How the writers present ideas and perspectives about story telling

Text 1 if a story moves you act on it

Text 2 Danger of a single story – Adichie

In both texts the writers use the idea of exploring both perspectives in a situation in order to find the
fairest way of perceiving an event. In text 1 the writer originally presents her anger and perhaps
sadness towards the “bike thief”, upon exploring the boy’s perspective she realises that “he was
right, I was a middle-class kid in a poor country… he barely had food.” The use of the definitive
statement suggests her empathy towards him as reasonable and well found as she goes on further
to dictate towards the reader that “we cannot afford to ignore” the perspectives of ithers as that
would be inhumane. Similarly in Text 2 Adiche shares the same message; “when we realise there is
never a single story, we regain a kind of paradise”. The use of the religious language has
connotations of some kind of “peace of mind” that is achievable for all when we understand there is
never a “single story”.

Both writers use personal anecdotes in order to involve the reader and convey a sense of human
imperfection which no one is exempt to. In “Danger of a single story” Adiche, upon meeting visiting
“Fide” sees the jewellery that his family made and soon feels guilty as she realises that “it had not
occurred to me that his family could actually make something” the use of the verb “occurred”
portrays the extent of her denial and the creation of her own single story about Fide and his family.
Perhaps the use of this personal anecdote was simply to relate to the audience, not to shift the
blame to her but also to be self-deprecating to show how easy and human it is to jump to
conclusions as she tells us that “poverty was my single story of them”. Furthermore, in Text 1 also
uses a personal anecdote to convey the same message. Upon empathising with the angry boy the
writer suggests she learnt a “hard” lesson from the experience as she had also fallen prey to the
danger of a single story with hers being that the boy was nothing but a “thief”. Her use of the
personal anecdote could have been a reference to her earlier emotive statement of the need to try
to avoid seeing through “a solitary lens” and that judging and jumping to conclusions without
observing a situation fairly leads tot eh creation of a single story which she also fell prey to.

In text 1 the writer is presented to need to use perspectives to empathise with the “angry bike
thief”, however in Text 2 Adiche presents a direct connection to victims of single stories as a victim
of them herself. In Text 1 the writer does not provide an instance where she had a single story made
of her and instead attempts greatly to explore the perspectives of others. In text 1 the author uses
the example of the bike thief to emphasise an earlier motif of “listening is an important but
insufficient step towards social action” as she relates some of the motivation behind her talk to the
idea of listening without action is simply “insufficient”. However in text 2 Adiche is far more capable
in presenting the importance of listening as she is able to show a far closer relationship to the topic
( as she tells the story of a time when she was the victim of the act). Upon meeting and living with
her roommate in the US Adiche describes the roommate’s manor to be “patronising, well-meaning
pity; a default”. The juxtaposition of “well meaning” and “patronising” clearly characterises not just
the roommate’s manor, but the approach/single story western culture has of Africa in general.
Furthermore the roommate’s surprise to Adichie revealing her music CD further symbolises hatred
but a lack of understanding of other nations which leads to the creation of single stories.

In both texts the writers present a love for writing and storytelling. In text 1 the writer gained her
inspiration from the author of text 2 which was one of the key factors in her reasons to present the
talk. Furthermore, she also compares herself to Adichie comedically stating that “ it is the talk I
would have given if I had been famous first”. The use of the conditional “if” suggests the sheer
universal applications of the talk as though Adichie was not providing a complex talk but something
which everybody in the world feels strongly about and how anybody humble enough could have
written it. As well as that the conditional also provides the talk with a comedic tone in order to raise
the spirits of the audience so the talk does not seem pessimistic but more lesson and explanatory
like. Similarly in text Adichie also presents herself to be an “early writer” as she would always give
the stories she wrote to her “poor mother” who was “obligated to read them”. The use of the
childhood story allows the writing to relate more towards the audience keeping their interest
throughout the talk.

In Text2 the writer presents an early memory of literature as one of the main reason for her
awareness of the danger of a singe story. However in Text 1 the goes through a “hard lesson” which
in turn allows her to gain an importance experience. In Text 2 Adichie describes the reality of African
books as an “eye opener” as her discoveries of African literature makes her go through a “mental
shift in my perception of literature”….TIME OVER