame for their oppressors
killing language. We will not move
forward as a society if we absorb the blame of people who “kill language”. It sounds individualistic, but I am merely
saying that we are individually responsible for how we use language. We can’t
all take the blame, there are people who use language wrongly and all of
humanity can’t be grouped with them.
I agree with you on how we shouldn't all take the blame for the misuse of our language. It sounds like Toni Morrison is trying to point the finger but not saying who's doing it. Her saying that makes it difficult for us to solve the problem because most people are not going to admit to what they do. Now people are going to start to point the finger at each other causing fights and/or try killing each other over things she said. I feel like Toni Morrison should have explained her theory in a different way so it doesn't offend anybody.
ReplyDeleteKarla, I agree with your overall interpretation of how language lies in the hands of the individual and not of society as a whole. There are some aspects of your argument which seem to be contradicted in the bird metaphor. “One day the woman is visited by some young people who seem to be bent on disproving her clairvoyance and showing her up for the fraud they believe she is.” The blind woman was visited by more than one person, so in actuality the group of young children is responsible for the oppression the woman suffers instead of just that one individual holding the bird. So say you casually witness an act of bullying. You do nothing to contribute to it, but you also do nothing to stop it. You as an individual are also to blame for the physical or psychological damage the victim endures. This is present in the bird metaphor when the children’s sole purpose was to exploit the blind woman’s disability. By saying ‘We will not move forward as a society if we absorb the blame of people who "kill language”’ you have distributed guilt only to those who committed the crime and not to those who witnessed it.
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