As you may have noticed, the premise of my short story is similar to the ideas presented in the Ted talk “The Danger of a Single Story.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, the speaker of the Ted talk described what happens when complex human beings and situations are reduced to a single narrative (Brooks). For example, many individuals believe that all Africans are extremely poor and are also victims of starvation but in reality, only a certain percentage of Africans fit that description. In my short story, the main character Stevenson, creates a single story about himself and his surroundings. The main difference between my short story and the traditional idea of a single story is that Stevenson is reducing himself down to a single story instead of …show more content…
being reduced by other individuals. This happens because Stevenson was raised in a very wealthy Haitian family and because of that, he never experienced what it was like to be poor. Furthermore, before Stevenson’s father died, he constantly shielded Stevenson from seeing the poverty of Haiti. Subsequently, Stevenson never saw the other side of living and as a result, he believed that the way he lived was the only way to live. In class, we covered three main topics when discussing the danger of a single story, the first was power.
In my short story, Stevenson’s father had a tremendous amount of power due to his high ranking positon in the company Digicel. Not only did he have a lot of power, but his whole family had a lot of power. This is because power usually goes hand and in hand with money and that’s exactly what Stevenson’s family had. As mentioned before, Stevenson’s father shielded him from the poverty of Haiti and because of that, Stevenson believed that living wealthy was the only way to live. Stevenson’s father was only able to do this because of all the money he made from being the CEO. Without his high ranking position, he wouldn’t have been wealthy and if Stevenson’s family wasn’t wealthy, then Stevenson would have never developed a single story about himself. Stevenson’s father’s actions and thought process was very similar to what Walter Mignolo stated in “The Other Side of the Mountain.” Mignolo stated, “Power asserts itself by suppressing and negating both what is not considered relevant or is considered dangerous” (1995. I think Mignolo is trying to say that if someone or something has power, its going to try to avoid or suppress anything that is threatening the sustainability of that power at all costs. In my story, Stevenson’s father avoids showing poverty to Stevenson because he believes it is not going to be beneficial for him to see
it. In addition to being able dictate what you can do, power can also determine the social construction of a society. According to our notes, the theory of social construction examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that forms the basis for shared assumptions about reality. Now these assumptions can be constructeds based of multiple factors such as, wealth, race gender, and identity.
Chapter six of Blown to Bits by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis focuses on the availability of bits via the internet and how easily they can be stolen. They discuss how companies attempt to combat this issue and potential issues that this can present. Throughout the chapter, the authors contemplate the effects that the internet has had on copyright infringement and legislation surrounding that. They discuss authorized use and rulings surrounding it. The overarching theme of the chapter seems to be that the internet was made to share information, however; in that process, information can be stolen easily, and that issue is not easy to combat.
Ooka Shohei named the last chapter of Fires on the Plain “In Praise of Transfiguration.” Through the whole novel, readers witness the protagonist Tamura transform from an innocent soldier to a killer. Readers watch him go from condemning the practice of eating human flesh to eating human flesh for his own survival. At the end, Readers see Tamura’s redemption as he shot Nagamatsu who killed and ate his own comrade Yasuda. What was the difference between two men who both killed and ate human beings? To Tamura, the guilt of eating human flesh distinguished himself from Nagamatsu who cold-bloodily killed Yasuda. As Tamura recalled, “I do not remember whether I shot him at that moment. But I do know that I did not eat his flesh; this I should certainly have remembered.” (224) The fact of him shooting at Nagamatsu had no importance to Tamura. However, his emphasis on not eating
Chris Crutcher, author of the short story “Fourth and Too Long”, demonstrates how important it is for players and coaches to have a mutual respect for each other on and off of the field. Over the course of the story, the main character, Benny struggles to find respect for himself as well as the coaches of his high school football team. Identically, the coaches lack respect for him as well. Benny woods is being penalized from playing football due to the length of his hair and his decision not to cut it. In the 1960’s long hair was said to have represented being a member of the hippie community. “It sends a message that the rest of the team can do any damn thing they want. First it’s the hair, then...who knows what”(160) is what Coach Greene
Many empirical things can often still be debated and refuted by experts, but there is a general admittance to the idea that power is the root of many evil things. In all fairness, we must admit that a many evil things can in their essence, be great. And that is one of the many theories advanced by Niccolo Machiavelli in his well-known work, The Prince. The Prince serves a dual purpose of both teaching a person how to attain power, but also how to retain it. Incredibly enough, history has proven most of Machiavelli’s findings and theories to work well, while some have failed to effectively secure power for the rulers who did, in fact try them. His work, does obviously highlight one main fact, which is, that power is a well sought-after attribute, and most who attain are willing to do whatever is necessary to keep it.
What is power to a human? As time has gone by, there have been many forms of control and influence in the world. Many strive to achieve total rule over a society or group of individuals. Yet the question still presents itself to the average man. Why does man desire power so greatly even though there is visible trouble that follows? Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, whether through the situation or the character themselves, depict the evils and hardships due to an imbalance and poor management of power.
Power, the perception of superiority over another human, is the source of many conflicts between people. Feeling inferior causes people to act beyond their normal personality. John Knowles strongly demonstrates this point in his work, A Separate Peace. In the relationship between Finny and Gene, Gene sets himself up to be inferior in the balance of power which motivates him to act irrationally to take power back from Finny.
Storytelling’s impact on people who use it has been life saving in certain cases. By asserting the existence of different perspectives, writers get to suppress their own opinions in order to sympathize with others. (insert thing about meta-fiction) With this idea in mind, author Kate Taylor wrote the novel Serial Monogamy, a meta-fiction of a writer recalling the story of her husband’s affair and her deal with terminal breast cancer, all through her telling of Dickens’ secret life and tales of the Arabian Nights. In Serial Monogamy, storytelling makes people more understanding as they explore new perspectives.
Contrary to popular belief, power does not give a person everything needed in life. Power gives people an illusion of a perfect, ungrueling life which- news flash!- is probably the total opposite of what power actually bestows upon people. Within The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes is mistreated with due to abundance of power Monseuir Villefort has, causing Edmond to later seek power to avenge for the mistreatment caused to him. Almost everyone in the book either loses or gives up their power in the end, thanks to Edmond. Viva la Vida, similarly, depicts the story of Louis XVI possessing immense power and then being deprived of the same power he once thought was going to be in his fist forever.
Stories are the way humans share, create, and explore their many experiences and identities with each other. When a story is told, the original content lingers depending upon how the storyteller recalls the content. Once the story is retold, it often takes on different details and meanings, because each storyteller adds their own perspective, experience, and meaning. The story then begins to have its own life. Each storyteller has a connection to the beginning and the end of the story.
In "thinking outside the idiot box", Dana Stevens responds to Steven Johnson's New York Times article in which Johnson believes that watching television makes you smarter. Indeed, Steven Johnson claimed that television shows have become more and more complex over the years in order to follow the viewers need for an interesting plot instead of an easy, linear story. However, Dana Stevens is opposed to this viewpoint. Stevens is not against television, he does not think it makes you smarter nor that it is poisenous for the brain, he simply states that the viewer should watch television intelligently. That is to say that, viewers should know how much television they should watch and what to watch as well.
A narrative is specified to amuse, to attract, and grasp a reader’s attention. The types of narratives are fictitious, real or unification or both. However, they may consist of folk tale stories, mysteries, science fiction; romances, horror stories, adventure stories, fables, myths and legends, historical narratives, ballads, slice of life, and personal experience (“Narrative,” 2008). Therefore, narrative text has five shared elements. These are setting, characters, plot, theme, and vocabulary (“Narrative and Informational Text,” 2008). Narrative literature is originally written to communicate a story. Therefore, narrative literature that is written in an excellent way will have conflicts and can discuss shared aspects of human occurrence.
Short stories are temporary portals to another world; there is a plethora of knowledge to learn from the scenario, and lies on top of that knowledge are simple morals. Langston Hughes writes in “Thank You Ma’m” the timeline of a single night in a slum neighborhood of an anonymous city. This “timeline” tells of the unfolding generosities that begin when a teenage boy fails an attempted robbery of Mrs. Jones. An annoyed bachelor on a British train listens to three children their aunt converse rather obnoxiously in Saki’s tale, “The Storyteller”. After a failed story attempt, the bachelor tries his hand at storytelling and gives a wonderfully satisfying, inappropriate story. These stories are laden with humor, but have, like all other stories, an underlying theme. Both themes of these stories are “implied,” and provide an excellent stage to compare and contrast a story on.
In the simplest form, there is a basic structural pattern to narratives, as expressed through Tzvetan Todorov’s explanation of narrative movement between two equilibriums. A narrative begins in a stable position until something causes disequilibrium, however, by the end of the story, the equilibrium is re-established, though it is different than the beginning (O’Shaughnessy 1999: 268). Joseph Cam...
Some of the characteristics of Modernism are: a desire to break conventions and established traditions, reject history, experiment, remove relativity, remove any literal meaning, and create an identity that is fluid. The rejection of history sought to provide a narrative that could be completely up for interpretation. Any literal meaning no longer existed nor was it easily given; essence became synonymous. Narrative was transformed. Epic stories, like “Hills Like White Elephants”, could occur in the sequence of a day. Stories became pushed by a flow of thoughts. The narrative became skeptical of linear plots, preferring to function in fragments. These fragments often led to open unresolved inconclusive endings. This echoes in the short story’s format. The short story functions in fragmented dialogue. Focusing on subjectivity rather than objectivity. Creating characters with unfixed, mixed views to challenge readers.
Watch this Ted Talk, The Danger of a Single Story: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en (Links to an external site.)