A Study On The Unnamed Heroine’s Identity Confusion In Zadie Smith’s Swing Time

Zadie Smith is one of the representatives of English ethnic female writer,and she has published a lot of works that were highly acclaimed.Smith was born in an interracial working-class family from the northwest of London in 1975.She became famous after publishing her debut novel White Teeth in 2000.Smith has depicted a vivid living image of contemporary London with the natural yet vigorous writing languages.In her works,readers can find clashes and communications between different voices,different races and different cultures.Published in 2016,the new-released novel Swing Time first adopted the first-person narrative and portrayed the minority family from the working class in particular.The thesis is centered on representations of the narrator’s identity confusion,the reasons for her identity confusion and her efforts to cope with identity confusion.Based on some concepts and theories of cultural studies,psychology,sociology and feminism,the thesis is composed of five chapters.Chapter One is the introduction,which briefly introduces the writer,her works and the targeted novel Swing Time.Moreover,it gives a general literary review of the researches home and aboard to inform readers about the main information about the writer and Swing Time.Lastly,it demonstrates the structure and some theories applied for the thesis.Chapter Two discusses representations of the narrator’s identity confusion.It unveils the narrator’s ambiguous ethnic identity swing between white culture and black culture,and the narrator’s experiences being exiled by these two cultures.As the mixed-blood daughter of a Britain white father and a Jamaican black mother,she is regarded as "the Other" no matter in the birthplace Britain or the small village in West Africa.For one thing,the narrator cannot get rid of the potential troubles brought by racism.The unpleasant education experiences and the subtle racial discrimination show the narrator’s difficulties in integrating.For another thing,the unfamiliar history and unknown tongue in the West Africa also keep the narrator away.The narrator also experiences the troubled selfhood in the post-modern era.It discusses the narrator’s contradicted self in the digital world as both the beneficiary and victim,and the overindulgence in virtual world and the alienation from the real world lead to the false illusion.Drawing on Guy Debord’s theory in The Society of the Spectacles,the narrator is reduced to a passive spectator of the celebrity culture lacking of her own subjectivity.Chapter Three puts its emphasis on the analysis of the underlying three reasons accounting for the narrator’s identity confusion.Firstly,it explores negative impacts of the interracial family.In the affective sphere,her family cannot fulfill her basic needs of love and respect,which leads to the feeling of unhomeliness.In the ethic sphere,the narrator’s parents are unqualified as supportive family role models,and their contradicted and unmatched values cannot support the narrator in a wider culture.Secondly,the narrator is difficult to form the sense of belonging to either British white culture or African black culture.As one of the minority group,she is socially marginalized in both cultures.The narrator has the deep-rooted superiority over the African culture.Lastly,under the context of globalization and popular culture,the narrator’s superficial freedom is in essence illusion.The narrator is on the weak side and hard to get rid of shackles.Chapter Four discusses the strategies to deal with the above identity confusion.The narrator seeks the possibility of reconciliation through self-reflection and communication.It emphasizes the importance of an open mind and inclusiveness.The narrator also embraces the prospect of cosmopolitanism and looks forward to a harmonious space for different cultures and races.Chapter Five summarizes the previous four chapters and discusses both the meaning and the shortcomings of this thesis.In Swing Time,Smith accurately depicts the narrator’s confusion about her identity through the daily life details.This paper is meaningful for further demonstrating the mixed-race’s true living situation in contemporary Britain.It also shows writer’s concern and empathy for specific groups like the mixed-race and immigrants.