The Danger of a Single Story
In the TedTalk, “The Danger of a Single Story” told by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
Adichie tells a complying story of her life and the times “single stories” have been prevalent and
the risk
...
The Danger of a Single Story
In the TedTalk, “The Danger of a Single Story” told by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
Adichie tells a complying story of her life and the times “single stories” have been prevalent and
the risks of believing in “single stories”. The incidences when “single stories” occurred took
place throughout Adichie’s entire lifetime. However, the earliest event that Adichie mentioned
dated back to her early childhood. Adichie starts out by speaking of her passion for reading,
which she experienced at a young age. However, in Eastern Nigeria, where she was raised, many
of the children books that she had access to were of British and English descent. Majority of the
text that she was reading only concerned white, blue-eyed people, who played in snow, and their
conversations included the weather. In Adichie’s home life, this was not present; where she was
from, the vast majority were of people had dark features and complexion, and, in Eastern
Nigeria, the weather is not normalized in conversation because it is never changing, always
sunshine and high temperatures. The impact that the stories she knew from a young age was
unmeasurable. Her “single story” in this case was that characters were never similar to her
norms, and were not allowed to be. Her belief that all characters had to be foreign stuck with her
until she was introduced to African books. Due to these books, she had a new outlook on
literature. Her writing changed drastically and started to include topics that Adichie could
personally identify with. The discovery of African writers saved Adichie of having a “single
story” of what literature is like. Adichie continues to talk about other occurrences where “single
stories” also took place in her life, which included: her family’s help, who happened to have an
extremely poor family, when Adichie went to go visit their house, she was stunned to realize that
those who are poor could “make something”. In her head, the only thing that Adichie could
picture the family as was poor;
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