Nobel Lecture (WBCHSE-XI)

Questions and answers of Nobel Lecture

Q.Summarize the speech of Mother Teresa in Nobel Lecture.

Ans:-Mother Teresa begins her speech by sharing her respect for the poor and then she proceeds in prayer. The religious foundation of her speech is not surprising due to her lifelong devotion as a nun. She offers a prayer from St. Francis of Assisi, pulling from her Catholic religion and through this she sufficiently relates to those of her audience who practice Catholicism. 

However, in her strong use of Catholic references throughout her speech, the words she speaks in prayer were beautiful and thought-provoking, and the Biblical stories that she shares have a lot to teach She shares many stories of her encounters with the poor in Calcutta, India. Many are sad stories. Through these tales of sadness, one gets the feeling that Mother Teresa is trying to gain empathy from her listeners.

Her word choice also has a very strong emotional appeal. She repeats the phrase “the poor are… very …. people” using words like, “great”, and “wonderful” many times to describe the poor. She repeats these words and phrases as though if the audience hears them enough, they will take them to heart and believe that the poor are “wonderful” themselves, even if they have no prior experience with the poor. She uses the word love a lot as well.

Another effective aspect of Mother Teresa’s speech is that because of her years of experience with the poor, she is overflowing with credibility. The audience can listen to her speech and know that she speaks from true experience. Thus making her speech effective in regards to believability.

Q. What story of neighbourly love does Mother Teresa narrate in her speech?

Ans:- In her nobel speech Mother Teresa narrates that once a gentleman informed her of a starving Hindu family of eight children and requested her to do something for them. Mother went to the household with some rice and could see the hunger in the faces of the children. The Hindu mother distributed some rice among her children and went away with some rice. When she returned and Mother Teresa asked her where she had been, the mother of eight children answered that she had gone to give some rice to a Muslim household which also had been starving for some time. Mother Teresa was deeply moved by this gesture of neighbourly love. So she tells everybody to love the neighbour before loving God.

Q. What does Mother Teresa say about the greatest destroyer of peace? How successful she has been in her fight against this?

Ans:- According to the Mother, the greatest destroyer of peace in the world is abortion as it is the direct killing of the unwanted unborn child by the will of the mother. It amounts to going against the will of God who made the child wanted while the mother did not want so. In a society where else can one find peace of it is not in the lap of the mother? Mother Teresa and her organisation have achieved success in this fight against abortion by teaching the poor and the destitute natural ways of family planning. In her aim to make the unwanted children wanted she urged mothers to give birth to the babies and give them to her so that she could make the baby feel wanted in a family of a childless couple.

Questions and answers of Nobel Lecture