Bihar Board Class 10 · English · Matric exam 2027
Chapter 6: Once Upon a Time — notes
The chapter’s 8 parts in the book’s order — the first idea of each and the points Medha Ma’am writes on the board — and the summary at the end. The full lesson and a check question for each part are in the app.
1. About the speech and its speaker
Okay, so this lesson is a speech.
- • Speech: 'Once Upon a Time' by Toni Morrison
- • Toni Morrison: 8th woman, 1st black woman, Nobel Prize 1993
- • Also won: Pulitzer Prize for fiction
- • Novel: Paradise (1998)
- • Theme: language should be living and vibrant
2. The old woman: blind but wise
Okay, so the speech opens like an old story.
- • 'Once upon a time there was an old woman. Blind but wise.'
- • Heard in the lore of several cultures
- • Daughter of slaves, black, American
- • Lives alone in a small house outside town
- • Reputation for wisdom: without peer, without question
- • She is both the law and its transgression
3. The young visitors and their trick
Okay, so one day some young people come to see the old woman.
- • Visitors try to disprove her clairvoyance
- • Plan: ask a question only her blindness can trap her on
- • Question: 'Old woman, I hold in my hand a bird.
- • Tell me whether it is living or dead.'
- • She stays silent; she knows only their motive
- • Visitors struggle not to laugh
4. 'It is in your hands' — the woman's answer
Okay, so, finally the old woman speaks.
- • 'I don't know... but it is in your hands.'
- • Visitors reprimanded for mocking her and the bird
- • Responsible for: the mockery + the life sacrificed
- • She shifts focus from power to the instrument of power
5. The bird as language, the woman as a writer
Okay, so, think about that bird for a moment.
- • Bird = 'language'
- • Old woman = a 'practiced writer'
- • 'The bird is in your hands' = language's fate is in your hands
- • Meaning: possibility, not a closed door
6. What the children really wanted
Okay, so let's think about what Morrison wonders here.
- • Maybe nothing was in their hands — it was a ruse
- • A trick to be spoken to, taken seriously
- • Children: 'how to see without pictures'
- • 'Language alone protects us from... things with no names'
- • 'Language alone is meditation'
7. The children's own story: slaves, the girl and boy
The children then ask the old woman to tell them what it is to be a woman, what it is to have no home, to be set adrift, to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company.
- • Children ask her to tell of the voiceless and homeless
- • Ships turned away; a wagonload of slaves singing softly
- • Breath indistinguishable from falling snow
- • Girl and boy step from the inn; boy carries lamp and cider
- • Girl offers bread, meat, and a glance
- • 'This one is warmed'
8. The woman trusts the children — language made together
Okay, so the children finish speaking.
- • 'I trust you now.'
- • 'I trust you with the bird... because you have truly caught it.'
- • 'How lovely it is, this thing we have done - together.'
- • Trust is earned through using language well
Summary
Okay, so let's go back over 'Once Upon a Time'. Remember how Toni Morrison begins it, almost like a folk tale. There's an old woman, blind, but wise. She's the daughter of slaves, and her wisdom is known far and wide. Some young visitors come, and they try to trick her. They ask her about a bird in their hands — is it alive, or is it dead. She doesn't fall for it. She tells them, 'it is in your hands.' And for mocking her, and the bird, they get reprimanded. Now, here's the clever part. Morrison wants us to read the bird as language itself. The old woman becomes a practiced writer. So the fate of language, she's showing us, lies with whoever is using it. Then something beautiful happens. Morrison imagines the children speaking for themselves. They tell a moving story — slaves, a girl, a boy, bread, warmth. Through that story, they prove they truly understand what language can do. And the old woman, at the end, says she trusts them. Why? Because together, they've actually caught the bird. This lovely thing, made with language. Tell me — what do you think the bird really stands for, in your own words?
AskMedha · Medha Ma’am — Bihar Board Class 10 English, Chapter 6. Written from the textbook, checked twice.
Questions parents and students ask
- How do I get the "Once Upon a Time" notes as a PDF?
- Press "Save as PDF" — the phone’s print sheet opens; choose "Save as PDF" there. The PDF holds the notes only.
- Where are these notes written from?
- From the chapter’s own textbook text, part by part, in the book’s own terms; a second, independent model then checked every part against the book. The full lesson, a check question for each part and the practice are in the AskMedha app.
The same preparation, with Medha Ma’am — on your phone
Every question of every chapter with its model answer, practice questions in the board’s own shapes, 60 minutes of class a day, written answers marked, a test every Sunday and a WhatsApp report to parents.
Medha Ma’am is an AI teacher, not a live tutor. Every answer is checked twice; a person takes responsibility.