DOCSLIB.ORG

CULTURAL IDENTITY GAPS: a Study of Zadie Smith's Novels White Teeth

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
CULTURAL IDENTITY GAPS: a Study of Zadie Smith's Novels White Teeth CULTURAL IDENTITY GAPS: A Study of Zadie Smith’s Novels White Teeth (2001) and On Beauty (2006) Master’s Thesis Sarianna Hirvonen Intercultural Communication Department of Communication University of Jyväskylä May 2014 JYVÄSKYLÄN YLIOPISTO Tiedekunta – Faculty Laitos – Department FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION Tekijä – Author Sarianna Hirvonen Työn nimi – Title Cultural Identity Gaps: A Study of Zadie Smith’s Novels White Teeth (2001) and On Beauty (2006). Oppiaine – Subject Työn laji – Level Intercultural Communication Master’s Thesis Aika – Month and year Sivumäärä – Number of pages May 2014 88 Tiivistelmä – Abstract The present study investigates cultural identity gaps in two multicultural novels by Zadie Smith: White Teeth (2001) and On Beauty (2006). The concept of identity gaps is a way of explaining the interpenetration of four identity frames (personal, enacted, relational, and communal) in Communication Theory of Identity (CTI). These frames co-exist in all communication situations, and discrepancy between the frames is called an identity gap. This study concentrates on the cultural aspects of them. The aim of this study is to investigate how different aspects of cultural identity are illustrated in the data, how the chosen identity gaps affect the characters’ communication and relationships, and see if these novels could be used as teaching material in intercultural communication. This qualitative study uses discourse analysis as its research method, and the data is deductively analyzed with the help of CTI. This study investigates three different identity gaps from cultural point of view in the novels: personal–relational, personal–enacted, and relational–enacted. It was revealed that these cultural identity gaps affected in different ways the characters’ relationships, communication, and how an identity gap functioned as either a positive or a negative identity source. As these novels illustrated some real-life (intercultural) phenomena quite well, they could serve as a useful material for, e.g., intercultural trainings or introductory courses in intercultural communication. In addition, this study tests CTI in a new context, and it was noted that it does work also with fictive literature. This notion, and hence this study, adds its own contribution to the development of the theory into a more interdisciplinary tool for analysis, which CTI aims at to be. Asiasanat – Keywords Communication theory of identity, identity frames, identity gaps, cultural identity, Zadie Smith, fiction literature Säilytyspaikka – Depository University of Jyväskylä, electronic database Muita tietoja – Additional information JYVÄSKYLÄN YLIOPISTO Tiedekunta – Faculty Laitos – Department HUMANISTINEN TIEDEKUNTA VIESTINTÄTIETEIDEN LAITOS Tekijä – Author Sarianna Hirvonen Työn nimi – Title Cultural Identity Gaps: A Study of Zadie Smith’s Novels White Teeth (2001) and On Beauty (2006). Oppiaine – Subject Työn laji – Level Kulttuurienvälinen viestintä Pro gradu -tutkielma Aika – Month and year Sivumäärä – Number of pages Toukokuu 2014 88 Tiivistelmä – Abstract Tämä pro gradu -tutkielma käsittelee kulttuuri-identiteetin ”rakoja” (eng. Identity gaps) kahdessa Zadie Smithin monikulttuurisessa romaanissa: Valkoiset hampaat (2001) ja Kauneudesta (2006). Identiteettirakojen (identity gaps) käsite on osa erästä viestinnän identiteettiteoriaa (Communication Theory of Identity eli CTI), jonka mukaan identiteetit koostuvat neljästä eri kehyksestä (eng. Identity frames): henkilökohtainen (personal), esitetty (enacted), henkilöidenvälinen (relational) ja yhteisöllinen (communal). Nämä kehykset ovat aina läsnä jokaisessa viestintätilanteessa. Jos tasojen välille syntyy ristiriita, on tuloksena ns. identiteettirako. Tämä tutkimus keskittyy näiden identiteettirakojen kulttuurisiin puoliin. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on ottaa selvää, miten kulttuuri-identiteetin eri puolet tulevat ilmi aineistossa, miten tutkimuksen kohteeksi valitut identiteettiraot vaikuttavat henkilöhahmojen viestintään ja ihmissuhteisiin sekä pohtia mahdollisuutta hyödyntää näitä romaaneja opetusmateriaalina kulttuurienvälisessä viestinnässä. Tämä kvalitatiivinen tutkimus hyödyntää tutkimusmetodinaan diskurssianalyysiä ja aineisto analysoidaan deduktiivisesti yllämainitun viestinnän identiteettiteorian avulla. Tämä tutkimus käsittelee aineistosta kolmea eri identiteettirakoa kulttuurisesta näkökulmasta: henkilökohtainen–henkilöidenvälinen, henkilökohtainen–esitetty sekä henkilöidenvälinen–esitetty. Tutkimuksen tuloksista käy ilmi, että nämä kulttuuri-identiteettiraot vaikuttivat eri tavoin henkilöhahmojen ihmissuhteisiin, viestintään sekä siihen, miten identiteettirako saattoi toimia joko positiivisena tai negatiivisena identiteetin lähteenä. Aineistona olleet romaanit havainnollistivat hyvin elävän elämän (kulttuurienvälisiä) ilmiöitä, joten ne soveltuvat siltä osin kulttuurienvälisen viestinnän koulutukseen. Lisäksi tämä tutkimus testaa CTI-teoriaa ensimmäisen kerran fiktiokirjallisuusaineistossa. Tuloksena voidaan todeta, että teoria toimii myös tämänlaisessa aineistossa, joten tämä tutkielma antaa oman panoksensa teorian kehittämisprosessiin sen tähdätessä eteenpäin oppiainerajojen ylittäväksi teoriaksi, mikä on CTI:n tavoitteena. Asiasanat – Keywords Viestinnän identiteettiteoria, identiteetin kehykset, identiteettiraot, kulttuuri-identiteetti, Zadie Smith, fiktiokirjallisuus Säilytyspaikka – Depository Jyväskylän yliopisto, sähköinen tietokanta Muita tietoja – Additional information “[W]hat fiction can do that no other sort of expression does is evoke the emotion of felt experience and portray the values, pathos, grandeur, and spirituality of the human condition.” (Banks & Banks, 1998, p. 17) ” [R]eality comes to us in the shape of stories.” (Jameson, 1981, in Talbot, 1995, p. 5) “[N]arration is the dominant mode of human communication: humans are storytellers who create and communicate stories that form understanding, guide collective reasoning, and shape behavior” (Fisher, 1984, 1985, in Gring-Pemble, 2008) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 7 1.1 Thesis Structure ............................................................................................................. 10 2 THEORIZING ABOUT CULTURAL IDENTITY ......................................................... 10 2.1 Theories of Cultural Identity from the Interpretive Perspective .................................... 12 2.2 Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) ..................................................................... 15 2.3 Introduction of Data and Data Collection ...................................................................... 20 2.3.1 White Teeth (2001) .................................................................................................. 20 2.3.2 On Beauty (2006) .................................................................................................... 22 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 23 3.1 Qualitative Research Approach ..................................................................................... 23 3.2 Discourse Analysis (DA) ............................................................................................... 26 3.3 The Concept of Discourse and Discursive Approach to Identity .................................. 27 3.4 Discourse Analysis and Intercultural Communication .................................................. 29 4 IDENTITY GAPS IN WHITE TEETH (2001) AND ON BEAUTY (2006) .................... 30 4.1 Personal–Relational Identity Gaps ................................................................................. 33 4.1.1 Personal–Relational Identity Gaps in White Teeth (2001) ..................................... 33 4.1.2 Personal–Relational Identity Gaps in On Beauty (2006) ........................................ 38 4.2 Personal–Enacted Identity Gaps .................................................................................... 46 4.2.1 Personal–Enacted Identity Gaps in White Teeth (2001) ......................................... 47 4.2.2 Personal–Enacted Identity Gaps in On Beauty (2006) ........................................... 51 4.3 Relational–Enacted Identity Gaps .................................................................................. 54 4.3.1 Relational–Enacted Identity Gaps in White Teeth (2001) ...................................... 54 4.3.2 Relational–Enacted Identity Gaps in On Beauty (2006) ......................................... 56 5 DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................... 61 5.1 Identity Gaps as a Factor in Relationships ..................................................................... 62 5.2 Identity Gaps and Communication ................................................................................ 65 5.3 Identity Gaps as Positive and Negative Source of Identity ............................................ 68 6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 69 6.1 Evaluation ...................................................................................................................... 69 6.1.1 Limitations .............................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • AP Language & Composition Summer Reading: White Teeth (2000)
    AP Language & Composition Summer Reading: White Teeth (2000), by Zadie Smith General Directions Please purchase a copy of White Teeth early in the summer and read the novel over the course of several weeks. The ISBN is 0-375-70386-1. Please finish reading the book by the first day of classes in August. The written notes are optional, but do make sure that you read actively, marking the book as you go along for plot, character, and themes. The AP Language teachers will begin the course with this novel. It is not just summer reading but also the foundation of the course for the year. After several days of discussion, your teacher will give you a test over the book. This test grade will count as the first grade of fall semester. If you have any questions, contact Mrs. Durlin at [email protected]. Introduction to White Teeth White Teeth is a horse of a different color, a brilliantly but eccentrically structured novel about a lot of different ideas. In a nutshell, Zadie Smith tells the stories of two families in North London whose lives are interwoven. On the one hand there’s Archie and Clara (Jamaican), who produce a daughter named Irie. On the other, there’s the Iqbals: Samad, Alsana, Magid, and Millat. Archie and Samad served together toward the end of WW II, hence the connection. A third family, the Chalfens, begins to interact with and complicate the lives of these two families part way through the novel. Of all the new novels that have been introduced to the AP reading list over the years, this is the single most well-loved and recommended.
    [Show full text]
  • Multicultural World in Zadie Smith's Recent Novels Multikulturní Svět V
    Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích Pedagogická fakulta Katedra anglistiky Diplomová práce Multicultural World in Zadie Smith’s Recent Novels Multikulturní svět v románech Zadie Smith Vypracovala: Bc. Adéla Grenarová Vedoucí práce: PhDr. Alice Sukdolová, Ph.D. České Budějovice 2016 Prohlašuji, že jsem svoji diplomovou práci na téma Multikulturní svět v románech Zadie Smith vypracovala samostatně pouze s použitím pramenů a literatury uvedených v seznamu citované literatury. Prohlašuji, že v souladu s § 47b zákona č. 111/1998 Sb. v platném znění souhlasím se zveřejněním své diplomové práce, a to v nezkrácené podobě - v úpravě vzniklé vypuštěním vyznačených částí archivovaných pedagogickou fakultou elektronickou cestou ve veřejně přístupné části databáze STAG provozované Jihočeskou univerzitou v Českých Budějovicích na jejích internetových stránkách, a to se zachováním mého autorského práva k odevzdanému textu této kvalifikační práce. Souhlasím dále s tím, aby toutéž elektronickou cestou byly v souladu s uvedeným ustanovením zákona č. 111/1998 Sb. zveřejněny posudky školitele a oponentů práce i záznam o průběhu a výsledku obhajoby kvalifikační práce. Rovněž souhlasím s porovnáním textu mé kvalifikační práce s databází kvalifikačních prací Theses.cz provozovanou Národním registrem vysokoškolských kvalifikačních prací a systémem na odhalování plagiátů. V Českých Budějovicích dne Podpis studentky: ___________________________ Adéla Grenarová Poděkování Ráda bych poděkovala paní PhDr. Alici Sukdolové, Ph.D. za její připomínky, rady a podporu. Acknowledgement I would like to thank PhDr. Alice Sukdolová, Ph.D. for her comments, advice and support. Abstract Initially, the diploma thesis introduces the overall context of contemporary Anglo- American post-colonial literature and defines its fundamental postulates, such as ethnicity, cultural diversity, hybridity, globalization, and multiculturalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Zadie Smith's White Teeth Using Judith
    A SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY: UNDERSTANDING ZADIE SMITH’S WHITE TEETH USING JUDITH BUTLER’S PERFORMATIVITY AND JANE AUSTEN’S SATIRE A Thesis Presented To The Faculty of the Department of English East Carolina University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of English Literature by Elizabeth E.E. Howland July, 2009 ©Copyright 2009 Elizabeth E.E. Howland A SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY: UNDERSTANDING ZADIE SMITH’S WHITE TEETH USING JUDITH BUTLER’S PERFORMATIVITY AND JANE AUSTEN’S SATIRE by Elizabeth E.E. Howland APPROVED BY: DIRECTOR OF DISSERTATION:___________________________________________ Dr. Thomas Douglass, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER:__________________________________________________ Dr. Anne Mallory, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER:__________________________________________________ Dr. Marianne Montgomery, PhD CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH: ________________________________________________ Dr. Ron Mitchelson, PhD DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL: ________________________________________________ Paul J. Gemperline, PhD ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Tom Douglass for his support, insights, and incredible patience throughout the writing of this thesis. His enthusiasm and encouragement were vital to the completion of this project. I would also like to thank Dr. Anne Mallory and Dr. Marianne Montgomery for their helpful suggestions throughout the revision process. To all of you, thank you for believing in me. DEDICATIONS I would like to dedicate this to my parents, Gene and Barbara Howland. Throughout my life, they have been supportive and enthusiastic. Their guidance and support was essential to my college career, from the first days of Physics to the final days of Literary Theory. Their faith and confidence in me continues to see me through. I am eternally grateful to them for all they do.
    [Show full text]
  • City and Nature in the Work of Zadie Smith
    Grey and Green: City and Nature in the work of Zadie Smith Grey and Green: City and Nature in the work of Zadie Smith Freya Graham Introduction In her riotous novel NW (2012), Zadie Smith takes us on a walk through North London. It’s a cacophony: “sweet stink of the hookah, couscous, kebab, exhaust fumes of a bus deadlock. 98, 16, 32, standing room only—quicker to walk!”.1 The narrative continues over a page, taking in “TV screens in a TV shop”, “empty cabs” and a “casino!”.2 Plant and animal life are almost entirely absent, aside from a moment of “birdsong!” and a building surrounded by “security lights, security gates, security walls, security trees”.3 Elements that we may associate with the “natural world” have become part of the architecture of the city, indistinguishable from the man-made lights, gates and walls. NW is so centred on city life that the title itself takes inspiration from a London postcode. The novel follows the lives of four friends—Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan— who grow up on the same estate in north-west London. As the friends grow older, their lives overlap in unexpected ways. Leah works in a dead-end job and still lives near her childhood estate; Natalie seemingly triumphs in becoming a successful lawyer and mother; Felix, a former drug addict, is forging a new life; Nathan is involved in organised crime. The novel’s ambitious narrative threads culminate in a tragic chance encounter. NW expands on the themes of class, race, identity and place which Smith first explored in her debut novel, White Teeth (2000).
    [Show full text]
  • The Representation of Cultural Liminality in Second Generation Migrants in Zadie Smith’S White Teeth and on Beauty
    European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 07, Issue 03, 2020 The Representation of Cultural Liminality in Second Generation Migrants in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and On Beauty 1V.Jagadeeswari , 2Dr. Suresh Ponnurangam 1PhD Research Scholar, Department of English, Vels Institute of Science, Technology and Advanced Studies (VISTAS), Chennai 600 117 2Associate Professor & Research Supervisor, Department of English, School of Languages Vels Institute of Science, Technology and Advanced Studies (VISTAS), Chennai - 600 117 Abstract Multiculturalism has become one of the key concepts in English studies in recent years. Multiculturalism is closely related to discourses or national or cultural identity. The majority is morally obliged to ensure that minorities are neither marginalized nor forced to assimilate completely to the dominant culture. The research paper entitled The Representation of Cultural Liminality in Second Generation Migrants in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and On Beauty draws attention towards matters such as social assimilation of immigrant generations, identity crisis, discrimination, predestination, or racism and pictures how the immigrants are separated from their home and need to battle with the troubles of living in an imploded empire. Zadie Smith as a black author describes black experience, rather than as a mixed race writer depicting a multicultural environment. The main characters of the novels are mostly migrants and the metropolitan experience they get in a stepping stone in their assimilation and so their different responses to the metropolis embody possible responses to the experience of immigration. Keywords: Immigrants, Multiculturalism, Cosmopolitanism, Hybridity, Assimilation. Cultural studies have laid a special emphasis upon problems of spatiality and spatial relations in the attempt to trace their influence upon the politics of identity, discussing the relocation of cultural spaces and the redefinition of their inhabiting identities.
    [Show full text]
  • Issue of Race in White Teeth İnci Gibi Dişler’De Irk Sorunu
    Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences (http://jss.gantep.edu.tr) 2016 15(2):729-738 ISSN: 2149-5459 Issue of Race in White Teeth İnci Gibi Dişler’de Irk Sorunu Fırat YILDIZ1 Yücüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Abstract Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, deals with the issues such as multiracialism, multiculturalism, migration, etc. Race is a sensitive topic and Smith takes it as a key subject in her novel. The novel is constructed around Iqbal, Chalfen and Jones families from ethnically and culturally very different backgrounds. Iqbals are Bengalis, Chalfens are Jews and Jones family consists of a Jamaican mother and British father. The multi- ethnicity of England is mainly projected through these three families. It is obvious that the colonial period has certain effects on the formation of the multiracialism in England. The colonization caused confrontation of different races, and White Teeth mainly takes the lives of descendants of the colonized nations into account. In this scope race becomes a substantial part of the White Teeth and his study focuses on issue of race in White Teeth. Key Words: Race, Culture, Immigration, Colonial Period. Özet Zadie Smith’in İnci Gibi Dişler adlı romanı İngiltere’deki çok ırklılık, çok kültürlülük ve göçmenlik gibi konuları ele alır. Özünde hassas bir konu olarak ırk, romanın anahtar konularından biridir. Roman, etnik ve kültür açısından çok farklı Iqbal, Chalfen ve Jones aileleri etrafında kurgulanır. Iqbal ailesi Bangladeşli, Chalfen ailesi ise yahudi kökenlidir. Jones ailesi de bir Jamaikalı anne ile bir İngiliz babadan oluşmaktadır. İngiltere’nin çok etnikli yapısı ağırlıklı olarak bu üç aile çerçevesinden ele alınır.
    [Show full text]
  • The Critique of Fundamentalist Discourses in Zadie Smith's White
    國立成功大學 外國語文學系研究所 碩士論文 A Thesis for the Master of Arts Department of Foreign Languages and Literature National Cheng Kung University 查蒂•史密斯《白牙》中基本教義論述的批判 The Critique of Fundamentalist Discourses in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth 研究生：孫玉玲 Advisee: Yu-Lin Sun 指導教授：張淑麗 教授 Advisor: Prof. Shuli Chang 中華民國一百零二年六月 June 2013 Abstract Zadie Smith’s debut novel, White Teeth, is known as celebration of multiculturalism which also presents fundamentalist discourses and a problematic and ambivalent view of cosmopolitan London. This thesis thus argues that Smith examines and criticizes two different fundamentalist discourses in her novel—religious fundamentalism and rational/scientific fundamentalism—by situating them against the backdrop of multicultural London to render precarious their claims to redemption, be it redemption by a divine act of grace or by the genetic improvement of mankind. Given that the novel exposes the multiplicities of these two fundamentalist discourses, the first chapter thus examines two rather different expressions of religious fundamentalism, those of Samad and Millat. It points out the deployment of such discourses by ethnic minorities is one way to resist racial discrimination. The second chapter focuses on the Chalfenist fundamentalism, which insists on the omnipotence of modern science and human intelligence. It articulates how this approach comes into conflict with religious fundamentalism and conservative groups. On the one hand, these fundamentalist discourses represent Smith’s awareness of the emergence of counter movements to resist the hegemony of multiculturalism and globalization. The failures of these fundamentalist discourses, on the other hand, point out the impractical fantasy of religions insistence on racial and ethnic purity, and also the blindness of scientific fundamentalists’ obsession with progress, development and human intelligence.
    [Show full text]
  • Inauthenticity and Intertextuality in Zadie Smith's NW
    ATLANTIS Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 42.2 (December 2020): 180-196 e-issn 1989-6840 DOI: http://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2020-42.2.09 © The Author(s) Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence “I am the sole author”: Inauthenticity and Intertextuality in Zadie Smith’s NW Beatriz Pérez Zapata Tecnocampus (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and Valencian International University [email protected] This article examines the role of intertextuality in Zadie Smith’s NW (2012) and the novel’s questioning of authorship, authenticity and identity. Relying on intertextual and postcolonial theories, the article lays bare how Smith’s novel questions the fixity and stability of selves and how she situates herself as an inherently intertextual author disrupted by others and potentially disruptive of (post)colonial ways of being and one that plays with notions of (in)authenticity and originality. For this purpose, the article pays attention to the novel’s intertextual links with the historical case of the Tichborne claimant and Jorge Luis Borges’s fictionalisation of it in the short story “Tom Castro, the Implausible Impostor,” included in the collection A Universal History of Infamy (1933). Moreover, the article focuses on the theorisation of infamy, understood as the disruption of hegemonic narratives brought about by marginal characters and discourses. Keywords: intertextuality; authenticity; authorship; postcolonialism; Zadie Smith . “Soy la única autora”: inautenticidad e intertextualidad en NW de Zadie Smith Este artículo explora el papel de la intertextualidad en la novela NW (2012) de Zadie Smith y cómo esta cuestiona los conceptos de autoría, autenticidad e identidad.
    [Show full text]
  • Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Monica Ali's Brick Lane
    T. C. FIRAT ÜN İVERS İTES İ SOSYAL B İLİMLER ENST İTÜSÜ BATI D İLLER İ VE EDEB İYATLARI ANAB İLİM DALI İNG İLİZ D İLİ VE EDEB İYATI B İLİM DALI Individual and Social Conflicts in Multicultural England: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane YÜKSEK L İSANS TEZ İ DANI ŞMANI HAZIRLAYAN Yrd. Doç. Dr. F. Gül KOÇSOY Seda ARIKAN ELAZI Ğ- 2008 T. C. FIRAT ÜN İVERS İTES İ SOSYAL B İLİMLER ENST İTÜSÜ BATI D İLLER İ VE EDEB İYATLARI ANAB İLİM DALI İNG İLİZ D İLİ VE EDEB İYATI B İLİM DALI Individual and Social Conflicts in Multicultural England: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane YÜKSEK L İSANS TEZ İ Bu tez 27 / 03 / 2008 tarihinde a şağıdaki jüri tarafından oy birli ği ile kabul edilmi ştir. Danı şman Üye Üye Yrd. Doç Dr. Doç. Dr. Yrd. Doç. Dr. F. Gül KOÇSOY Abdulhalim AYDIN Mustafa YA ĞBASAN Bu tezin kabulü, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Yönetim Kurulu’nun ……../……../……..tarih ve………………………..sayılı kararıyla onaylanmı ştır. Enstitü Müdürü Doç. Dr. Ahmet AKSIN FIRAT UNIVERSITY THE INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Individual and Social Conflicts in Multicultural England: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane Master Thesis SUPERVISOR PREPARED BY Assist. Prof. Dr. F. Gül KOÇSOY Seda ARIKAN ELAZI Ğ-2008 To my mother and my father… TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………. I ÖZET…………………………………………………………………………............ III ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………............ V 1.0. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………. 1 1.1. The Multi-National and Multi-Cultural Structure in the Twentieth Century 1.1.1 Britain: A Multicultural Country in the Twentieth Century 1.1.2 The End of the British Empire 1.1.3 British Immigration Map 1.2 “Multiculturalism” as a concept 2.0.
    [Show full text]
  • Zadie Smith: the BABEL Readers Guide
    Sponsored by JUST BUFFALO LITERARY CENTER ZADIE SMITH READER’S GUIDE Zadie Smith Smith went on to study English literature at King’s College at Cambridge, where she completed White Teeth during her senior year. Success came swiftly; a partial manuscript of the book earned her a lucrative contract with the British publisher, Hamish Hamilton, and White Teeth became an international bestseller upon publication in 2000. Two years later, it was adapted for television by Britain’s Channel 4. Time magazine named the book to their list of “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005,” and the Guardian called it a “broad, teeming, comic novel of multiracial Britain.” The book also notably won the 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the 2000 Whitbread Book Award for best first novel, the Guardian First Book Award, the Commonwealth Writer’s First Book Prize, and the Betty Trask Award. White Teeth is the sprawling, often humorous and sometimes heartbreaking story of the 50-plus years of friendship and follies shared between Samad Iqbal, a proud Bangladeshi Muslim and frustrated waiter, and bumbling, happy-go-lucky Archibald “Archie” Jones, whom Samad first met in a tank unit during World War II. Using non-linear flashbacks, White Teeth follows both men and their families as they struggle to find happiness and success in the racially diverse but tense modern-day At the age of 24, Cambridge University student Zadie London suburbs. The two are joined by Clara Bowden, Smith drew worldwide attention with her ambitious first Archie’s Jamaican wife and ex-Jehovah’s Witness, and novel, White Teeth.
    [Show full text]
  • Swing Time Zadie Smith
    Swing Time Zadie Smith Discussion Questions 1. At what point in SWING TIME did you realize the narrator’s name hadn’t been revealed? She is nameless throughout. Why do you think the author did this? 2. Similarly, what does this story gain from being told in first person, despite the narrator’s name never being re- vealed? What’s lost? 3. This book focuses heavily on female friendship. Why do you think Tracey and the narrator had such lasting effects on each other, even after they grew apart? 4. What is the significance of the title, SWING TIME? 5. The narrator’s mother and father are very different from Tracey’s parents. What do you think Smith is trying to explore with these many different models of motherhood and fatherhood? 6. Aimee is a favorite popstar of Tracey and the narrator’s as they are growing up. When we meet her years later, she is still performing, but also working to open a school in Africa. Why do think Aimee plays such an important role in both the narrator’s childhood and adulthood, and what is Smith trying to get at through her character’s words and actions? 7. The book has a very powerful line: “You want to believe there are limits to what money can make happen, lines it can’t cross.” What is the significance behind each characters’ very different relationship to money? 8. Describe the epilogue. Based on what you’ve learned about each of the charac- ters, what do you believe happens after the narrator sees Tracey dancing with her children? Swing Time Zadie Smith About the Author Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975.
    [Show full text]
  • Split Identities Hybridity and Mimicry Within the Characters in White Teeth
    Högskolan i Halmstad Sektion för Humaniora Engelska 41-60 Split Identities Hybridity and Mimicry within the characters in White Teeth Anna Lindh C-essay Handledare: Kristina Hildebrand, Cecilia Björkén- Nyberg Introduction The story of White Teeth takes place in London, a city which lives in both its past and present. Through its citizens from former colonies, the colonization time becomes vivid once again. Their presence in Britain was welcomed due to a lack of manual labour Britain suffered after the decolonisation. There was a shortage of people in the service industry, and many of those who came to Britain ended up in that field. During the time of colonisation the natives served the colonizer, who was then the visitor. The hierarchy of the master and the servant had now found new ground where it could develop. The former roles of the master and the servant were once again applied, but this time the master was the native and the servant was the visitor. The migration of people from former colonies to Great Britain only changed the geographical space of the colonization, the status between the master and the servant is unaffected. The former colonized came to Britain and, just like the British, they brought their culture and beliefs to a new continent. One can say that they were the new colonizer, an oppressed colonizer without the ability to become the authority. Until then, everyday life in Britain had not been affected by its history that happened overseas. The British in Great Britain had never really been a part of the great empire that the country once was.
    [Show full text]