A Study On Immigrants' Dilemma Of Cultural Identities In Zadie Smith's White Teeth

In the postmodern and globalized context,the question of cultural identities has attracted more and more attention,especially in diaspora cultural studies.Zadie Smith catches the zeitgeist of contemporary Britain and approaches the serious issues of multiculturalism,ethnic diversity and identities by a humorous style in her debut novel White Teeth.Based on the phenomena of immigrants' living conditions in the novel and social reality,the thesis tries to deeply probe into the questions of cultural identities in the multicultural context.After close reading,the author of the thesis analyzes the reasons for immigrants' dilemma of cultural identities and offers possible strategies for locating immigrants' cultural identities from the angle of postmodern identities,such as Homi K.Bhabha's idea of hybridity,Stuart Hall's theories about cultural identities and so on.The thesis argues that cultural identities are not fixed any more in multicultural Britain,and the pursuit of pure cultural identities is doomed to failure.Meanwhile the thesis points out the racist,familial and cultural conflicts work together and result in the dilemma of cultural identities.Hybridity and ethics of care are the possible ways of locating cultural identities and solving conflicts among people.The thesis consists of three parts.The first part briefly introduces information of Zadie Smith and her debut work White Teeth,and summarizes the domestic and foreign researches on the novel.Meanwhile the part also presents the contents and theoretical framework of the thesis.The second part consists of four chapters.The first chapter mainly introduces the multicultural background of the novel and the relevant policies that British government issued in this context,and it points out these policies cannot really ensure the equality of different ethnic groups.The second chapter mainly analyzes the representations of cultural identities of first and second generation immigrants.The two different generations have different experiences and different cultural identifications.The first-generation immigrants are greatly influenced by past,and they often wander in the edge of past and present.However,the second generation immigrants are born in Britain,and they usually take extreme means to locate their cultural identities.The third chapter looks into the reasons for dilemma of cultural identities of immigrants.The thesis holds that racist discrimination still exists in multicultural Britain because racism has existed for several centuries.Immigrants are stereotyped as inferior and ugly,and they are just tolerated rather than recognized.Meanwhile the conflicts of family members also compoundimmigrants' dilemma of cultural identities,because they have different cultural identifications.Inter-generational gap leads to establishing the distance between parents and children.In addition,the negotiation of different cultures makes immigrants doubt their culture identities,and immigrants who pursue the pure culture feel confused facing different cultures.In the next chapter,the thesis points out the acceptance of hybrid identities and giving care among different ethnic groups are helpful for the location of immigrants' cultural identities and harmony of different groups.In the multi-ethnic and multicultural context,the boundaries are fluid and blurring,and immigrants should accept the influence of different cultures and their hybrid identities.Meanwhile,immigrants and native British should recognize and care about each other rather than isolate people from each other.The last part is conclusion.In this part,the thesis summarizes the process of construction of immigrants' cultural identities,and highlights the significance of the thesis and the realistic significance of hybrid identities.