Single Story Ted Talk Analysis

In her Ted Talk entitled "The Danger of a Single Story," Chimamanda Adichie talks about the negative effects that occur when a group of people are presented only through one lens. As a Nigerian writer who grew up in a middle class family, she talks mainly about the misconceptions Americans have of Nigeria and Africa as a whole. However, she also speaks on the single stories she herself has subscribed to. Adichie cites literature as a vehicle that is guilty of presenting single stories as she shares how she mainly read European literature as a child. The effect was that she grew up thinking only little European children could be the protagonists of stories. But then, she became exposed to writers like Chinua Achebe who presented an Africa of an African perspective, drastically different from the story told by European writers. She shares an anecdote about her family's servant Fide, who came from a very poor rural village. Adichie's mother only ever told her that Fide's family was poor, so she was unprepared to discover that there was more to Fide's family than poverty. Then in college in America, she finds that her roommate has basically that same perception of all of Africa. She argues that the only way to honor a group is to seek as many stories about them as you can.


Adichie uses several elements to convincingly convey her thoughts. A big portion of her single story concept is misconceptions about Africa. She uses her experience growing up in a middle class Nigerian household as ethos to add credibility to her speech. She uses chronology and flashback as specific examples of how a single story did not prove accurate. She also uses diction to impress upon her audience how single stories create imbalances in power. No one in English was suitable for this purpose, so she used the Nigerian word when she says, "It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another." All of these usages allow to audience to believe her analysis of the danger of single stories, believe that they are inaccurate.


My primary reason for choosing this talk was that we watched it last year in TOK. It's one of the few TED Talks that have stuck with me (I find most to be tedious and/or pretentious). I enjoy it because you can tell the speaker is sincere and because one can immediately recall examples of the subject matter in their own lives. For example, I am half-middle eastern and have Muslim family members. In American society, many people only consider the single story of terrorism as the defining factor of Islam. However, as I have had more interactions with this religion, I know the single story to be false, So Adichie's talk is believable and relatable to me.