Danger Of A Single Story

Question 1

“How impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children… stories have been used to dispose and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanise”.

Answer 1

• The use of a persuasive rhetoric suggests how the influence of media has on society. In addition to this, the emotive language evokes pathos, a feeling of pity and sadness, in the reader and empowers them to protect the innocent and children.
• The juxtaposition also shows how stories can be manipulated for both good and bad, we should use them to our advantage to empower ourselves and rise up.

Question 2

“She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove… a single story of catastrophe”.

Answer 2

• The use of a simple paragraph describing a simple task conveys her disgust at the stereotype. The 1 lined paragraph, as well as her isolated position, creates an impact of pity and disappointment and emulates her sense of isolation in the Western world.
• Almost mid-passage and at angriest point in speech. ‘Catastrophe’ is a very negative, powerful verb that adds impact to her next comments about Africans needing to be saved, further reinforcing her disappointment for the knowledge of Africa in the Western world, drawing out a sense of empathy from the reader as a lot of people can relate to the stereotypes many cultures face.

Question 3

“So that is how to create a single story, show people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become… stories matter. Many stories matter… when we reject the single story, when we realise that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise”.

Answer 3

• Main essence of the speech. One line paragraph shows the importance of the message and singles her point out, further emphasised by the use of repetition.
• Short sentences build power and repetition emphasises point.
• Gives solutions on how to fight stereotypes and sums up the message of the whole speech, ‘paradise’ suggests global unity and ‘reject’ creates a feeling of empathy from the reader, using emphatic language to demonstrate how we must fight stereotypes and not support them.