The Danger Of A Single Story Analysis

As human beings, we tend to not understand that what we see or hear about social media, television, books, etc. can guide us towards this one piece of the puzzle. Not knowing the rest of the puzzle creates the assumption of a single story. In her TED talk, Chimamanda Adichie has spoken about the dangers of only knowing a story which leads to stereotyping. By this being said, to what extent do we as a society form a single story about others? To answer this question, there is a great extent when people create their single stories about others because we make these single stories without even realizing it. Chimamanda is a mere example, a representative of how our society thinks and is treated  when making a single

She states many of her opinions on how the press should stop telling and spreading false events and ideas in the newspaper. When given the chance she tells her audience journalist about how the American press about her feels and how she feels challenged by them. Overall, the beginning of her speech tells the audience how she is going to state information and how they should listen to

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 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 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.

A single story is a limited viewpoint. A single story reduces cultures and people into a simple stereotype.

During the entire speech, her pathos was very dominant to the argument. She starts out her speech with an anecdote, so she can establish a personal emotional connection with her audience. In her second paragraph she uses the sentence, “... decades before valet parking, fondue lunches, and gear

There is more to know about a person besides the single story that most people believe is true. A single story is something we hear about another person, culture, or where they are from. This can lead to critical misunderstanding of how their lives actually are. In the book, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. His writing makes sure that most of his characters don't fit into the group of having one single story this is how.

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.

Brandon Sanderson, one of my favourite science fiction authors once said, ““The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” (Sanderson, 2010). This was a saying that stuck with me throughout my love and passion not just for storytelling but art in general. The beautiful thing about art is that it creates a sense of emotion that you can interpret the meaning for yourself; there is no right or wrong answer. Whenever I am reading poetry or a novel, what I love most is that it makes my imagination go wild. I create an idea of what their voices sound like, what the characters look like, the setting, etc. Whenever I’m reading or listening to someone telling me a story I get to create my own art piece in my mind which I think as humans is one thing that makes us so unique is our abstract mind and the use of an conscious imagination.

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

The appeals court reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment to the employer. Under the ADEA, plaintiffs in the disparate treatment claims must show that age was the “but-for” case of the challenge employment decision. Although this case might otherwise be a good candidate for a mixed-motives analysis that is not a possibility under the ADEA. Nevertheless, the court found the combination of fairly strong circumstantial evidence of discriminatory motive and some reasons to disbelieve the employer’s claim was sufficient to warrant a trial. The court found particularly significant the statement of Lindsey and Thomas, who participated in the decision to terminate Baker, evincing a preference for the employment of younger workers over

The art of listening to multiple stories is a realistic opportunity to obtain a multi-perspective view on a point, think about it as a cube, on different sides you can see defects and marks that the other side would hide. Chimamanda Adichie well argues a stance on the Danger of a Single Story, the issue with a single story is that it only allows readers to obtain the information from one side, resulting in the blinding of the reader. The telling of a single story make the reader naive, and unfortunately it makes them form misconceptions, these fixed perceptions might fit certain individuals from a group; however, the reader becomes simply too stubborn and labels the entire group--this is the problem!

Short stories can share themes, motifs, symbols, consequences, and plot lines, even if there is never any intention to share a common element between the stories. The stories can be written close together or in different decades and still be linked to the one another. They can also be worlds apart with different meanings in the end, but that does not stop them from having similar ideas expressed within them. The following three stories, “Lagoon” by Joseph Conrad, “The Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence, and “The Lady in the Looking Glass” by Virginia Woolf, are three totally different stories that share common threads that make them the stories that they are.