Postcolonial Female Subjects: Rewritten Identities in Andrea Levy’s 'Small Island' and Zadie Smith’s 'NW'

Abstract

Analysing Andrea Levy’s Small Island and Zadie Smith’s NW, this dissertation observes the (re)constitutions of female identities in postcolonial London. Small Island provides readers an account of hostile London in the aftermath of the Windrush emigration, whereas NW engages in postmillennial London, which is more welcoming towards multiple cultural societies. The phenomenons of migration and skin colour become pivotal experiences, threatening women’s selfhood in both novels. While Small Island’s female protagonists go through painful identity (re)constructions due to post-war London's political and social reality, NW’s women seem to self-fashion their identities, which are also affected by the discursive power of racism and misogyny of the twenty-first century London.

I contextualize Levy’s fictional identity (re)constitutions alongside Stuart Hall’s criticism of cultural identity while tackling Smith’s subjects through Judith Butler’s gender performativity. Moreover, this thesis will observe London in the terminology of Mary Louise Pratt as the contact zone where women reinscribe their identities and, in turn, redefine the city of London. I will conclude that by incorporating the marginal and unfamiliar voices with the dominant and familiar ones, these novels contest white-hegemonic discourse and offer alternative scenarios for the co-existence of diversity. This study will demonstrate that both of these postcolonial texts propose female solidarity — whether it is through motherhood or friendship — for a more mutable and hybrid London.