The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize Speech

Morrison opens this speech by explaining a story she has heard "in the lore of several cultures." A wise, old, blind woman is mocked by a group of youths who ask about a bird they hold in their hands. They charge her to determine if the bird is alive or dead, and she responds that all she knows it that it is in their hands. It may be dead, naturally or by their hands, or it may live, but ultimately still be at the mercy of its captors. 

Morrison goes on to say that she likes to think of "the bird as language and the woman as a practiced writer." Language she equates to agency, and the writer is the one with the ability and the duty to protect it. Just as the wise old woman feels a concern for the bird and contempt for those who have violated it, a practiced writer ought to revere language and encourage its good use.

After all, as Morrison says, language is a mortal thing which might be killed by "carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem." Language is a powerful tool, able to shape lives and (literally) write history, and deserving of "esteem." However, it is as fragile as it is powerful. If we do not care for it, language can be destroyed, taking us with it.

In addition to the dangers of a lack of language, Morrison specifically points out language's potential negative applications. Just as "disuse" might kill language, so too might its misuse, which may kill dreams, ideas, or even people as well. Morrison cautions against the employment of language for "menace and subjugation" instead of tapping in to its "nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties." As said previously, language has power, even is power itself. It is our duty, then, as those who shape the world we live in with language's assistance to use that power and leave our society better than we found it.