The Danger of a Single Story

Question 1

Chronological order of the text

Answer 1

Illustrates how she used to be close minded but then through exposure to different viewpoints is now more open minded

This is also highlighted by the temporal markers throughout the text

Question 2

‘Danger of a single story’

Answer 2

• Foreshadowing and metaphor
• The cautionary tone creates a sense of foreshadowing for how harmful it is to have a single story
• The metaphor ‘story’ exposes stereotypes for what they are - fiction

Question 3

Anecdotal speech

Answer 3

• Makes the audience believe that her points are valid because she has first-hand experience of the issues she is talking about
• Allows her to describe how she herself has fallen victim to having a single story, showing how easy it is to have this happen, but also how she has overcome this, showing that anybody can do it

Question 4

‘Although I think four is closer to the truth’

Answer 4

• Ethos and humour
• Establishes her credibility due to her honestly as well as her likeability

Question 5

‘my poor mother was obligated to read’

Answer 5

• Pathos - humour
• Establishes credibility by making her more likeable and relatable

Question 6

‘all my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked alot about the weather’

Answer 6

• Listing
• Highlights how monotonous all of the books she read were as a child, showing how close minded the world was making her at the time

Question 7

‘We didn’t have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather’

Answer 7

• Juxtaposition and antithesis to her description of Western literature
• Emphasises how different her reality was to the books she was reading yet how she had still developed a single picture of what literature should be like

Question 8

‘What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story’

Answer 8

• Emotive language and use of a collective pronoun
• Shifts the tone to become more serious to show the true risks of a single story
• She starts to use collective pronouns rather than personal pronouns to tell the audience that everybody is at risk of developing stereotypes

Question 9

‘They opened up new worlds for me’

Answer 9

• Hyperbole and metaphor
• Highlights how all stories are empowering as they offer a unique perspective, the danger is to have an exposure to only one type of story

Question 10

‘it saved me from having a single story of what books are’

Answer 10

• ‘Saved’ juxtaposes ‘danger’
• Shows that you can challenge the danger of a single story by widening your scope of the content you consume

Question 11

‘“Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.”’

Answer 11

• Reported and direct speech
• The humour and relatability makes Adiche more likeable and believeable, which engages the reader and improves her credibility
• It also shows how we promote stereotypes everyday in our casual language, showing it is a systemic issue

Question 12

‘Their poverty was my single story of them’

Answer 12

• Self critique - logos
• The fact that this is said after her explaining the danger of a single story shows us that everybody is susceptible to a close minded view

Question 13

‘Tribal music’ and ‘Mariah Carey’

Answer 13

• Juxtaposition of cultures and allusion to stereotypically Western pop songs
• The contrast shows how different stereotypes truly are to reality using the allusion

Question 14

‘my roomate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe’

Answer 14

• Parallel sentence structure
• Shows the roomates limited view as she believes Africa is synonymous to catastrophe and how there is an apparent relationship between Africa and catastrophe

Question 15

’ there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity’

Answer 15

• Anaphora
• Further highlights how close minded her roomate is due to her single story of Africa, with the absoluteness of ‘no possibility’ accentuating this

Question 16

‘There were endless stories of Mexicans as people who…’

Answer 16

• Hyberpole
• Emphasises the severity of the problem of stereotyping

Question 17

‘fleecing’, ‘sneaking’, ‘being arrested’ and ‘going to work’, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, laughing’

Answer 17

• Criminal lexical choice juxtaposes everyday activity
• Further shows how stereotypes are nothing more than a ‘story’, and improves her credibility as she is self-critisising

The everyday activities are also an asyndeton, showing how the list is endless

Question 18

‘I had bought into the single story’

Answer 18

• ‘Bought into’ is a phrasal verb and a metaphor
• Creates the sense that it is almost a choice and that you do not need to follow stereotypes, showing that there is hope to become more open minded
• It makes it seem almost like an easy, addictive thing which you need to eschew

A phrasal verb is a verb followed by another article, usally a preposition

Question 19

‘one thing, as only one thing, over and over again’

Answer 19

• Repetition
• Shows how Adichie believes this is a systemic and ongoing issue in society

Question 20

‘Stories matter. Many stories matter’

Answer 20

• Short sentences and repetition
• Emphasises the importance of the message she is trying to promote

Question 21

Quote from Alice Walker

Answer 21

• Allusion
• Adds authority, especially with an example, to her message of avoiding a narrow view of a place/people

Question 22

‘When we reject the single story, when we realise that there is never a single story about any place’

Answer 22

• Repetition of ‘single story’, including from the start of the text
• This encapsulates her message and what she is trying to avoid, the metaphorical ‘single story’
• ‘Never’ shows the absolute nature of her message
• Collective pronouns show that anybody can become open minded

Question 23

‘a kind of paradise was regained’ and ‘we regain a kind of paradise’

Answer 23

• Repetition of ‘paradise’ and juxtaposition of ‘paradise’ to ‘danger’
• Shows how stories can be empowering if told from an open minded perspective, and how to be liberated from a single story is one of the most profound luxuries as a human