Summary
Chimamanda Adichie is a Nigerian storyteller and talked about few personal stories on ‘‘the danger of the single story’’. She is a black author who started reading about white characters, exactly what she knew from American and British books. It changed when she discovered the African books, she recognizes herself on them and made a change of perspective saving her from having just a single story of books. When she was a kid, she met a family and just know one thing about them, her mother told her they were poor, knowing only one thing made her create a single story of that family. While in the university, she was stereotyped by a single story of catastrophes that her roommate knew about Africa and African people and after some years, looking from an outside perspective, Chimamanda started to understand how that single story of Arica was made. From a western literature point of view, the Africa is just represented as a negative place and that can make a misconception even for professors. Chimamanda visited Mexico years ago and made a single story from Mexico and their people, being just immigrants who sneak across border fleecing the healthcare system, because of the tense political climate between Mexico and United States and after got ashamed of creating a single story, because people are not just one thing. The power structures will determine a story, and the single stories are related to that power, since people will listen and believe on powerful people, making it a single story of someone or some place. Once in university, a student made an assumption of a single story of African man from just one novel, and that did not happen about America because of being a powerful country gives the possibility of control the stories in a way that many stories are told of America, that way, people does not have a single story of America. Adichie also sees the bad sides of Africa, but focuses on just one section of the whole reality creates stereotypes and they are incomplete. The consequence of the single story is taking away people dignity, is emphasizes the differences between places and people other than the equalities. Stories can empower, but also can break the dignity. Rejecting the single stories, you can be open minded for all the possibilities that can appear.
I also agree with Chimamanda. When you know something by only one point of view, that single story will turn into the only story and it’s incomplete. That is the danger of it. One only thing should not be considered the only truth, it can be the truth, but it is not even fair to be the only thing considered, specially if we consider that the power is what will influence on what and how stories are going to be told. This is a reading with a really good reflection and that can be one of the reasons for assign it to the class.
3 thoughts on “Conversation 2 – Ellen Soares”
I agree with power being a major influence on how stories are told. In america we have the resources that others do not. which makes it so important for us to portray everything that happens in our world, not just all the negatives out there. I also agree with what you said about an incomplete story, for Adichie she felt as though she was being overlooked when she saw that only part of her story was being told and that became who she was.
I agree that the speech is a good reflection for the class. Before reading the speech and learning about the topic I have never heard of what a single story was. Now that I have learned it has helped me realized how much power a story can have over someone’s life or a group.
To add on to what I said, I also agree that a single story is basically an incomplete story. A single story is always a one sided accounted from whoever perceived it.