Chimamanda Adichie's Theory Of A Single Story

We, humans, tend to daily communicate with one another, through the art of storytelling. What we have not yet all come to realize, are the dangers that storytelling can actually cause. Everyone including myself, is guilty of believing and adding on to the weight of the single stories we are told. The same single story that could have the power to break someone 's dignity, is capable of fixing it as well.

Subsequently after viewing and listening to Chimamanda Adichie’s theory of a single story… I have come to understand her argument point. In easier terms said, a single story is a story told by one perspective and solo idea of a place, person, and thing. These single stories are created by the socialization and observations of every human being standing on this Earth today. A lot of these stories feed off of what people like to call stereotypes. Although, one must acknowledge that stereotypes are most likely the incomplete story of a place or person. As the Chimamanda put it… “The single story creates

The speaker was shocked and immediately offended as it was clear that her roommate had already assumed who she was and what her life must of been like just by the looks of Chimamanda ethnicity. Her roomate supposed that she was not capable of doing simple things such as using a stove or speaking english, and also asked to listen to what she called, her “tribal music.” As Chimamanda said…”She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me.” Her roommate 's intentions were not to offend Adichie, but she did wrong by marginalizing Chimamanda under the little knowledge she knew about Africa. “My roomate had a single story of Africa: A single story of catastrophe. In this story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human