Essay The Danger of a Single Story PDF

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Essay om The Danger of a Single Story...

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Essay The Danger of a Single Story The problematic issue about a single story has always been a difficulty. Countries and cultures are judged by a single story and stereotypes are created because of those single stories. An example of this sore topic is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s speech The Danger of a Single Story from 2009 where she tells about the danger of a single story. The headline The Danger of a Single Story refers to the main theme, which is the danger of a single story. The speech has a logical structure and can be divided into three parts. The first part is an introduction where Adichie tells about her past and childhood. She introduces the main theme in this part, “So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are.” (s. 2 and 2:35). The second part is a discussion where Adichie states where the single story of Africa comes from. She thinks the single story of Africa comes from Western literature and that people like John Locke have invented the tradition of telling negative African stories in the West. The third part is a conclusion where Adichie emphasizes the importance and properties of stories, “Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity” (s. 8 and 17:35). The speech ends purposely with and open ending because it opens to a discussion, which also is the intention of the article. The English language has played a major role in Adichie’s life. She read British and American children’s books at the age of four because it was hard to find African literature. Furthermore, she moved to the United States to study when she was 19 years old. However, her roommate was very impressed by her ability to speak the English language. In recent time, she writes novels about the problematic issue of a single story and the life as an African. There are many prejudices and stereotypes about Africans. Adichie has been confronted with many prejudices as an English speaking Nigerian. For instance, her roommate thought that she couldn’t speak English and that she

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didn’t know much about Western literature. Adichie accuses the single stories for her roommate’s ignorance, “She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.“ (s. 3 and 4:48) To sum up, single stories is a major factor in the speech. A single story can give a negative outlook on countries and cultures without any real information. You should never judge anything or anyone by a single story....