From the Outside Looking in: Clashing Perceptions of Racial and Gender Identity in Zadie Smith's White Teeth, On Beauty, and Swing Time
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2017-07-10
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en
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Abstract
This thesis discusses issues of gender and racial identity in the novels White Teeth, On Beauty, and Swing Time by Zadie Smith. It offers an analysis of female main characters from these novels using intersectionality theory with a focus on Judith Butler's performativity theory and Homi Bhabha's theory on postcolonialism. The focal point of this thesis is the ways in which internal perceptions of gender and racial identity differ from culturally determined perceptions of these topics as perceived in the novels. It is argued in this thesis that culturally determined perceptions of gender and racial identity are often influenced by stereotypes existing in early 21st-century Western society, and that these stereotypes and perceptions can easily be internalised by (young) women. It also argues that this internalisation is not absolute, and can be lessened or even discarded.
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Faculteit der Letteren