Response to "Dangers of a Single Story"

Every single culture has stereotypes. The world tends to believe that all Americans are fat, all Africans are poor, Asians are smart, Europeans smoke, and people from South America live in trees. We have all been subject to these "dangers of a single story", yet, just like Chimamanda Adichie, we have believed some as well.

This past summer I participated in a 3 week course at Yale University. There were 750 high school students on campus, and we were exposed to many people from different ethnicities and nationalities. At the beginning, when we were getting to know each other, many asked me where I was from. When I answered "Colombia", most of them just gave me blank stares, while others asked "That’s in Africa, right?". At first I was surprised and even offended that many people did not know in what hemisphere Colombia was, until I was faced with a similar situation. A foreigner girl asked me where I was from and she identified Colombia straight away. However, when I asked her where she was from and she answered "Bahrain" it was my turn to stare.

We often judge people based on what they don’t know, when, instead, we should focus on everything we have yet to learn.

Good vs. Evil

Ever since we were little we have always been taught that there is a difference between right and wrong. However, what many adults fail to mention is that there are times when this difference isn’t as apparent as one would want it to be. There are times when we do not know whether a thought, an action, or even a person is good or bad, and such is the case with Mr. Kurtz. Even after having finished Heart of Darkness, the reader still has several questions left unanswered, not only about the nature of good vs. evil, but about the nature of human kind as a whole. Do we develop our hatred towards those we consider inferior or are we taught to be this way? Are we born dark and heartless or are we forced to act like this by society?

At the beginning of the story, Kurtz is presented to us a mystery. He represents the unknown, the desired, the incredible. As the story progresses, Marlow (and therefore the reader) hears stories of other white men talking about Mr. Kurtz as a wealthy and powerful man who is one of the greatest ivory traders in the region. However, we can tell that his fellow company employees resent him, and Marlow can't seem to figure out why. The real surprise comes when the reader realizes that the natives defend this intriguing character. How can someone so wealthy and powerful be hated by his equals, yet loved by his inferiors?

Mr. Kurtz defies the reality of the time by associating with the natives, up to the point of having a native lover. He defies the rules society had set and that is why he cannot go back to Europe. He would be judged and excluded because all Europeans had grown up with the idea that the idea of colonizing was to take everything the natives had to offer with little regards to their safety and integrity. They were considered worthless and inferior, and when Kurtz decided to disregard this, he changed his reality.

Ever since we were little we have always been taught that there is a difference between right and wrong, but is there?