Zadie Smith Struggles

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Struggles can be internal and or external. It can be within ones self or between an individual and or group of people. Hardships are the struggles individual go through, on a daily basis either to fit in or to reach ones goals. Struggles are due to gender, race or ethnicity, class, ability, and marginalization. We are going to be examining the works of Jamaica Kincaid “Girl”, Zadie Smith “The Girl With Bangs”, and Stephen Graham Jones “Discovering America” in order probe the different kinds of struggles the characters go through. In Smith’s “The Girl With Bangs” the unnamed narrator struggles with gender orientation. She is a college student experimenting with a female, Charlotte. She is lusted by Charlotte’s mesmerizing bangs. Charlotte …show more content…

At the beginning of the story, Charlotte is in a relationship with a man named Maurice, who she promises she would wait for as he left for Thailand to pursue his career. As soon as Maurice leaves, the narrator slowly goes after Charlotte. The narrator is tactical; she uses the fact that she is a girl to her advantage. The narrator slowly befriends Charlotte’s friends and then Charlotte. In the story it states “I became a boy for the duration. I stood under the window with my open arms. I did all the old boy tricks. These tricks are not as difficult as some boys will have you believe, but they are indeed slow, and work only by a very gradual process of accumulation.” (Zadie Smith 264) The narrator took on a male role by using their pattern of seduction to win over Charlotte. The relationship between the narrator and Charlotte lasted for eight months and in the beginning the narrator referenced the relationship as an affair, later on she went to say the relationship tore her apart. The narrator must have felt as if she did not belong in that relationship since ultimately Charlotte belonged to Maurice. Before the end of the relationship, Maurice comes back for Charlotte and finds out of the relationship between his girl and the

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