Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, writer of short stories and non fiction. She has written the novels like, “Purple Hibiscus”, “Half of a Yellow Sun” and “Americanah”. She has also written poems and essay. She also won “MacArthur Fellowship” award. She is very good speaker and story teller also. She has such a speaking skills which can catch and keep the attention of audience. In every story she gave her personal touch and then connect it with the point she wants to make. Here I’m sharing my views on her three talks, one at Ted Talk on “Dangers of Single Story” another Tedx Talk on ”We all Should be Feminist” and third one at Harvard University on “Truth”.

There is always two sides of coin, if you know only one your knowledge is incomplete and dangerous also. This is what she talks about in her Ted Talk on “Dangers of Single Story”. She told that how a single story narrated differently every time conditioned the mind of people to think about certain things in a certain pattern. She also talks about the power which narrate the story and conditioned the mind of people. She also said that single story will create archetype and archetypes are dangerous because they are incomplete. At the end she said that, “When we reject single story, when we realized that there is not a single story of any place, we regain a kind of paradise”.

I am agree with her point, single story can create stressful situation for people. People should think that every human, every place and everything on this earth has ups and downs. No one has only virtues or only vices. Nothing is perfect, perfection is a myth. One should ponder on both sides of story.

“A Feminist is a man or woman, who says yes there is problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it and we must do better.”, this is the definition of Feminist by Chimamanda Adiche. A feminist is not only woman, we all should be feminist. In this video Chimamanda put the idea of fair world, Where everyone is human. She says that there is physical difference between man and woman but both are human. She believes that man doesn’t need to prove his masculinity by physical strength, and woman don’t need to pamper the ego of man. She says that we all are social beings and we internalize ideas from society. So we should make society equal. By telling her own life story she says that everyone should respect both man and woman. Parents should not raise their child differently and society should not treat both gender differently. Here I remember the quote by Simone De Beauvoir that, “One is not born, rather becomes a woman.” As per Chimamanda raising both gender differently is worst thing, there is difference but society exaggerate the difference which hurts and give privilege to one gender unnecessary. She believes that, “there is problem with gender because it shows how we should be rather than what we actually are.”  She says that, “culture don’t make people, people make culture”, so don’t keep gender expectations, focus on ability and interest rather than gender, don’t be apologetic for being a woman.

This video is of her speech at Harvard University, in which she talks about the importance of truth. Today we are living in era of post-truth, to believe on anything without checking the fact will be act of fool. More she says that while speaking truth, you my face the chaos but be courageous enough to speak the truth. When you have choice bend towards to the truth. Further she talks about religion and literature and she says that make literature your religion, take people as people. She also talks about media that it is for truth and not for entertainment or for profit making, it is for telling truth. Media should work like watch dogs of democracy not pet dogs of power. As she is interact with students she also talks about procrastination and called it a form of fear. She also believe that one should have both self-doubt and self-believe, both together will lead towards success. If you keep only self-doubt you will become complacent and if you keep only self-believe you can not succeed. She ends her speech by wishing students the courage.

First time I’ve heard Chimamanda and very impressed by her way of telling stories and her thoughts. She tells her own life experience as story. Her pronunciations are very clear and when she speaks she can touch the heart of audience by her words. After listening her speech now I also wants to read her stories. It will be interesting, fun and good experience.

Thank you.