Play in the City 2013

            When Zadie Smith came to speak at Bryn Mawr, she discussed how we as people are able to view others and see who they are as a person, but when we look back on ourselves, we are unable to place who we are as a person, which can be frustrating and disconcerting to those who are unable to accept this as a general fact of existing. This struggle with identity can be seen in Zadie Smith’s novel NW, through the characterization of Keisha/Natalie, who throughout the novel battles with who she is as a person, who she wants to be, and how she wants others to view her. Keisha’s first battle with her identity develops from her being ashamed by her background in the low-income area of north west London, where her decision to change her name is representative of wanting to leave her previous life behind and start anew, however, the new Natalie is never able to leave Keisha behind. Another identity crisis that Natalie struggles with is her need to create an identity that she can see, rather than being content with who she is as an individual. She has grown up trying to become the ideal model of a person that she has created based on her perceptions of other people and what she views as fitting for a successful life, and she unsuccessfully does this by taking fragmented bits of other peoples lives and trying to build a life of her own.

Zadie Smith’s novel NW contains multiple stories composed of social, familial, romantic, and marital interaction. Surrounding several of these interactions are performances of economic activity, behaviour, and mentality. The stories of Leah, Michel, Natalie, Frank, and Natalie’s and Frank’s children all raise ideas of economic behavioural influences in non-economic aspects of their lives. This analysis leads to the notion of how self-interest and tendency for self-serving fundamentally drive our performance and behaviour in life.

                When does friendship begin? When can you say that you’ve made an acquaintance?  It might be after a dinner conversation, or even a long walk back to the dorm from classes, but what really marks the start of any kind of relationship is names.  Knowing another person’s name is what differentiates them from a person seen across the hallway or a face you recognize in a crowd, as if knowledge of names equates to familiarity and knowledge of another’s identity.  In NW by Zadie Smith, names are critical to understanding the identities and personalities of the characters.  In particular, the dichotomy between Keisha and Natalie as two different aspects of the same individual causes an incredibly complex identity crisis that drives much her story in the novel.

The real NW

Though seemingly realistic, Zadie Smith’s NW is loaded with inaccuracies in regards to the area and characteristics of locals that become apparent after an investigation.  

While reading NW something didn’t ring true.  The story did not feel real.  Having never been to the area, however, I accepted the descriptions of all of the actual locations to be accurate.  I accepted Willesden as an area where whites are the minority, everyone smokes and most people are from modest backgrounds, but these characterizations are inaccurate.  According to a report on the public health of Brent County in London more than half of Willesden residents are white and about 70% of all people in London are as well (Willesden).  This report goes on to show that “at least a fifth of the population… smokes” and in all of the separate sections of Willesden, for men and women, unemployment ranges from 3.4% to 7.4% which is about 50% higher than that of all of England; the report does not, however, indicate the actual socioeconomic statuses common in Willesden.  Though just numbers, these statistics paint a much more detailed picture of the citizens of Willesden.

The number 37 and Leah Hanwell are introduced at the beginning of NW and resurface throughout it. Leah probably learned about the number 37 from her friend Natalie who said, “The number 37 has a magic about it, we’re compelled toward it. Websites are dedicated to the phenomenon. The imagined houses found in cinema, fiction, painting, and poetry-almost always 37. Asked to choose a number at random: almost always 37. Watch for 37, the girl said, in our lotteries, our game-shows, and our dreams and jokes, and Leah did, and Leah still does.” (46) This quote conveys that the number 37 has a “magical” significance, and is somehow part of the underlining structure of society. The number 37 stays in Leah’s subconscious throughout NW and she notes whenever she sees it.

Leah has many chance meetings with an old schoolmate named Shar. (5) After these encounters, like the number 37, Shar stays in Leah’s subconscious. Shar knocks on Leah’s door one day asking for money. Leah lends Shar money, and Shar promises to pay her back. After that incident, Leah starts to have multiple chance encounters with Shar, and Shar doesn’t pay her back.

In class, several people argued that Zadie Smith’s Natalie was the only character who showed any agency. By doing well in school, becoming a lawyer, and marrying a wealthy man, Natalie escapes poverty. But, is Natalie the only character who has agency in NW?

Sabina Alkirke analyzes several researchers’ methods of studying agency in “Subjective Quantitative studies of Human Agency.” She finds that agency is not only measured by a person’s ability to change her socioeconomic class. Alkirke broadens the definition of agency to be “people’s ability to act on behalf of what matters to them” (Alkirke 223). She presents agency as multi-faceted; it can be measured objectively through a person’s resources, but also subjectively through feelings of empowerment (Alkirke 23). Agency, therefore, is both an internal and an external phenomenon. Using Alkirke’s definition, Natalie has agency, but so do Leah and Felix.

Co-authored by Muni

Zadie Smith begins and ends her novel, NW, with each half of a friendship. The novel opens with Leah, grown up and on her own, listening to a radio that at some point mentions what it is to define oneself. The novel closes with Keisha (now Natalie), going through an existential crisis. A large portion of the middle of the novel is devoted to the events that lead to the beginning and the end of the novel, toward the adulthood of these characters. In this way, the book appears to almost grow from the inside out, which parallels the theme of existentialism throughout the novel. Existentialism is the idea that one is defined through one’s own actions; what one chooses to do internally is observed by an “Other,” who then is able to define the other. In this way, one cannot be defined without an Other (in this case, a close friend). When one loses their Other, they also lose a large part of their identity and fall into despair, which leads to an existential crisis.

ex·is·ten·tial·ism (n)–

A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.

Throughout the course of Zadie Smith’s novel NW, the reader is treated to three different yet concurrent perspectives from residents of the NW neighborhood in London. The novel stars Leah Hanwell, the perennial underachiever, Felix Cooper, who is actively turning his life around, and Natalie Blake, née Keisha Blake, who on the surface seems the happiest and most successful of the three, but has her own demons to deal with. Each character has chapters following his or her life, leading up to the annual neighborhood Carnival. Besides the neighborhood itself, one of the points of the novel that ties all three sections together is Felix’s death the night before Carnival. It is referenced in Leah’s chapters, experienced in his, and the aftermath is mentioned in Natalie’s. Smith uses the intersection of these perspectives within the city in regards to Felix’s death as a tool to express the ideas of existentialist philosophy, structuring the story to show the connections in order to expose the meaninglessness in the lives behind those connections.

   On one side, Felix was naked and did not intend to cover himself. (Smith 113) On the other side, Natalie was naked, shamefully. (Smith 389) It is interesting to find that Zadie Smith opens two seemingly separated stories of unrelated people with the same settings and portraits. In re-reading this book, I am shocked that there are many similarities between Felix and Nat. However, there are large differences or even contrasts between them, which seem like two people with analogical background turn to adverse directions in lives. Maybe, I think, Felix plays vital rule in this book by acting as another opposite Natalie.