Danger of a Single Story: Non Fiction Transactional Flashcards
Title: “The danger of a single story” (3 main big ideas)
Repetition of ‘no possibility’
-consequences of one story
=title of speech has negative connotations- labeled as danger of a single story, to immediately provide a cautionary tone to prompt audience to take her seriously before even reading
-“story” is abstract noun, to suggest that things people hear are often made up
-“story” is a metaphor for stereotype,
Purposely uses Less sophisticated vocabulary, with a childish semantic field
to suggest that it is immature to form perceptions with only adequate knowledge
-Juxtaposition between the threatening connotations of “danger” and the innocence associated with a “story”, foreshadows the absurdity of the prejudice that she is to talk about
repetition of ‘no possibility’ to accentuate how stereotyping has made it impossible for people of different racial backgrounds to communicate with each other as ‘human equals’
-use of three to emphasize the various problems of stereotyping a nation
- use of noun ‘human’ suggests how people who are stereotyped are deprived of the essence of their being,
‘Their poverty was my single story of them’(4)-
Reference to African writers ‘Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye”
Theme; Establishes likability inorder to encourage self reflection and empowerment of embracing identity
-recognizes that she has stereotypically limited the abilities of a person due to her thoughts
So uses sense of ‘ethos’ critiques herself and acknowledges that all humans are susceptible to prejudice
-Possessive pronoun of ‘their’ to suggest how she only attributed poverty to others
-but then also uses possessive pronoun for herself, to emphasize the shared collectivity of being human
-makes her appear humble and promotes likability
-audience will be more susceptible to change as it promotes encouragement.
-use of the anecdote helps to emphasizes how real experience, suggests how she was emotionally impacted by this.
-short sentence bring about a sense of shame, not proud of herself
-by displaying how other writers hav had the ability to alter her mindset, promoting hope
-reference to African writers suggest a sense of pride in her heritage and allows recognition
-by recognizing writers other than her this promotes her credibility and also provides a sense of humility to her
Importance of diverse storytelling:
“was this:it saved me”
“we regain a kind of paradise”
-pause created with the colon emphasizes the grave impact it had on her
— accentuated with the hyperbolic statement, to demonstrate impact it has on many children of ethnic backgrounds
-also could mean literally, because could protect from forms of stereotypical discrimination or abuse
“We regain a kind of paradise”
-ends with collective pronoun to emphasize its importance, and to encourage action
-noun, paradise has moral connotations, emphasizing how best thing to do
-also perhaps suggest the sense of peace that will be maintained
Issues associated with stereotyping:
“A single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe”
“In the face of a story”
How it creates belittling views:
use of parralel sentence structure to show how Africa is synonymous
with negative connotations due to stereotypes
-use of the noun ‘Africa’ to portray how stories even have the power to
stereotype an entire continent as one, where this suggest that too much
power is given to stories used to draw attention to the absurd level of importance that stories are given, how real human experiences not valued
-personifying also suggests that a ‘story is given similar status and
respect that with which a human is given, implying society gives equal
value to second hand accounts, as they do to legitimate evidence of
experiences
-thus personifying ‘story’ emphasizes that the effects that stigmatizing
societies with stereotypes can have is carries a potential, and real threat
