The Danger of a Single Story

• Persuasive autobiographical speech
• Title suggests it is dramatically emotive and introduces the central metaphor
• First sentence “I’m a storyteller” is a short declarative and direct sentence establishing her credential.
• in the second paragraph “my poor mother was obligated to read” shows the speech adopts a humorous and self depressing tone which positions the reader on her side.
• in the fourth paragraph emotive adjectives ”impressionable” and “vulnerable” convey how easily influenced a reader may be by a story.
• the conjunctive used in the fifth paragraph “but” leads into the ‘metal shift’ the writer underwent
• in the sixth paragraph the use of a : draws attention to the main clause that follows and emphasises what the discovery of African books mean to her
• time markers at line 50 “spent some years” is used to define opinions
• the emotive abstract nouns “pity” and “”guilty” enchanted her power