The Danger of a Single Story - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Extract from TED Talk about the power of storytelling

[1] I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story." I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria. My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth. So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children's books.

[2] I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: all my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out.

[3] Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to. ...

[4] What this demonstrates, I think, is how 1 impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify.

[5] Now, things changed when I discovered African books. There weren't many of them available, and they weren't quite as easy to find as the foreign books. But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye, I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the colour of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized.

[6] Now, I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature. So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: it saved me from having a single story of what books are.

[7] I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. So, the year I turned eight, we got a new house boy. His name was Fide. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family. And when I didn't finish my dinner, my mother would say, "Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing." So I felt enormous pity for Fide's family.

[8] Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed 2 raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them.

[9] Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. I was 19. My American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my "tribal music", and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey.

[10] She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove.

[11] What struck me was this: she had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of 3 patronizing , well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals. ...

[12] So, after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African, I began to understand my roommate's response to me. If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner. I would see Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide's family. ...

[13] But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty in the question of the single story. A few years ago, I visited Mexico from the U.S. The political climate in the U.S. at the time was tense, and there were debates going on about immigration. And, as often happens in America, immigration became synonymous with Mexicans. There were endless stories of Mexicans as people who were fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border, that sort of thing.

[14] I remember walking around on my first day in Guadalajara, watching the people going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, laughing. I remember first feeling slight surprise. And then, I was overwhelmed with shame. I realized that I had been so immersed in the media coverage of Mexicans that they had become one thing in my mind, the abject immigrant. I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself.

[15] So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become. ...

[16] Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.

[17] The American writer Alice Walker wrote this about her Southern relatives who had moved to the North. She introduced them to a book about the Southern life that they had left behind. "They sat around, reading the book themselves, listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained."

[18] 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.

Overall PAVLS Analysis

Click each element below to explore how Adichie uses these techniques throughout the speech

Purpose

Audience

Voice

Language

Structure

Purpose - Why Adichie Gave This Speech

Adichie's purposes shift and build throughout the speech:

To challenge stereotypes:

"What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are" - Showing how stories shape perception

To illustrate through personal experience:

"I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading" - Using her own childhood to make the point relatable

To inspire change:

"when we reject the single story...we regain a kind of paradise" - Offering hope and action

Audience - Who She's Speaking To

Adichie carefully tailors her speech for multiple audiences:

TED conference attendees:

"And I would like to tell you" - Direct address to educated, global audience

Those who know African writers:

"writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye" - References that establish literary credibility

Anyone who has stereotyped others:

"I too am just as guilty" - Including herself makes the message non-accusatory

Voice - How Her Tone Changes

Notice how Adichie's voice evolves through the speech:

Storyteller's warmth:

"I'm a storyteller" - Opening with friendly, accessible tone

Self-deprecating humour:

"although I think four is probably close to the truth" - Making herself relatable

Shocked realisation:

"I was startled" - Genuine surprise at her own prejudice

Deep shame:

"I could not have been more ashamed of myself" - Vulnerable admission

Language - Technical Choices

Adichie's language techniques create impact and memorability:

Central metaphor:

"the danger of the single story" - Concept that frames entire speech

Specific imagery:

"girls with skin the colour of chocolate" - Vivid, sensory descriptions

Repetition for emphasis:

"Stories matter. Many stories matter." - Building rhythm and importance

Parallel structures:

"no possibility...no possibility...no possibility" - Hammering home the limitations

Structure - How It's Organised

The speech's structure creates a journey of understanding:

Chronological progression:

Childhood → University → America → Mexico - Life stages showing evolution

Parallel examples:

Her story about Fide mirrors roommate's story about Africa - Structural echo

Building to confession:

"But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty" - Strategic placement of vulnerability

Circular ending:

"we regain a kind of paradise" - Echoes Alice Walker quote, returns to hope

Adichie's Journey: From Single Story to Multiple Narratives

Child Reader

Writing about snow and apples in Nigeria

Awakening

Discovering African literature and Fide's basket

Being Stereotyped

American roommate's assumptions

Self-Recognition

Her own single story of Mexico