The Danger Of A Single Story Summary

The famous prolific writer William Faulkner once said, “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.” In this I have found this statement to be absolutely true after listening to the video by Nigerian writer, Chimananda Adichie on “the Danger of a Single Story”. In essence the main ideas captured within her speech are to understand the dangers of a “Single Story”. How a single story once perceived can rob people of dignity, separate everyone and make people more different than similar which makes one’s recognition of our equal humanity difficult to see. The video highlighted how a “Single Story”, creates stereotypes and how important it is to reject the “Single Story “and to recognize that there is never

“A” Single Story about any person or place and emphasizes that if we do reject it , “we would regain a kind of paradise.”
It was interesting how Chimananda Adichie recalled her history of the origins of her storytelling. She quickly gave a synopsis of how early she started telling stories through her pencils and crayon illustrations and described how because of single stories she designed her characters. These characters often took the description of white and blue eyed people that played in the snow, ate apples and would often talk about the weather. In other designs she created characters who drank a lot of ginger beer. What I found fascinating is her ability to recognize that her designs of such characters was directly impacted by the British and American Children books that she read and had the clarity to explain that this perspective demonstrated how impressionable and vulnerable she was at the time and this reflected in the creation of her foreign characters.
Finally I found her message of how a “Single Story” can create stereotypes. What captured my attention was how she did not disclose that stereotypes were not all found untrue but rather incomplete emphasizing that stereotypes surfaces at some times to make that one story the only story and needs to highlight all aspects of a story to give the broader truth of an overall beautiful picture.