The danger of a single story

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?referrer=playlist-life_lessons_from_writers

Listen to a TED talk “The danger of a single story” and explain the following words and expressions:

crayon illustrations –

to be obligated –

vulnerable –

to become convinced –

mental shift –

perception of literature –

to stir imagination –

unintended consequence –

domestic help –

to startle –

default position towards sth/sb –

well-meaning pity –

to embrace new identity –

to get irritable –

incomprehensible people –

to fleece (the healthcare system) –

to sneak (across the border) –

to be immersed by sth –

to dispossess a people –

close-knit family –

to devalue education –

to flatten experience –

to engage with a story –

despite odds –

to nurse ambitions –

to eager –

Answer the questions:

1.      Why did a narrator’s roommate feel so-called well-meaning pity towards Chimamanda when she went to the university in the United States? What influenced her roommate’s view of Africa?

2. What did a professor mean when he told Chimamanda’s novel was not “authentically African”?

3.  Due to the opinion of the Palestinian poet, Mourid Barghouti, what is the best way to dispossess a people?

4. What is a stereotype? Is it always untrue?

5. Do you think that stories matter? Why? What should a person have to write a good story?

6. Have you ever tried to write or to tell a story? What was it about?

7. What is the danger of a single story?

8. What does the Chimamanda’s ending thought mean?