Toni Morrison Commencement Speech Analysis

Toni Morrison, the infamous novelist, took the stand as a concerned citizen of the United States when she wrote a public letter to presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama. At the time, the country was divided with contrasting opinions on George W. Bush, which seemed to block the focus of the candidates’ elections. Morrison mentioned this issue as one of her reasons for writing the endorsement, when she wrote, “One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this one one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril.” Morrison addressed her personal thoughts on the two presidential candidates, and gave reasoning as for why she chose Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton. Overall, Morrison created a very concerned tone regarding the United States and its political future, using phrases such as “multiple crisis facing us” and “peril” to describe the issues that faced the country. Furthermore, when describing Obama’s political future, the tone was much more optimistic and light. Morrison used phrases such as

In 1983, Toni Morrison published the only short story she would ever create. The controversial story conveys an important idea of what race is and if it really matter in the scheme of life. This story takes place during the time period of the Civil Rights Movement. The idea of civil rights was encouraged by the government but not enforced by the states, leaving many black Americans suffering every day. In Morrison’s short story Recitatif, Morrison manipulates the story’s diction to describe the two women’s races interchangeably resulting in the confusion of the reader. Because Morrison never establishes the “black character” or the “white character”, the reader is left guessing the race of the two main characters throughout the whole

Toni Morrison was born “Chloe Ardelia Wofford” on February 18th, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Chloe earned her nickname “Toni” in college and took Morrison as her married name. She was born in an predominantly African American town, to a poor family, which was like most of Lorain’s residents. Her parents always emphasized the importance of education. “The world back then didn’t expect much from a little black girl, but my father and mother certainly did.” In 1949 she attended college at the Howard University in Washington, DC, which was an historically black college. In 1953 Toni graduated from Howard University with her bachelor’s degree in English. Continuing her education at Cornell University, she earned her master’s degree in 1955. Morrison is an Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winning American novelist but among those awards she also received many more such as the American book award and the F. Kennedy book award. She also had publications of major works such as Song of Solomon, Beloved, and Paradise to name a few.

In the speech given by Toni Morrison as she accepts the Nobel Prize in Literature, Morrison uses an allegory, intense diction, an allusion to persuade the audience that language is dying and needs to be preserved.

I want to thank you, Toni Morrison, for writing this book. Maybe I didn’t get the message you were trying to send, but the message I did discover, changed who I was as a person and in a good way. I am moving away from the shy, scared, hidden girl that I used to be, and unlike the unyielding Earth and the dead marigold

In the book, Beloved, the author, Toni Morrison, writes about the memories of the past effecting the present. The masters of the slaves thought for the slaves and told them who to be. The slaves were treated like animals which resulted in an animal-like actions. Furthermore, the shaping of the slaves,by the masters, caused a psychological war within themselves during their transition into freedom. The beginning sections display how savage and lost a person can become due to the loss of their identity early on in their lives as slaves.

Trauma: an emotional shock causing lasting and substantial damage to a person’s psychological development. Linda Krumholz in the African American Review claims the book Beloved by Toni Morrison aids the nation in the recovery from our traumatic history that is blemished with unfortunate occurrences like slavery and intolerance. While this grand effect may be true, one thing that is absolute is the lesson this book preaches. Morrison’s basic message she wanted the reader to recognize is that life happens, people get hurt, but to let the negative experiences overshadow the possibility of future good ones is not a good way to live. Morrison warns the reader that sooner or later you will have to choose between letting go of the past or it

so named for a recitative style of vocal performance that advances the action of, say,

Ever wonder how an author can use elements of jazz in their novel. According to Toni Morrison novel “Jazz” it’s possible. The novel contains many jazz element to show her understanding of Jazz music like melodies, breaks, cutting contest, soloists, composers, musical language and even improvisation which are very important elements in Jazz music. The first two elements of jazz that shows her understand of jazz music in the novel is the basic melody of Morrison’s novel Jazz is when she introduces a girl named violet who attends a funeral of a dead girl, but just to cut her face of the corpse because she found out that her husband betrayed her (Morrison 11).

Toni Morrison, one of the greatest and most prestigious authors of the past thirty years and even of the American literary history, quit her job and crafted a masterpiece in Beloved out of a conviction to provide cultural empowerment to a minority and to convey a higher truth about the largest blemish on the face of America’s past: slavery. Messages such as these, and even messages far different from these, are the hallmarks of major. A work of literature that does not endeavor to say something, anything, with the vigor of the convicted will never be worthy of being considered a major work. An author could be enraptured with milk and cookies and embark to convey the glory of these treats through literary means. If this author were truly passionate about this message in a manner akin to Toni Morrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Frederick Douglass and presented it in the style of, perhaps, William Faulkner, then there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this work could be in

During my groups discussion we had started off with discussing what we thought about Toni Morrison’s speech. As many of us did not have a good understanding of what Morrison’s main arguments were, we decided to take turns explaining what we knew and took from the video. Next we had a debate on weather Morrison’s speech was more artful or authentic. As one of the group members had thought it was authentic, me and another group member had discussed why we thought that it would be artful. After explaining we had all concluded that Morrison’s speech was more artful due to the fact that it was trying to revise human identity. I believe that this week I got to contribute more to the group discussion and that we have a pretty good system going on here. As me and another member of the group brainstorm ideas, the third member really puts all the pieces of our ideas together. I believe that the group really respected my ideas and helped me organize my thoughts.

Therefore, she was able to accomplish much by allocating the whole audience, not just the females. Furthermore, she was able to send the message that everyone has a choice. Certainly everyone in the audience knows that they have a choice, but Michelle Obama made everyone feel like they were the determining vote and the difference between a successful, powerful future and a failing, incapable future. She appealed to their emotions, hearts, and minds in order to make them feel like they have a voice and can make a change and do what she was telling them to do. She was arousing them in the direction she wanted them to go

Then we all proceed back to our seats as the show began. A young man named Jaire first came to the stage and performed a song that he had written and recorded himself. It was a love song and his voice was like the voice of Usher. His vocals were outstanding, if I heard his sing before this event; I would think that the song was one if Ushers. Next there was a spoken word poem by a junior name Arissa. She spoke about the injustice going on in our community, police brutality, and the election that had not yet been deter=mined. Personally my favorite part of her speech is when she compared the flaws of h=Hilary Clinton to Donald Trump. She spoke about the dispute with Clintons email and that was the only inappropriate comment that can be used against Clinton. However, when she mentioned Donald Trump, she went on a rant. Technically, her rant was not even a rant because she was saying true statements about Trump. After she finished her spoken word poem, the entire room was just silent. I could tell the entire audience was just taking it in, that a man of his character could even be a candidate to be

class. The main thing about the work of Morrison as empowering from a womanist or

In the world, there are about 6909 different languages being spoken. Millions of people are speaking those languages all around the globe, but how many of them are actually speaking? Language is not just about communication with words. Toni Morrison elaborates more on that idea in her speech the Nobel Lecture. Toni’s writing illustrates her beliefs about language and the deeper meaning of it. She explains that language should “Permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas” (Morrison). She believes that America is not achieving those ideas for language but in fact is doing the opposite. American people do not know the meaning and effect of language and because of that, true language is dying. In the speech, the Nobel Lecture, by Toni Morrison, the author narrates repetition and connotation in order to emphasize and elaborate ideas and purposes of language , ultimately exposing her beliefs about language.