The Construction of Identity in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
Abstract
Postmodern writers demonstrate the problems of living in a postmodern world. Zadie Smith, as a Black British novelist and immigrant, is dealing with postmodern subjects in her first novel White Teeth (2000). The novel focuses on postmodern issues and in particular, the construction of identity of the Bangladeshi ( Samad Iqbal) and the Englishman (Archie Jones) who are two close friends, and their children’s living in multicultural London.
Obviously, White Teeth explores the troubles related to the existence in a diverse culture with the space between the migrants of the first and second generations. The characters are linked to their past, also they are unsatisfied with their life in a contemporary society. Smith portrays the second generation migrants and believeshey are totally different from Western societies in the way of raising up, living, thinking, etc. Some of the characters see themselves as strangers in a strange world; they even spent most of their life in London. Some other characters intend to connect to fundamental groups so as to construct their identity and achieve their social status.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the construction of identity through the lens of the theories of postmodern; specifically those of Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Fredric Jameson and these theories will then be applied to the novel practically. Also, this study will examine how the characters construct their identities and how the two different cultures interact on identity formation level in Smith’s White Teeth. Also, it will demonstrate the role of history and the past of the first generation to construct the second generation’s identity.
References
2. Bauman, Z. (2004). Identity Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi . UK: Polity Press .
3. Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge Print.
4. Boyle, K. (2005). Dimensions of Racism. In K. Boyle (Ed.), Proceedings of a Workshop to commemorate the end of the United Nations Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (p. 199). New York and Geneva: United Nations.
5. Culler, J. (2011). Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. (2nd, Ed.) NY: Oxford UP Print.
6. Elliott, A. (Ed.). (2010). The Routledge Companion to Social Theory. New York & London: Routledge.
7. Fernández, I. P. (2009, December). Representing Third Spaces, Fluid Identities and Contested Spaces in Contemporary British Literature. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, 143-160.
8. Head, D. (2002). The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction1950-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
9. Kellner, D., 1989. Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism. Oxford: s.n.
10. Malps, S., 2006. Jean-François Lyotard. London and New York: Routlege Reprint.
11. Nichols, S. (2001, winter). ‚Biting off More than You Can Chew: Review of Zadie Smith's White Teeth. New Labor Forum, 64.
12. Sarup, M., 1993. An Introductory Guide to Poststructuralism and Postmodernism. 2nd ed. New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
13. Schlesinger, A. M. (1992). The Disuniting of America. London: W.W. Norton Company.
14. Smith, Z. (2000). White Teeth. US and Canada: Compass Press Large Print.
15. Stearns, P. N. (2006). Consumerism in World History, the Global Transformation of Desire. NY & London: Routledge.
16. Walters L. Tracely (Ed.). (2008). Zadie Smith: Critical Essays. NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Copyright (c) 2019 Banaz Wirya Ali, Juan Abdulla Ibrahim

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
At Zanco Journal, we're dedicated to protecting your rights as an author, and ensuring that any and all legal information and copyright regulations are addressed. Whether an author is published with Zanco Journal or any other publisher, we hold ourselves and our colleagues to the highest standards of ethics, responsibility and legal obligation