3 The Danger of A Single Story

I am currently writing a rhetorical analysis of one of the most amazing speeches I have ever heard. The speech is called, "The Danger of A Single Story". I am not the most amazing writer or writing critic, but I can appreciate just how great this speech is. It is written by an African novelist named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (I gave up trying to pronounce it so don't kill yourself). She talks about how our perception of a person or place is often single-minded. Hearing the same thing over and over about a person or place causes you to be unable to picture that person or place as anything but that thing. Some of her examples include when she went to Mexico and was surprised and then ashamed of her surprise, to see normal people doing normal things. In her mind, all she could see them as was the 'abject immigrant'. Another is when a student of hers claimed it was unfortunate that Nigerian men were all abusive based on the character of Adichie's novel. Adichie told the student it was unfortunate that all young Americans are serial killers based on the novel "American Psycho". It is easy to play into single stories because our brains like to make conclusions about everything. Once we have heard one story of a place, that becomes the only story of that place. Until we can experience multiple stories, we cannot fully understand any person or place and it is therefore crucial that we strive to maintain an open mind about all things throughout our life. Adichie is a powerful orator and I really hope my analysis does this speech justice!