THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY

 

The Danger of a Single story

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi

Summary

 

            The Danger of a Single story is a speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi. She is an African writer. She grew up in a University campus in eastern Nigeria. She tells us the danger of single stories through her experiences.

            The Single story creates stereotypes. The problem with stereotypes is that they are incomplete and untrue. Stereotype makes us to look one side of the issue. A single story robs the dignity of people. It does not give the whole picture of anything clearly. We must analyse and understand the things very critically to get knowledge of anything in detail whether it may be a book, an incident, a situation, or a person. She shares her personal experiences that show us the danger of a single story.

             Adichie started writing stories when she was seven all her characters were white and blue eyed. They played in snow and ate apples. Because she read American and British books so she thought books should have foreigners in them and the books should deal with subject matters with which the writer should not have a personal relation. Things changed when she read African books `African writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye showed her that books can be about different things. When she read African books, she realized that girls like her with kinky hair and chocolate coloured skin could also be characters in books.  

            When she was eight, they got a new house boy Fide. Her mother told them that his family was very poor. Once she went to Fide’s village, his mother showed them a beautiful basket of dyed raffia that his brother has made. She couldn’t believe because she simply knew only one thing about them that they were poor. Their poverty was her single story of them.

            When she was 19, she left Nigeria to study in the USA. Her roommate believed Africa was only a land of beautiful landscape and all Africans were poor and uneducated tribal people. Her American roommate shocked by her English speaking. She asked Adichie to where she learned to speak English so well. The roommate hadn’t known that English was the official language of Nigeria. Then the roommate asked Adichie to play some tribal music and was disappointed to see what her tape had Maria Carey. Her roommate had a single story of Africa. This single story made her to think like this.   

              Adichie’s American professor also had a single story about Africa. He believed that Adichie’s characters were not authentically African. In his single story, African authors’ characters should be uneducated and starving; they should not be educated and rich enough to drive cars.

            Though Adichie had a happy childhood in a close-knit family, she had also some painful life experiences. Her grandfather died in refugee camps. Her cousin Polle died due to lack of enough medical care. Her closest friend Okoloma died in a plane crash.      

            Finally Adichie in her speech that single stories create stereotypes, and the stereotypes are not true, but they are incomplete. There is more to a person, a story, a place than just a single narrative. By acknowledging that fact, the mind is opened to so many possibilities.