Summary Of The Danger Of A Single Story By Adichie

Beginning with the complexities of Ida’s family–including her nuclear family with the addition of her aunt Clara–and her social life and later relationships, the eldest-most narrator recalled her perspective of the significant events of the early-to-mid chapter of her lifetime and the outcomes of her relationships within. Almost directly after being introduced to Ida’s point of view, it is revealed that her aunt and best friend, Clara had, through the duration of her sister’s–Ida’s mother–illness, been impregnated with the child of her brother-in-law–Ida’s father. The impending child was to be Rayona’s mother, Christine. Subsequent to the news of

The speech “The Danger of a Single Story” narrated and written by Chimamanda Adichie is a series of overlapping stories and thoughts predominately discussing prejudice around the world. Though it is not our fault that we are only shown a single side of a topic, what we are exposed to is usually biased or lacking in full detail. Many people use what media may say or what they hear around them about a subject to make up their resolved opinion on the matter. Adichie's argument is effective because she overturns all that established knowledge and presents unique views on old ones to create an open minded take on the issue; moreover, Adichie uses humor, significant life experiences, and typical day-to-day discrimination to support her argument.

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie brings into consideration to Keim discussion, by emphasizing the connection between a “single story” and “stereotypes” regarding the subject of Africa. One of the dangers Adichie includes in her discussion are individuals being denied the opportunity to tell their story. Adichie draws similarities to Keim when discussing her own personal journey to find her authentic cultural voice, and she emphasizes the many misunderstanding that society, including herself, have made. Adichie admits to not only facing stereotypes, but addresses her own opinion regarding the topic. Adichie admits that as a child, she had initial biases regarding a servant that was employed by her family. According her explanation, she believed that the capability of someone “the servants family” coming from a certain background, made them incapable of such artistry. The same misconceptions can be seen in present day society, we often are prejudiced on who or what can be cultured.

In response to the speech ‘The danger of a single story” spoken by chimamanda Ngozi Adichie the key ideas that stood out for me in this speech was how society takes one persons actions of a particular group and base those actions on the behaviour of all of them. Assuming that based on the actions of one individual determines how supposedly everyone else should seem to act, clouding their judgement. The idea of society caught up in stereotypes and labels and the influence of power influencing people's decisions for example the government.

In Adichie’s TED talk, she tells how the “single story” is very dangerous thing. Adichie gets this across by telling her experiences receiving a “single story” by her mother. Adichie’s Mother had told her over many years that there was this boy that was coming to live with them. This little boy was part of a very poor family, Adichie’s mother had said to her, “ Eat the rest of your food, you know there are some people in this world just like the little boy that don’t have this food and are starving.” Now Adichie had always looked at this little boy being poor, when she had met this little boy he was able to make many things and seemed very happy and content with where he was in life. Now if this little boy looked at his own life the way that

Ever since the first day of class, one theme remained constant throughout the semester- “the dangers of a single story.” Standing tall at the top of the syllabus, I knew that this phrase would become something more than words. That night we all watched a video where we were introduced and barely scratched the surface of a different way to perceive the world. Looking back, through this class, I gained a new sense of global awareness from the myriad of texts; each of which built upon previous texts to help shed light on issues in different ways. Arguing many of the same issues, the texts approached their arguments in different ways, which served to ensure that we did not face “the dangers of a single story.” In particular Louis Owen’s “Burning the Shelter” and Robin Kimmerer’s “Learning the Grammar of Animacy” display this relationship ultimately leading the reader to develop a superior understanding of the world.

In Adichie’s remarks, she explains the effects of single stories through forms of racism. While racism is a huge issue, I wanted to bring in a different example of when single stories were used in my life. These were connected with my religion and the religion of others.

The book goes through Jeannette’s life exposing the mistakes she, her siblings, and her parents made to become the family they were. As her life grows older, Jeannette finds herself in more responsible positions in the world, with editing school newspapers, to writing columns in a small New York newspaper outlet. Her troubles have raised the issue of stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Due to her status in her childhood, it was not hard for her to fit in with the other members of the poor community. “Dinitia explained that I was with her and that I was good people. The women looked at one another and shrugged.” (Walls 191) The quote talks about how members of the black community in Welch accepted Jeannette to go swimming with them in the morning hours before the white people went in the afternoon. The people who knew Dinita, Jeannette’s friend, knew that Dinita was trustworthy, and let Jeannette pass. This relates to the thesis because it shows how she was accepted amongst the people who were

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 July 2009, at a TED conference, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian author, gave a stunning speech about “the Danger of a Single Story”. In her speech, she mentioned about negative consequences happening when people tend to form stereotypes based on a single story, the one-sided argument. The single story blindfolds our eyes and prevents us from seeing the complexity, diversity, and similarities that construct our world, just as Adichie says “these negative stories is to flatten my experience and overlook the many other stories that formed me” (12:56). Listening to all her own personal experience and argument, I have become fully convinced and also see myself reflected in her stories. The single story can cause underlying and harmful impacts not only on personal issues but also on the global scale.

When Adichie refers to a single story, she is describing that a person or group of people may be disillusioned due to their lack of exposure to other perspectives and ideas. For instance, Adichie states that when she read American and European storybooks as a child, all of the characters were of the white race and exemplified white characteristics, leading to an ignorant and close-minded depiction of the world. Moreover, when Adichie began reading African literature, she found that “people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature”(Adichie 1:07). This illustrates that in both African and European literature, characterization is limited to the demographics known to the writers, the story is restricted based on one’s viewpoint. Furthermore, the danger in simply reading or writing a single story is that over time, a person, or group of people, can become bias due to their lack of exposure to cultural and ethnical diversity. For example, Adichie describes that when she met the family of Fide, her houseboy, and saw that one of Fide’s brothers had woven a beautiful basket she was taken aback because “it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story for them”(Adichie 3:43). This seemingly minor misconception exposes Adichie to the dangers of following “a single story”, a reality check which changed her perception of the world. Furthermore, the

Collectively, these literary images go to describe a young ethnic man, probably of Latin descent, who lives with his mother in a poverty stricken area. The careful recitation of instruction given to the younger man seems to demonstrate an intricate knowledge the narrators has accrued from both predecessors and experience. Singularly, this part of the story is very powerful in that it shows a young man having to hide who he is and where he comes from in an effort to seem appealing to women, and speaks volumes about the deception that both genders go through all in name of the chase.

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.

The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor … All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.”. This example effectively supports her thesis because it shows that since she had only ever been told a single story of the boy’s family, poverty, it was an impossibility for her to see him and his family as anything else but poor.

In the speech, the Danger of a Single Story the writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells us the dangers of believing just one thing about a stereo type. In the speech Adichie repeats the phrase ‘single story’ as I think it is very important to her and by saying it repetitively she gets it to stick in peoples minds. I think the main point of the speech is to tell people the dangers of believing just one story about a country, a person or a religion etc. and to see past the stereotype we can be tricked into believing and instead see past it to see for example the person for who they are, for example, she as an eight year old girl believed a single story about their houseboy, Fide she says, ‘The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor... when I didn’t finish my dinner, my mother would say, “Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.” So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family. Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.’ This was her single story of Fide’s family, because all her mother had told her was that they were poor she did not see past that and had no idea that anyone poor was capable of creating something so beautiful.