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The Danger of Single Story Narratives

As per Yuval Noah Harari, the primary element that helped Homo sapiens to evolve into

a complex civilization was their ability to create myths and gossips beyond tribal and family

boundaries (Harari 44). This ability of humans, to create myths, later gave birth the idea of

creating stories and narratives. Thus, in many ways, our civilization is indeed based on our

mutual ability to create and believe in stories. These stories work as a telepathic prism through

which we can learn and understand different cultures. However, these stories can also become a

major tool to propagate specific ideas about other races, cultures, and nationalities. This danger

of stories becomes prominent when there are only single narratives available to define complex

cultures and civilizations. As Adichie explains, the problem in narrating a single-story lies in its

creation of stereotypical notions about a certain group of people (Adichie). This single story or

narrative cannot comprehend the rationale behind the evolution of a particular trait neither

explain the differences of cultural social dynamics between one community and another, but

rather present different ideologies through the writer’s cultural notions of good and evil, right

and wrong, and of course, of civilized and uncivilized. This is indeed the impact of such single

stories that for the majority of westerners every North Korean is a sad individual facing the

brutality of an evil regime, every Irani woman is suffering from state abuse, and every African is

living in poverty. There is no doubt that several individuals in these countries face these

problems but yet it is not their problems that define them; their lives though effected by tragedies

are not tragedies themselves; they live, love, and die much like the rest of the humans. These
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narratives are dangerous for two very specific reasons; first, it solidifies the idea of

“Otherisation” of communities different than ours and creates a division of us vs. them.

Secondly, it snatches an individual’s own identity from literature and paints him in the same

brush of black and white as perceived by the author of a different culture. This paper aims to

look into the creation of these ideas of “Otherisation” through stories and the propagation of

stereotypical narratives in literature. The people will take two examples of this division from

speaking for the dead and analyze it through the lens of Adichie. The paper will also use works

of Lise Saffran, Alex Endmens, and Tylor Cowens to further elaborate on these ideas and

develop a more dynamic argument.

A great way to understand the idea of a single story narrative is through assessing

literature itself. Since the age of discovery, thousands of stories have been written to assess the

cultural and social dynamics of “other” civilizations. In the last hundred years or so, thousands of

narratives have been written to give a single-story perspective of multi-ethnic communities.

From books like Heart of darkness, where Africa and African civilization are presented as a

kingdom of brutes and half men to the latest series of John wicks where Russians are portrayed

as evil maniacs, these stories have managed to dangerously create ethnic stereotype and cultural

appropriation around the globe (Conrad 66). For this paper, however, we have chosen Scott

Card’s science fiction, Speaker for the dead. This novel is a sequel to his bestseller Ender and

follows the events during and after the destruction of the Bugger Race by humans. The story or

tragedy of Ender is a perfect example of single story narratives. In the aftermath of the war with

Buggers, Ender was considered a hero. His heroism was also a result of single story that created

a larger than life image of him. On the other hand, in the same single story Buggers were

presented as evil beings worthy of genocide. However, when Ender generated another single
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story about himself and the Buggers, the perception of people changed about of them. Ender was

labeled as a villain and a murderous monster based on another single story. Through this we can

understand how much impact a story can have on individuals. As Adichie said, what this

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

particularly as children” (1:45). We can also analyze this example through the work of Saffran.

Saffran discusses the idea of our obsession with facts and black and white truths. This obsession

with facts without understanding larger stories is the reason that Ender was either considered a

villain or a hero and Buggers were also labeled by the same binaries. Every perception of them

was developed through single stories that labeled them in black or white by using particular

facts. In Saffran’s own words, “Facts are stubborn things, it is true, but the meaning of any given

set of facts is subject to interpretation” (Saffaran 4). This idea of focusing on selective truths and

neglecting the need to understand others’ rationale is clear in the novel as the human beings kill

the entire race of bugger because off their false perception and the same race started to treat

Ender as the ultimate villain once their perception is switched through another single story. Here

we can also use Tyler Cowen’s theory of how generating evil and good from simple stories

depends on how they are written and more importantly for whom they are written. In his own

words “If you think in terms of stories, you’re telling yourself the same thing over and over

again.” (Cowen 1:32-1:36)”

A similar example can also be found in the events that take place in the example of

Novinha. Her story serves as an excellent example to understand how stories can be used to

create an outward perception of an individual and how can these single stories become their

stereotypical identity. Novinha, was depicted as a strong and charming character in initial

chapters of the book. However as we proceed down the chapters we observe how Ender takes
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control of her story and creates a totally different image of her through his single story. As her

husband used to dominate her physically ender dominates her narrative and creates a perception

of a Novinha who is fragile and distressed. His usage of sentences like: “When Ender says of

Novinha that "No matter how much Marcao hated her, she hated herself more," and when he

says that in her self-loathing she wanted him to hurt her” (P 165). Her whole character becomes a

medium for Ender to speak his own perception of her and she was reduced to just a mouth piece.

We can further understand this example through works of Alex Edmens who reflects that in story

narration characters are just presenting their identity as perceived by the narrator, these stories

often create false and fragmented image of communities through distortion (Edmens). Through

his words we can somehow comprehend how Novinha became a victim of single story.

All these literary examples and the conceptual structure developed by the above-

mentioned authors are indeed necessary to create an understanding of the potential danger of

single-story narratives. Our world is a complex place, where multiple ideas and ideologies

coexist. No civilization can live with building fictional fences around its literature where all

different people will be constantly marked as “aliens”. The progress of the world as well as the

world’s literature lies in the acceptability of multi estheticism and multi racism of our world and

the permanent end of a colonial discourse of single-story representation

References

Endmens, Alex. "What to trust in post truth world." TED Ideas worth spreading." URL: www.
ted. Com Endmens, Alex. "What to trust in post truth world./talks/ /transcript (2011).

Saffran, L. "The essential role of storytelling in the search for truth." (2017).

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House, 2014.

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Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of darkness." Heart of Darkness. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 1996.
17-95.

Adichie, C. "The danger of a single story. TED Ideas worth spreading." URL: www. ted.
com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_ danger_of_a_single_story/transcript (2009).

Cowens, T “ Be suspicious of simple stories” - TED Talks, URL

:https://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_simple_stories?language=en, 2014

Card,S. “Speaker for the Dead, Revised Edition. New York: Tor. 1991