The Many Voices of Post-Colonial London: Language and Identity in Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000) and Andrea Levy's Small Island (2004)

摘要

This essay examines the role of language in Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000) and Andrea Levy's Small Island (2004), arguing that English in its various forms not only partakes in the shaping of postcolonial human relations but also helps deconstruct rigid notions of identity, including that of Englishness. Nevertheless the two novels differ in certain respects: in Small Island Englishness emerges from a process of occasionally painful mutual adaptation and compromise, while in White Teeth Smith goes further in redefining Englishness as the expression of the human diversity at the heart of contemporary London.