The Danger Of A Single Story Analysis

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In “The Danger of a Single Story,” the author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, uses her speech and life story of growing up in Nigeria to examine stereotypes of cultures around the world. Adichie 's purpose of writing this speech was to show the dangers of a single story and how knowing only one story about an entire race of people is dangerous as it creates a negative connotation about that culture. It seems as though Adichi is presenting stereotypes to readers by explicitly describing their negatives, but actually, Adichi is uncovering the implicit dangers in stereotypes.
Adichi explains how literature has the power to put danger in a single story. One example of this is how she blames the single stories of Africa on “Western Literature” (6:34).
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One example of this was her stereotyped opinion of Fide, the family 's house boy. Because he was poor, Adichi’s mother created an enormous pity for him in her young mind (2:58). Adichi states, “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. Their poverty was my single story of them” (3:45). Adichie 's young mind was not capable of understanding and separating poor from simple so she assumed that Fide was uneducated and was without skill. Only when she visited Fide 's village did she realize that poor does not mean ugly, as she discovers in the beautifully patterned basket his brother had made (3:42). By using this anecdote, Adichi has shown how certain circumstances create incorrect pity for a culture, as in Adichie 's pity for Fide because of his poverty. Adichi’s brain is quick to make a judgement of Fide because he is underprivileged. The danger in this situation is when Adichi applied this stereotype beyond the quick judgement. The immediate judgement of Fide was quick to become a single story. Then, this single story expands and becomes multiple stories. Now, Fide is not only poor, but uneducated, and will never be successful. What if Adichi had never visited Fide and found out his family was very crafty? The multiple stories of poor people would continue to …show more content…
She tells how her American roommate had stereotyped her, assuming she wouldn 't speak English well and that her choice of music would be tribal (4:12). With this anecdote, Adichi is proving to readers that stereotypes are not intended to harm because they come from ignorance, but the continuation of generations believing stereotypes is what is harmful. People need to be aware of how single stories are "not...untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story." (12:56). What Adichi is meaning with this quote is that some aspects of stereotypes are true, but they do not represent people as an entirety. When Adichi’s roommate seen that she was from Nigeria, she automatically linked her to tribal music, as if there is no such thing as country, hip-hop, or rap music in Nigeria (4:12). Tribal music is part of Nigerian culture, but it does not represent all Nigerians. This single story is like a pizza. When someone hears the word ‘pepperoni’ they link it to pizza, as if there is no such thing as a single pepperoni. A pepperoni, though, is part of a pizza, but pepperonis do not represent the entire pizza as a whole; there is crust, sauce, cheese, and other toppings as well. If generations to come do not begin to realize people as individuals, stereotypes will continue stealing one’s

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