In the lecture, Morrison also says "Once upon a time there was an old woman. Blind but wise. Or was it an old man? A guru, perhaps. Or a griot soothing restless children. I have heard this story, or one exactly like it, in the lore of several cultures.” Thus, the old blind black woman also has the quality of the Old Wise man. The sentence implies that the old woman can be also regarded as man in some culture versions. Gender, for the old woman or man is not the most important element, because like Good Mother, she is “an androgynous figure.” The old wise man is the personification of the spiritual principle. The old woman in the story represents knowledge, reflection, insight, wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and on the other, moral qualities such as good will and readiness to help others. At the end of the story, the old woman says "I trust you now. I trust you with the bird that is not in your hands because you have truly caught it. Look. How lovely it is, this thing we have done - together." The black old woman guide the young people to find the essence of life, the real meaning of life. So the black old woman represents both the archetypes of Good Mother and Old Wise Man using their wisdom to educate and guide those young people.
　　In the Morrison’s story, the black old woman is visited by a group of young people one day. These young people come with the purpose of asking the old woman a question. They seem to disprove the old woman’s clairvoyance and showing her up for the fraud they believe she is. They stand there. Suppose nothing was in their hands? Urgent questions are at stake, including the one they have asked: "Is the bird we hold living or dead?" Perhaps the question meant: "Could someone tell us what is life? What is death?" There is no trick and silliness at all. It is a straightforward question which is worthy of the attention of a wise one. And if the old and wise who have lived life and faced death cannot describe either, who can? Form the passage above, we can come to a conclusion that those young people are actually questing for the essence of life and death. More questions raised by those young people can obviously prove their quest . They continuously asked “Tell us what it is to be a woman so that we may know what it is to be a man. What moves at the margin. What it is to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company.” They are eager to explore the essence of life. At the beginning of the story, those young people came to visit the old woman and asked her whether the bird in their hand is live or dead. With the story going on, in the middle of the story, those young people said, "We have no bird in our hands, living or dead. We have only you and our important question. ”Unlike the beginning’s long silence, at the end of the story, the black old woman answered, “I trust you now. I trust you with the bird that is not in your hands because you have truly caught it. Look. How lovely it is, this thing we have done--together.” The change of bird’s existence forms a circle which is similar with the quest-return journey of the hero in the quest myth which is well known as departure-adventure and return in their quest.
Archetypes have been present in mythology and literature for hundreds of years. The old story which Morrison tells in her Nobel Prize Lecture appears in various cultures. It is shared by people with different races, genders , historical and religious background. It is an wide-spread legend. In the lecture, Morrison uses black myths and legends to reveal the racial problems in American society. As a black woman writer, Toni Morrison has explored the experience and roles of black women under the oppression of racism and sexism. People can always find the unique cultural inheritance of African-Americans in her works.Like what was said in the Nobel Prize Presentation Speech given to Toni Morrison “In her depictions of the world of the black people, in life as in legend, Toni Morrison has given the Afro-American people their history back, piece by piece.”
　　
　　Bibliography:
　　[1]Frye, N..Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays[M].Princeton: Princeton UP,1975.
　　[2]Jung,C.G. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious[M].London: Routledge and Kegean Paul,1982.
　　[3]Segal, R A. ed. “Myth and the Modern Novel”.Literary Criticism and Myth[M],Vol 4, New York and London:Garland Publishing,Inc.1996.
 

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