45 pages • 1 hour read
The Danger of a Single Story
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary and Study Guide
Summary: “The Danger of a Single Story”
“The Danger of a Single Story” is a TED Talk given by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at TEDGlobal 2009. In the speech, Adichie reflects on the power of story and the danger of believing one story about a region or group instead of acknowledging the complexity of many stories. Since 2009, “The Danger of a Single Story” has prompted reflective responses and has been used in classrooms around the world.
As a child and aspiring writer, Adichie says, she wrote stories exclusively about white people in Western countries; she had only encountered Western literature, and she didn’t realize that books could depict anything else. It was only when she discovered writers like African Chinua Achebe that her perspective changed, and she realized how limiting her “single story” had been. At the same time, Adichie herself wasn’t immune to stereotyping. She grew up in a middle-class household and could only see their houseboy Fide as an object of pity until she visited his family.
When Adichie went to college in America, she grappled with her classmates and instructors’ stereotyped ideas about her. Adichie uses these anecdotes to explore the colonialist roots of Western literature’s single story about Unlock all 45 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
Related Titles
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
