In White Teeth, Zadie Smith destabilizes the concept of identity. Dispersed in a time-jumping, perspective-layered narrative, Smith’s characters search for a sense of continuity in their lives, but as the discontinuous story in which they are enmeshed suggests, this desire for a steady sense of self meets with continual frustrations. In addition to being aggravated by the strains of living in a multicultural, postcolonial present, the characters in White Teeth are constantly reckoning with their complicated pasts. As the narrative shifts, it illustrates the ways in which the characters’ identities themselves ceaselessly shift. In effect, Smith provides the reader with a glimpse into how her characters experience their identities. Through her characters’ inability to keep a steady hold on their identities, Smith suggests that something as convoluted as one’s identity cannot be dependably determined by some ‘defining’ past or any ‘defining’ characteristics.
Smith represents the instability of Samad Iqbal’s identity by driving a wedge between his religio-cultural commitments and his personal desires. This is manifest when he begins to feel attracted to Poppy Burt-Jones. After fighting off his usual impulse to grow embittered in response to being mistaken as someone from India, Samad realizes that his desire for Poppy leaves his sense of himself in state of psychological excitement and suspense. His attraction overcomes him. It eclipses what he is ordinarily able to feel in control of:
There was a bit of a difficult pause, in which Samad saw clearly that he wanted her more than any woman he had met in the past ten years. Just like that. Desire didn’t even bother casing the joint, checking whether the neighbors were in—de...
... middle of paper ...
...ts that make up who each character is. By focusing not just on how the characters toggle back and forth between acclimating themselves to new cultures and attempting to retain a sense of their cultural roots, but also on how the characters ultimately deal with being forced to live in this tension, Smith illustrates how identities are sometimes clung to in order to compensate for not feeling at home with oneself. Paradoxically, identities sometimes serve the role of helping someone deal with not having a stable identity. And even what is an even more profound paradox, Smith suggests through the story of Irie that the only stability one might hope to achieve comes from being willing to shed or alter one’s identity once one realizes that it does more harm than good; once one realizes that clinging to an identity amounts to biting oneself in the foot.
Claude M. Steele is the author of “ Whistling Vivaldi”, which mainly represents that the meaning of identity contingencies and stereotype threat, and how can these effect people’s ideas and behaviors. By writing this article, Steele tries to make people know exist of identity contingencies. Gina Crosley-Corcoran, who is a white woman suffered the poverty in her childhood. Through describing her miserable experiences in parallel construction to motivate readers sympathize her, moreover approving that she can as a powerful evidence for affirming the impact of identity contingencies. Crosley-Corcoran admits the white privilege really exist in some way in her article “ Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person”, and white privilege
There are many factors that lead to the development of an individual’s identity. Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” illustrates an extreme change in Gregor Samsa’s external identity and the overall outward effect it has on the development of his family. While James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” illustrates a young man struggling to find his identity while being pushed around by what society and his family wants him to be. Both of these characters exhibit an underlying struggle of alienation but both also demonstrate a craving for belongingness. This conflict of trying to belong to something as well as satisfying the needs of society, has directly impacted their own individuality and the lives of the people around them.
Forthright emotions are not necessary in this piece for the reader to connect, understand, or empathize with the plot. Johnson created a character who clearly has emotions, but chooses to safeguard them for a realistic feeling and the ability to concentrate on the more important purpose of the novel: to expose the difficulties a man with dual identity may face in a time period determined on separating and segregating who he is. Detached and emotionless, in this well-crafted and well-thought-out scenario, expresses more emotion and creates a more realistic novel than a complex examination of his inner feelings may have
...ver a true definition of identity and his own real identity, he is still as naïve and as gullible as he was at the beginning. He is the “same human individual, [seen] [differently] only in appearance” (Griffon 161). Every person who he had encountered had held a unique perception of him and even if that is not how he had desired to be perceived it is his own actions that originally driven them to that belief. Yes, he still has a unique identity of his being held in his core, but it is just as real as the identity that others hold around him but only relevant by the existence of belief. Identity is a tool only relevant to those who use it, if man functioned away from society then identity becomes pointless, illogical. Yet as the Narrator chooses to live as a part of society, he is still solely responsible for creating the path that serves to define him negatively.
The narrator's life is filled with constant eruptions of mental traumas. The biggest psychological burden he has is his identity, or rather his misidentity. He feels "wearing on the nerves" (Ellison 3) for people to see him as what they like to believe he is and not see him as what he really is. Throughout his life, he takes on several different identities and none, he thinks, adequately represents his true self, until his final one, as an invisible man.
Nevertheless, both Welch and Alexie challenge the dominating constructions of Native identity in their attempts to dismantle all forms of identity (both inside and outside indigenous cultures). By deconstructing the stereotypical tribal experience, Zits, Charging Elk and the Narrator offer a more freely defined model of Native American identity. Each character is thus liberated from colonial ascribed identities, and is able to take on a more ahistorical one. In taking on this model, the protagonists subvert the artificial distinction of society, and reveal a true identity of the contemporary Indian.
In Brave New World the social conditioning causes the characters to struggle with their acceptance of their place within society. In Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy the hereditary ties to the modern and Indian culture causes a strife among the characters. In both works, characters such as Bernard and the narrator from The Toughest Indian in the World are seen to initially struggle with their self-identify through internal thought. However, their internal struggle soon seeps through to the exterior, which causes a defining act. I will argue that in both Blasphemy and Brave New World the characters cope with their identity crisis by internalizing everything until a breaking point is reached causing a defining moment which is something that is out
In general, identity means how one sees himself/herself and others around in order to distinguish himself/herself as different. David Snow differentiates between the ‘individual’ and ‘collective’ identity as “personal identities are the attributes and meaning attributed to oneself by the actor, they are self-designations and self-attributions regarded as personally distinctive.” (Snow 2) On the other hand, the “collective identities attributed or imputed to others in an attempt to situate them in social space. They are grounded in established social roles.”(Snow 2) This research paper aims at examining the role of ‘collective’ identity that is formed on the expenses of the ‘individual’ identity and how this leads to physical and psychological repression in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Isaac Babel’s “My First Goose.”
Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...
Identity is 'how you view yourself and your life.'; (p. 12 Knots in a String.) Your identity helps you determine where you think you fit in, in your life. It is 'a rich complexity of images, ideas and associations.';(p. 12 Knots in a String.) It is given that as we go through our lives and encounter different experiences our identity of yourselves and where we belong may change. As this happens we may gain or relinquish new values and from this identity and image our influenced. 'A bad self-image and low self-esteem may form part of identity?but often the cause is not a loss of identity itself so much as a loss of belonging.'; Social psychologists suggest that identity is closely related to our culture. Native people today have been faced with this challenge against their identity as they are increasingly faced with a non-native society. I will prove that the play The Rez Sisters showed this loss of identity and loss of belonging. When a native person leaves the reservation to go and start a new life in a city they are forced to adapt to a lifestyle they are not accustomed to. They do not feel as though they fit in or belong to any particular culture. They are faced with extreme racism and stereotypes from other people in the nonreservational society.
...t to anyone. The ways in which White Teeth can be read mirrors the thought process of a person struggling with their identity. The celebratory aspects correlate to what an individual is proud of and values while the cautionary portions can be shame and uncertainty. The fact that the book goes back and forth between the two is especially relevant. The many sections and portions of the novel draw a parallel to the fractured identities of its subjects. The talk of eugenics and the unnatural shows how modern society makes it increasingly more difficult to determine what is real and should be upheld. Setting the story in a multicultural urban environment like London is an effective way to show the clash of ideologies occurring everywhere around the world. From the text to the setting to the individual, Smith is dealing with layers and the push and pull of modern life.
Every experience you’ve had has constructed your identity up to this point. Every experience you will have will construct your identity even more so. Every experience, including experiencing atrocity, constructs identity. Kaffir Boy, Mark Mathabane’s autobiography, depicts the peak of apartheid in South Africa as one person attempts to crawl out from under oppression. Nat Turner, Kyle Baker’s graphic novel, details one of the most underrepresented stories in American history: Nat Turner’s rebellion during American slavery. Both novels illustrate the atrocious crimes human beings commit against each other. Atrocities, such as enslavement, influence identity to such extremes that it irreversibly changes identity, usually to the degree that atrocities
Zadie Smith’s world wasn’t a made up fairyland with an elven language, ethereal metaphors or green setting, no, within her novel, White Teeth, it was a clear reflection of what type of society that she lived in. A society where everything seen can be an interpretation of what society wanted out of you, a false representation that was found in the comfortable ideals of Euro-Centric beauty which were hard to attain yet were so sought out no matter the amount of pain or crippling amount of self-hatred that seems to creep into your life and alter your self perception. This is what Smith explores. Now I may have an unfair insight towards why Smith wrote the types of characters that she did, so realistic in their flaws and manners, yet she states that the book’s settings were created by mish-mashing pieces of literary works that she had previously read from a young age, mind you White Teeth was written while she was attending university, was what made it so interesting.
The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.
...rrison’s characters. Slavery has destroyed, or perhaps not allowed the development of one’s identity. Fortunately, this lack of identity can be restored by a change or discovery of a name. “Everyone knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for…” (Morrison 323). Identify is important because it tells us and everyone else who we are and what we stand for. Without a name, you are without an identity. Without and identity, you are without remembrance. Without remembrance, you are undefined.