Question

Read the excerpt from "The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

So, after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African, I began to understand my roommate’s response to me. If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, White foreigner.

What is the most likely reason Adichie uses an appeal to pathos in this excerpt?

to cause the listeners to feel pity so they will act on her message
to show the difference between conditions in Africa and the US
to highlight the poor conditions reported in Africa in order to gain compassion from the audience
to illustrate the extreme ways in which Africa is shown in the media and how unrealistic they can be

Answer 1

to illustrate the extreme ways in which Africa is shown in the media and how unrealistic they can be

Explanation: Adichie appeals to emotion here not primarily to solicit pity but to expose and critique the stereotypical, exaggerated portrayals of Africa—showing how a "single story" produces unrealistic, limiting images.