“Half devil, half child”:

The power of a single

story By Chimamanda Adichie

Alejandra Troya
Anahí Orellana
Rossnel Tapia
Jeniffer Reinoso
Thesis Statement
“The Danger of a Single Story”, uploaded on 2009, by
TED Talks, spoke by Nigerian Novelist Chimamanda
Adichie awakes it's audience by exposing the danger of
stereotypes with several experiences of life and revealing
how a single story is created. With the use of various
ethical appeals, Adichie illustrates the importance of
considering more than just one point of view. The add is
successful in the sense that raise the awareness that
people can not be judged according to stereotypes
because this ones involves generalizations. The target
audience is young adults constantly surrounded by
stereotypes.
Rhetorical situation

The text is a conference; a novelist tells the story of the negative

effects of cultural ignorance and stereotyping by using the
metaphor of the single story and to provide some solutions to
this issue. In other words, she examines how people make
stereotypical judgments. The target audience is young adults
constantly surrounded by stereotypes. The communicator is
composed of two entities: Ted Talks, a non-profit organization
and Chimamanda Adichie, a novelist. In the midst of a huge
segregation bias in Britain´s workplaces, his conference was
uploaded by TED Talks in 2009.
 On her conference, Adichie talks about the dangers of the single story. She began
her speech by talking about her childhood, in which she confronts the danger of the
single story for the first time. As a little kid she was exposed to American and British
literature which talks about white and blue-eyed characters. Because of the all the
cultural differences, she cannot personally identify with them, so even though she
enjoys reading all the foreign literature, she could not recognize herself as the
protagonist of those stories. She also explains how she discovered African literature,
and how it saved her of having a single story of what books are; changing completely
her mindset.
During her teens Adichie attended college in the US, where she began to
understand how a single story works by interacting with her roommate. She not only
realized from where the single story comes from (its origins), but also all the
consequences and effects that it produces on people. Stereotyping, to hide the
recognition of our equal humanity and rob people’s dignity are just a few of the
consequences of a single story that Adichie concludes. She ends the conference by
introducing the idea of how we could regain a paradise if we deny single stories.
Strategies

1. Humor Pathos
2. Repetition
Pathos
3. Definition Logos
4. Direct quotes Ethos
5. Comparison Logos
1.Humor → Pathos
Effect → Catch the views attention, appeals for empathy
“I recently spoke at university where
a student told me that it was such a
shame that Nigerian men were
physical abusers like the father
character in my novel. I told him that
I had just read a novel called
“American Psycho” -(Laughter)-and
that it was such a shame that young
Americans were serial murders.
(Laughter)”.
“When I learned, some years ago
that writers were expected to have
had really unhappy childhoods to be
successful, I began to think about
how I could invent horrible things
my parents had done to me.
(Laughter)”.
(Adichie, 2009)
2. Repetition-Pathos
Effect
- (1)→ Catch the views attention and highlight the importances and
power of a specific term

“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to

dispossess and to maling. But stories can also be used to
empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a
people. But stories can also repair the broken dignity”

(Adichie, 2009)
2. Repetition-Pathos
Effect (2)→ Awakes the reader an generates a reflection

“[...] What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure that

was performed in the Lagos hospital last week? [...] What if my
roommate knew about my wonderfully ambitious hair braider,
who just started her own business selling hair extensions? Or
about the millions of other Nigerians who start businesses and
sometimes fail, but continue to nurse ambition?”

(Adichie, 2009)
Paragraph 31 pg 5
3. Definition-Logos
Effect → Define a specific term to help the views understand and visualize the
etiology, relevance and effects of a single story.

“So that is how to create a single
story, show people as one thing, as
only one thing, over and over again,
and that is what they become”
“The single story creates
stereotypes. And the problem with
stereotypes is not that they are
untrue, but that they are incomplete”
“The consequence of the single story
is this: It robs dignity of people. It
makes recognition of our equal
humanity difficult. It emphasizes
how we are different rather than
how we are similar”
(Adichie, 2009)
 4. Direct quotes - Ethos
Direct quotes → This it is an example of a misleading by the
content of a single story as the beginning of a tradition to create
stories of Africa
Effect → By exemplifying a real case of a single story, Adichie shows to the
audience the effects that incomplete information can produce in the integrity
of a society.

This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western

literature. Now, here is a quote from the writing of a London merchant
called John Locke, who sailed to west Africa in 1561, and kept a
fascinating account of his voyage. After referring to the black Africans as
“beasts who have no houses,” he writes, “They are also people without
heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts” (Adichie, 2009)
4. Direct quotes - Ethos
Direct quotes→ By a well-known poet he wrongly refers to Africans
(descriptive language)

Effect → By exemplifying a real case of a single story, Adichie shows to the

audience the effects that incomplete information can produce in the integrity
of a society.

A tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives,

of difference, of darkness, of people who, in the words of
the wonderful poet, Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half
child."
(Adichie, 2009)
 5. COMPARISON - LOGOS
C Comparison → By a comparison between British
and American children's books with her reality the
O author highlights how vulnerable are all but specially
children if only know one story.
M
Now, this despite the fact that I lived in
P All my characters were white and blue-
eyed. They played in the snow. They ate Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria.
We didn't have snow. We ate mangoes. And
A apples. And they talked a lot about the
weather, how lovely it was that the sun had we
never talked about the weather, because
R come out.
there was no need to.
My characters also drank a lot of ginger
I beer because the characters in the British Never mind that I had no idea what ginger
beer was.
books I read drank ginger beer.
S Effect → Adichie allows the audience to know that(Adichie,
due to these
2009)characters and stereotypes,
O she had become completely certain that books, by their essence had to have foreigners in
them and she could not exist in literature. Therefore, this comparison is a clear example of the

N problems that stereotypes cause.

 Is this text ethical?
The Ted Talk: “The Danger of a Single Story” is ethical because it has legitimate
goals such as warm people about the negative effects that causes a unique version
of a story and engage audience in order to figure out this issue. In addition, the
conference has credibility because the novelist, Chimamanda Adichie tells the story
from her own perspective of someone whose identity often suffers from the
stereotypes. According to Rinehart, (1963), stereotypes are set of beliefs, usually
stated as categorical generalizations, that people hold about the members of their
own and other groups. Thus, stereotypes are the factors involved in the formation
of predujice and should be avoided. This TED Talk is a lesson in challenging these
single stories and real novelist´s experiences really support the problems that
stereotypes create.
1. Have a single perspective about a story it could be a default to
our knowledge. The impact of the story is so important from who
is come. So, the main idea is: hear a multitude of stories.

2. When we finally reject the single story and realize there is never
just one side from the story, we will be able to break the invisible
chains that limits our freedom and thinking.
3. It is important no to get carried away by stereotypes because you
create a limit to your knowledge, therefore, not thinking outside the
box creates ignorance.

4. We are vulnerable if we only know one version of a story because it

creates steoreotypes that can damage a person in several aspects.
Therefore, it is a strong obligation from every person to know both
sides or all the sides that be necessary in order to zoom the truth.
 Bibliography

- Adichie, C. (2009). The Danger of a Single Story. Retrieved from TED.

https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_sing
le_story/transcript?language=en

- Rinehart, J. (1963). The Meaning of Stereotypes. Theory Into Practice,

2(3), 136-143. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1475640