A Study Of "The Other" In Zadie Smith’s Works From The Perspective Of Space

Zadie Smith(1975-),an English writer,made a great splash in the British literary world with her first novel White Teeth.Zadie’s novels involve many urgent social issues in contemporary western countries,such as race,immigrants and women’s issues,and are therefore called the spokesmen of “race,youth and women”.Her creative vision is broad,and she pays attention to the third world in global space,immigrants in urban space and “the other” situation of women in gender space.However,most scholars focus their research on the identity construction and multiculturalism embodied in Zadie’s works,ignoring the discussion of its spatiality.Although some scholars interpret Zadie’s works from the perspective of space,they often ignore the relationship between space and human state.In view of this,this paper intends to take Zadie Smith’s works White Teeth,The Autograph Man,On Beauty,N.W.,The Embassy of Cambodia,Changing My Mind,Swing Time as the research object,and apply the relevant space theories of Henry Lefebvre and Edward Suja and the concept of “the other” in post-colonialism and feminism to explore Zadie’s expression of “the other” through space as a medium.This paper consists of introduction,main body and conclusion.The introduction introduces Zadie Smith’s family background,learning experience and content of works,combs the research situation of Zadie’s works at home and abroad,points out the lack of research depth of Zadie’s works,and briefly introduces the research methods and significance of this paper.The first chapter mainly analyzes the situation of “The Third World” as “the other” on the global scale,which is divided into two aspects,namely,injustice in political space and hegemony in cultural space,and discusses different forms of exploitation and oppression that the third world encountered in colonial and post-colonial periods.The second chapter mainly analyzes the situation of immigrants as “the other” in cities,and discusses it from three aspects: immigrants in living space are isolated in marginal areas due to race,economy and other reasons,and their living environment is relatively poor;public space is turbulent,immigrants are excluded,racial inequality and violence happen from time to time;immigrants in the society are discriminated against and can’t integrate into indifferent cities.The third chapter mainly analyzes the situation of women as “the other” in the relationship between the sexes,and discusses it from two aspects: domination in the body space and oppression in the power space,pointing out that the root of the tragic fate of women in Zadie’s novels lies in the injustice of patriarchal society.The conclusion partly reaffirms Zadie Smith’s humanitarian concern for the third world,immigrants and women,and points out that resistance is the way to get rid of the fate of “the other”.