The blind woman shifts attention away from assertions of power to the instrument through which that power is exercised. Whatever the case, it is your responsibility.įor parading their power and her helplessness, the young visitors are reprimanded, told they are responsible not only for the act of mockery but also for the small bundle of life sacrificed to achieve its aims. Whether it is to stay alive, it is your decision. Her answer can be taken to mean: if it is dead, you have either found it that way or you have killed it. “I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. The old woman’s silence is so long, the young people have trouble holding their laughter.įinally she speaks and her voice is soft but stern.

She does not know their color, gender or homeland. She is blind and cannot see her visitors, let alone what is in their hands. “Is the bird I am holding living or dead?” She does not answer, and the question is repeated. They stand before her, and one of them says, “Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird. Their plan is simple: they enter her house and ask the one question the answer to which rides solely on her difference from them, a difference they regard as a profound disability: her blindness. 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 honor she is paid and the awe in which she is held reach beyond her neighborhood to places far away to the city where the intelligence of rural prophets is the source of much amusement. Among her people she is both the law and its transgression. Her reputation for wisdom is without peer and without question.

In the version I know the woman is the daughter of slaves, black, American, and lives alone in a small house outside of town. “Once upon a time there was an old woman. I have heard this story, or one exactly like it, in the lore of several cultures. Blind but wise.” Or was it an old man? A guru, perhaps. Listen to an audio recording of Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture Share via Email: Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture Share this content via Email.Share on LinkedIn: Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture Share this content on LinkedIn.Tweet: Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture Share this content on Twitter.Share on Facebook: Toni Morrison – Nobel Lecture Share this content on Facebook.

Heroes of might and magic 5 completo