Zadie Smith's Short Story 'The Embassy Of Cambodia'

Watching from Afar A mother and daughter have a special and unique bond, but what if the mother was never in the picture? In the short story called “The Embassy of Cambodia” by Zadie Smith, the main character named Fatou never mentions her mother in the whole story but she mentions her father very briefly. The narrator is never truly mentioned but many reason have the audience believing it is her mother that is the narrator. Even though Fatou strives to be independent she always has her mother following her when she doesn’t even know it. Her mother is the narrator because she was chosen by the Embassy, Knows Fatou’s thoughts, and knows the type of pain Fatou is going through and has gone through.

Fatou’s mother was chosen by the embassy

Her mother was able to know things that Fatou not only said but didn’t say. Fatou has many dark thoughts in this story one being, “It was not the first time that Fatou had wondered if she herself was a slave” (Smith). To know that Fatou was thinking that specific thought about slavery means there had to be some scenario that happened in her past dealing with slavery. This could be known by her mother because she herself could have been a slave or known who Fatou was thinking about when she made that remark. Therefore, her mother knew this because she knows Fatou from the past and knows why she would question something like that, and not just think of herself as a maid, but a “Slave”(Smith). Also in the story, Smith states “She had in her hands bags from Sainsbury’s, and this Fatou found a little mysterious”(Smith). This curiosity Fatou exemplifies shows that she had something in her past that made her feel more strongly about this more than the normal person. This a feeling only her mother could know about because she had lived with Fatou and understands her on a deeper level than just another person on the street. Smith consistently through the story has Fatou’s mother talk about all of Fatou’s feelings from her thoughts about slavery to her thoughts about the hand