Stereotypes In Chimamanda Adichie's Talk

Have you ever heard so many stories about one subject that when you finally learn about the real thing, it is radically different from what you expected. THis is the danger of a single story, you only get one small part of the entire subject. Without the full story, you make stereotypes and make assumptions that sometimes just aren’t true.

In Chimamanda Adichie’s talk, she explains the single story as where a subject is shown from only one point of view. You get so used to seeing this subject from this point of view that to you, the subject becomes that point of view. Like when Adichie was little she read books about white characters who ate apples and drank ginger beer. Consequently the books she wrote also had her characters doing things like drinking ginger beer and eating apples. Because the books she read only had characters doing this she thought her character also needed to be like that.
To focus on only one story you create stereotypes and wrong assumptions. Like when Adichie’s roommate first met her, she was surprised that Adichie could speak english and that she was very similar to her. Adichie’s roommate had grown up listening to the single stories of Africa and similar places. Even before she met Adichie she had a “Patronizing, well-meaning pity” for her It was because of the single story that she had heard throughout her life. Even people who know about the single story can be inflicted by it. Even Adichie herself is not immune to the danger of a single