The Danger of a Single Story quotes

"I'm a storyteller."

Short simple sentence; grabs reader's attention, establishes that she will be talking about herself in a firm and commanding way; emphasises her role as a storyteller

"a few personal stories"

Ethos; light-hearted, anecdotal; suggests honesty and credibility

"danger of the single story"

Surprisingly strong noun; "danger" suggests high stakes, real jeopardy in poor storytelling; introduces suspense by leaving "danger" undefined

"eastern Nigeria […] British and American children's books."

Juxtaposition; contrasts her nationality with her reading material, suggesting conflict in identity

"They played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather" vs "We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather"

Contrast of pronouns ("they" vs "we") emphasises difference; symmetrical sentence structure intensifies contrast

"vulnerable"

Powerful adjective; suggests stories can be threatening and dangerous

"because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye"

Allusion to famous African writers; demonstrates her growing awareness of varied perspectives

"I went through a mental shift"

Metaphor; indicates total change in her thoughts

"They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me."

Two metaphors; emphasise the powerful imaginative impacts of reading, "hyperbolically" opening up new worlds

"But the unintended consequence"

Structural contrast; conjunction "but" marks shift between imaginative benefit of stories and cultural erasure

"saved"

Strong verb; suggests that stories can be perilous, requiring salvation

"My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator."

Two simple sentences; highlight relatively prosperous background, contrasting with Fide’s rural family

"My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes"

Image of charity; shows Fide’s family in need

"Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing"

Imperative and exclamative with alliteration ("f" sound); intensifies unhelpful hyperbole of a single story about poverty

"beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia"

Imagery; ornate craftsmanship, especially adjectives "patterned" and "dyed," debunking the single story of Fide's family

"Their poverty was my single story of them."

Emphatic positioning at paragraph’s end; reinforces structural motif of story

"I was 19."

Reference to youth; suggests naivety, unprepared for prejudice

"shocked" "confused" "disappointed"

Triadic structure of verbs; convey roommate’s bafflement when Adichie defies expectations

"Nigeria happened to have English as its official language"

Irony; roommate’s assumptions are unfounded

"tribal music"

Quotation marks; undermine caricature-like assumptions

"when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey"

Allusion; Western cultural figure undermines assumption of difference

"She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove"

Simple sentence paragraph; isolated for maximum impact, forcing reader pause

"a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe"

Syntactic parallelism; equates "Africa" with "catastrophe"

"I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, […] waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner."

Repetition of "beautiful"; emphasises attractive landscapes before undermining caricature of African people; illustrates dominant Western narrative

"I would see Africans in the same way as I, as a child, had seen Fide's family…"

Rhetorical ethos; admits her own guilt, adopting reflective rather than didactic tone

"endless stories"

Hyperbole; demonstrates prevalence of the single story rhetoric

"fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border"; "going to work […] smoking, laughing."

Continuous verbs in first list suggest ongoing crime; contrasted with everyday actions in second list, highlighting narrative imbalance

"I was overwhelmed with shame."

Emotive verb; conveys deep immersion in shame for adopting a single story

"had become one thing in my mind, the abject immigrant."

Singular image; "one thing" reinforces narrowing effect of the single story

"as one thing, as only one thing"

Diacope; repetition stresses danger of singular perspective

"Stories matter. Many stories matter. […] stories"

Repetition; emphasises central message of the talk

"to dispossess and to malign" / "to empower and to humanize" ; "break the dignity of a people" / "repair that broken dignity"

Syntactic balance and antithesis; show stories’ dual power to harm or heal

"a people"

Powerful noun; single story has power to break a collective

"They sat around […] and a kind of paradise was regained."

Quotation (Alice Walker); builds credibility

"We regain a kind of paradise."

Biblical/Edenic imagery; evokes innocence and harmony restored by rejecting single stories