Breaking the Chains: The Danger of a Single Story

One of the world's biggest and wealthiest continents in the world. The image of Africa is often associated with poverty. In the west, Africa is often viewed as a poor place. But is it a poor place filled with poverty and problems? Is every single living human being in Africa different or is it just our perception that is wrong? All these single stories that interferes with our heads and makes us draw an interpretation of unfamiliar places, now seems familiar. Mainly because we have never seen that special place and the media introduces a single story to us and creates this interpretation for us. This has resulted in many stereotypes and generalizations without we are fully aware of it. This is the issue that the Nigerian writer Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche discusses in her TED-talk "The danger of a single story" Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche's wants to convince the audience and show the bad sides of cultural ignorance.

In order to connect with the audience Chimamanda uses a serious and powerful tone and this makes the audience to sense a serious vibe. But throughout the speech she also uses irony and humour to break the ice and release the tension between her and the audience. This is seen in line 76 to line 78 "(...) a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called American Psycho - (Laughter) – and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. (Laughter) (Applause)(...)" Chimamanda makes this statement into something humorous and ironic, which makes the audience find the discriminating statement funny in the end. This situation is a personal story from Chimamanda's life and this makes the TED-talk personal too. Chimamanda has a lot eye contact and holds breaks back and fourth to give her opinions more time to settle inside of the heads of the audience.

Chimamanda also uses Pathos by using the "We" to let people know that she's not alone in this and a lot people are affected by culturance ignorance. In the end of the speech she says: "That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise" (line.109-line.110) and this refers to the feelings of the audience because Chimamanda actually identifies herself with the audience. She also uses anaphor, which we can see from line 85 to line 88 "What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure that was performed in the Lagos hospital last week? What if my roommate knew about contemporary Nigerian music, talented people singing in English and Pidgin, and Igbo and Yoruba and Ijo8, mixes influences from Jay- Z to Fela to Bob Marley to their grandfathers." In this case Chimamanda uses anaphor in her TED-talk so the audience can remember her message, how single stories draws a negative and stereotypical image of countries and people from a different culture which are much more complex and bigger than that.

Order custom essay Breaking the Chains: The Danger of a Single Story with free plagiarism report

450+ experts on 30 subjects Starting from 3 hours delivery

Get Essay Help

Chimamanda mentions her key word "single story" regularly and is used as a metaphor for cultural ignorance. She is trying to address that a single story is a big issue just by naming her TED-talk “The danger of a single story”. She is motivating the audience to be more open to hear stories with different angles and to read stories that are more open. The speech ends with her saying ""I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise." (line.108 to line .110) She means that single stories are narrow-minded and they out people into boxes. In the quote she motivates people to cut these single stories and not let them control their view of things.

Today the talk and debate about cultural ignorance is still important and current in today's society. Since 9/11 cultural ignorance has been chained to Islam and the debate has become more heated for every year that's passed. In the article "The ignorance of the West about the culture of Islam"1 Venetis gives his opinion that the western society has poor knowledge about the religion Islam that has been causing cultural ignorance. The prejudicial and discriminatory viewpoint aimed at Muslims is clear to see today. This is mainly because there is a lack of information about Muslims and Islam and then the media has given a negative and imprecise picture. Today, the word terrorism is often connected to Islam and Muslims and that is a very serious problem. As we know terrorism is at its peak and more cities has been hit by terrorist attacks.

The cultural ignorance creates an “us against them” mindset. Venetis says that the western leaders should be more open-minded as for cultural input for Islam. It should become more normal and a way of doing that is to pass it on to the education system so the youth is able to criticize the media for their "single stories" as it is expressed here: "The leadership of Europe is called upon to investigate and embrace the cultural and scientific contributions of Islam to European and international culture, recognizing this gift through the education system of their fellow European Muslims. Only then will cultural stereotypes disappear, making way for mutual respect.'

Chimamandas goal with her TED-talk is to cause attention and to light up the bad and negative effects that single stories have been causing. By performing and giving her TED-talk, Chimamanda points out the importance of interfering and creating stories with multiple angels and not just "a single story". She also motivates people to ignore the negative and stereotypical "single stories" so there is a wave of people with a different knowledge that can accept every kind of human on our planet instead of people getting hit by cultural ignorance and being put into small boxes.

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Run a free check or have your essay done for you

Check my essay Hire Writer