Hello Everyone,
I am Hinaba Sarvaiya Student at MK bhavnagar University. In this blog is my thinking Activity task given by our prof. Dilip Barad sir. This task is based on Talks by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. These talks are on The Dangers of Single story. We should all be Feminists and Harvard University important of truth in Post Truth Era.
About Speaker:-
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie born on 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian novelist, writer of short stories, and nonfiction.[3] She has written the novels Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists (2014).
In 2008, Adichie was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [who] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature".[4] Her most recent book, Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, was published in March 2017.[5] (Wikipedia).
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an excellent Speaker. Listening to her is an amazing experience. Let's discuss her interesting Talks.
Talk on importance of Story/Literature:-
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Storyteller. She tells a few personal stories about what she likes to call "The Dangers of the Single Story". When she was a child, her mother told her to read books, then she started to read British and American Children's books in her early time. She began to write stories in Pencil with Crayon illustrations. She chose characters in her stories like all characters were White and blue eyed, they played in the snow and they ate apples and they talked about the weather.
Then she talked about the fact that she lived in Nigeria. She had never been outside Nigeria, that place didn't have snow, mangoes and talked about the weather because there was no need to.
Chimamanda reads American books and she inspires a lot. She chose her characters and also drank a lot of ginger beer but she couldn't understand what ginger beer was. She tells very interesting things about the impact of books which she read and followed. We are convinced very easily that books are whatever they tell us.
First she read American books then she started to read African writers like Chinua Achieve and Camara Late then she mental shifted to perception of literature. They opened up to a new world.
She talked about her family details like her father was a professor and her mother was an administrator and she belongs to a middle class family. One house boy's name was Fide. He belongs to the poor class family. Her mother also helped to send yams and rice or old clothes to them. Poverty was a single story of them.
When she left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. She speaks English very well but her roommate is not happy with how she speaks English very well. In this single story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way.
Identity of place presented a vital role in that time. She got the identity of Africans, she embraced her new identity. You know, many times we have to identify people's colour, language or food, then we have to behave like they went to another country or aliant type of behavior we react to. In The US she is seen as Fide's family. She can tell about her Africa from popular images like beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, incomprehensible people and dying of poverty. How our identity is removed by the other country where we live now. We have to forget about our own identity and be treated like a aliant.
Her single story of Africa ultimately comes from western literature. She refer to London merchant called John Lok, who sailed to West Africa in 1561, after referring to the "Black Africans as beasts who have no house"Africa is a place of negative, of darkness, of people who, in the words of the poet Rudyard Kipling,
"Haft devil, half child".
She also tells about her rejection, publishing her novel and failing at achieving the title of Africans authenticity. Chimamanda says that it is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about Power. Power is the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
Many writers say that an unhappy childhood is useful to make a story. But here she tells that her childhood was full of happiness. They make one story become the only story. Stories have been used to dispossess but also be used to empower. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. It is a very interesting talk on the importance of stories and literature in our life also.
We Should all be Feminists:-
This talk starting with reminding her a greatest friend Okuloma, who call her a feminist. "You know, you're a feminist". These words are very inspiring to think about from this angle. But it was not a compliment, his tone hilike "you're a supporter of terrorism".
She writes a novel about a man who among other things beats his wife and who doesn't end well. A journalist tells to her "I should never call myself a feminist because feminist are women who are unhappy because they cannot find husband" she laughs.
Feminism was not our culture or Africans and that's the reasons to calling herself a feminist because she had been corrupted by westen books. She read the books by Mills and Boon romance then she read the feminist classic. Then she to identify as a happy Africans feminist. Feminism means not hate to men, who likes lip gloss or wears high heels but that were feminists so heavy with baggage.
She told her school time experience to her teacher. The teacher tells who got the highest score on the test, who became a monitor. She got the highest score in the class but the teacher said that the monitor had to be a boy. In this time of partiality we can see the girls and boys education. Girls are bright in education but she can study in higher education. If she gets an education but she isn't able to do a job. If a boy is not good for study then also family members support his study and get a job.
Another example is Chimamanda and her friend Louis visiting a place and standing in a parking area. That time one man asked to park their car then Chimamanda gave a tip when a man thanked Louis. She says men believed that whatever money she had ultimately came from louis. We see the man looking woman is dependent on men.
The men and women are different. We have different hormones, different sextual orgons, and different biological abilities. Women can have babies, men can't. 52% of the world's population is female. But most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men.
US elections Lilly ledbetter law about aan and a woman doing the same job being equality qualified and man being paid more because he's a man. Literally, the way men rule the world. Men are physically stronger. In our country we find many inequalities in salaries given to men and women.
Concept of marriage to Chimamanda is very well discussed in these talks. If a woman at a certain age who is unmarried, that time our society teaches her to see it as a deep, personal failure, but a man at a certain age who is unmarried we just think he hasn't come around to making his pick. We are all social beings and reality is more difficult and more complex.
"The language of marriage is often the language of ownership rather than the language of partnership"
Women are born with a cooking gone and famous cooks in the world whom we give the fancy title of 'chefs' are men. Some people will say that a woman being subordinate to a man is our culture but culture is constantly changing.
"Culture does not make people, people make culture".
Then she talked about the what is meaning of feminist in dictionary. Meaning like that,
"A person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes".
Then she give to own definition of feminist is, a feminist is a man or a women who says,
"Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it. We must do better."
In this talk is very interesting and thinkable things she explained a very well. Woman is a woman, she does not become a Devi but gives respect like to other men.
Talk on Importance of Truth in Post Truth Era:-
Third talk is How we have to speak lies in conversion as a truth in the Post Truth Era. Chimamanda will take the lecture of Harvard University in 2018. This topic is on the Importance of Truth in the Post Truth Era. She also says that if we speak about the truth but lie about the world, the idea of the act has such political potency. America always felt aspirational when yet another political thing happened, say the land of absurdity.
She shares her real experience that she was still at home at that time her friend asked to have lunch when she told her that she faced the traffic. Tell the truth yourself, sometimes the hardest but truth is important things to tell others. Telling the truth will be an act of courage. Never silence yourself by speaking the truth.
Chimamanda gives a very interesting example that if you are reporting about the sun rising in the east you do not need to hear the other side. Here I remember the 1984 novel by George Orwell. This novel also presented the newspeak dictionary that people are not rebels against Authority or Power. 2+2=5 but Winston Smith did not accept these rules. At the end of the novel he also speaks about the same things power is saying.
The Truth is that you can not create anything of value without both self doubt and self belief. Without self doubt we become complacent without self belief we can not succeed. We need both. She tells very courageous things and inspires students to stand for the truth. Whatever the situation, we have to say the truth and wake up to see the world in a new way. She motivated word like,
"Need to shine again, there are broken things that need to be made whole again, you are in a position to do this. Be courageous and tell the truth."
This talk is very motivating and inspiring to us to become fearless and stand for the truth whatever the situation there.
If we know more about what is The Post Truth Era then we have Clicked here to visit my blog on The Post Truth Era's definition and some examples found here.
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