Book Review : The Danger Of A Single Story And Tony Porter

Dalton's experiences growing up reflect many of the theories we covered during class. Early on he has little concept of what race is and considers himself part of the neighborhood in which he is growing up. Everyone around him is either

Lacking a wider variety of stories on any given topic can lead to dangerous misconceptions and casual racism. In her TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story, Ms. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award winning Nigerian novelist and public speaker, uses personal encounters with the effects of a single story to normalize her experiences with her audiences so that they may internalize them and act upon them easier. Ms. Adichie's use of pathos, as well as her comedic tone and understanding of who her audience is makes it significantly easier for her to accomplish the aforementioned goal.

Have you ever been hunted down by a psychopath war general, rabid pack of dogs, and a giant mute knouter named Ivan, and escaped? “The Most Dangerous Game,” by Richard Connell, is about a man named Rainsford who gets stranded on an island with an insane head honcho on a small, isolated island in the Caribbean sea. Behind every work of literature, are literary elements that make it successful. “The Most Dangerous Game” is successful due to descriptive imagery, suspenseful plot, and ability to get to the point.

Adichie’s characters are subject to cultural suppression in several of the short stories. This is most pronounced in ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’ where Chinaza is forced by her husband to assimilate to her new surroundings by ridding herself of all signs of being Nigerian,

Chimamanda Adichie is a novelist and a narrator who delivered a persuasive speech on what she calls; "The Danger of a Single Story" but in reality what it means is the danger of stereotyping. Dictionary.com defines Stereotype as “A generalization usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.” Adichie delivered her presentation on a very well-known website called Ted.com, with one objective in mind, to prevail upon everyone to share their personal stories with the world so that there no longer is a “single story” defining any one person or group. Although, Adichie is aware that the damage that has been already created may take some time to undo, she felt that

In “The Power of a Story,” Nathan Alling Long had lost faith in everything when his dog, Gracie, ran away one afternoon. That day, he scoured the neighborhood for hours and put up signs, but she was gone. On day two, Nathan called his vet and the animal shelter to see if anyone had brought her in, but no luck. On day three, he checked the woods with his friend, Rhea, who said that maybe Gracie was on a great adventure. As a writer, it restored his faith in the power of a story as he remembered that he used to tell people Gracie was half wolf and half dog, which made it easier to believe she was out exploring her wolf side. On day four, he found a nickel which he believed to be a good omen for him and thought Gracie would be back the next day.

Penned during two distinctly disparate eras in American military history, both Erich Maria Remarque's bleak account of trench warfare during World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Tim O'Brien's haunting elegy for a generation lost in the jungles of Vietnam, The Man I Killed, present readers with a stark reminder that beneath the veneer of glorious battle lies only suffering and death. Both authors imbue their work with a grim severity, presenting the reality of war as it truly exists. Men inflict grievous injuries on one another, breaking bodies and shattering lives, without ever truly knowing for what or whom they are fighting for. With their contributions to the genre of war literature, both Remarque and O'Brien have sought to lift the veil of vanity which, for so many wartime writers, perverts reality with patriotic fervor. In doing so, the authors manage to convey the true sacrifice of the conscripted soldier, the broken innocence which clouds a man's first kill, and the abandonment of one's identity which becomes necessary in order to kill again.

According to Adichie, since the childhood, she was a victim of single story consequences. Her first false conception was caused by the children books, all of which is from American and Britain, filling up characters with totally different features, behaviors and “things which I could not personally identify” (1:43). This used to make she think that there would be no literature for the people like her. However, she got out of this perception when finding out other African authors and books. The second misconception is about Fide’s family when she turned eight. She knew nothing about Fide’s family except their poverty by keeping listening to the single story about them through

Stereotypes of people, places, or things leave a large gap between the truth and what is known as the truth. In the speech "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie, Adichie explains the dangers and importance of single stories. The use of her past experiences as evidence to explain the damage these stories can cause, both to the listener and the person, place, and/or topic of the stories gives power to her speech. The author’s

My room-mate had a single story of Africa; a single story of catastrophe”. Adichie also tells how growing up in Nigeria reading only American and English children’s books made her deaf to her authentic voice. As a child, she wrote about such things as blue-eyed white children easting apples, thinking brown skin and mangos had no place in Literature. That changed as she discovered African writers.

When she first meets Joseph Asagai, she supposedly asked him to talk about Africa because she wants to know about her roots as an African woman. “You came up to me and you said- and I thought you were the most serious little thing I had ever seen- you said: Mr. Asagai- I want very much to talk with you. About Africa.

One Good Story, That One, a short story by Thomas King, tells of white anthropologists coming to visit an Aboriginal man seeking the “Indian” creation myth. Due to ignorance towards Aboriginal cultures they leave satisfied with a whimsical retelling, of their own creation myth.

The story that started it all and inspired the Shadow-Keepers Series by Jas T. Ward.

The author’s effort to display oral literature, including expressing Ghanaian English speaking and non-English speaking society, in her work reflects her own persona as a contemporary writer resembling the African oral traditions and art work. “Shall I go to Cape Coast, or to Elmina I don’t know, I can’t tell. I don’t know, I can’t tell,” (Aidoo) Language, mainly English, is promoted to throughly capture various backgrounds and events of the play. Aidoo tries to distinguish Eulalie’s American-English speech that instantly alienates her from the rest of the characters. The author also quite succeeds in reflecting Ato’s educated language with a hint of lecturing that proves he has been indeed abroad, as oppose to his Ghanaian family. It crucially exposes the impact of colonialism on communication between Africans with distinctive educational and social situations, as for instance, the married couple’s complexed struggle to not only fully accept their cultural differences but also keep and hold onto their own identities. Aidoo also catches the inflections and outcomes of oral literature by using simple songs, traditional proverbs and imagery, such as the interesting ones in the dialogue between the two old Ghanaian women. “1st W.:But you know, my sister, That my name is Lonesome. I

The novel emphasized the theme of loneliness form a social standpoint with Salie and Moussa’s stories. Salie on several occasions pointed out how she felt unwelcomed in France and being away from home. The travel officer greeted her to France with disgust “What pisses me off is seeing you all, the whole lot of you coming to seek fortune here” (Diome 145). He then proceeded to call her a “dimwit” and dismiss her rudely. This behavior shows the struggle for many who live in the African diaspora, as they begin their new lives outside of their continent with immediate obstacles.