Agency: A Moot Point?

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.

Leah shows she has external agency when she has an abortion and takes Natalie’s birth control. She has resources: the money to pay for the abortion and the access to birth control. Moreover, by quitting using drugs and by ending his relationship with Annie, Felix demonstrates that he has the “ability to act on behalf of what matters to [him].” It is important to Felix that he can be clean and that he can be in a monogamous relationship with Grace. Therefore, Felix also has external agency. In class, several people perceived that Natalie was the only character who had agency, yet Alkirke’s definition portrays that all three characters have agency.

The above paragraph gives examples of external agency, but Zadie Smith also shows that there is a distinction between external and internal agency. Michel illustrates a lack of internal agency when he calls Natalie near the end of the book. Smith writes, “‘She’s lying out there in the sun,’ said Michel. ‘She won’t speak. I don’t know what to do anymore’” (Smith 395). In this passage, Michel feels unable “to act on behalf of what matters to [him].” Although he feels as if he is not in control, Michel has the resources to get Leah back into the house. For example, he could pay people to restrain Leah and carry her out of the sunlight. This would be completely unethical, yet Michel has the monetary resources to change the situation, and consequently, has external agency. In following, Michel exemplifies the dichotomy of agency; a person can have one kind of agency, but not the other. 

Although I can imagine many more instances in which external agency and internal agency are independent of each other, looking back on the last few paragraphs, I wonder if the differentiation between internal and external agency often exists. Are internal and external agency usually separated from each other? Before I read this book, I had not consciously distinguished these two types of agency. Perhaps the reason for this is that the dichotomy does not usually apply. Natalie, for example, portrays external agency. She is born into poverty, but gains status through her work and through her marriage. Would Natalie have studied for years to become a lawyer if she did not believe that she could eventually be one? Would she have pursued Frank if she did not think that she could become Frank’s wife? Zadie Smith never answers these questions in NW. But, in my opinion, Natalie became part of the upper class because she felt empowered to change her status and because she found the resources (education and marriage) to do so. I would also argue that Leah thought that she could have an abortion and that she would be able to steal Natalie’s birth control before she had the abortion and before she stole the birth control. If she did not suppose she could accomplish either of these things, I doubt she would have pursued either. Furthermore, I do not believe that Felix would have been able to quit using drugs if he did not feel empowered to do so. In my opinion, Natalie, Leah, and Felix do not merely have external agency; they have internal agency as well.

Lastly, when seeing that all of these characters encompass multiple forms of agency, I begin to wonder if Alkirke’s broad definition of agency devalues it. Not only does Natalie, Leah, and Felix have internal and external agency, I start to wonder if agency can encompass trivial actions. For example, if walking “matters to [me]” and I have the ability to do it (because I have healthy legs and I often feel empowered to go on long walks), do I have agency? By Alkirke’s definition, I do. Although her definition helps me see that agency is not merely determined by a person’s resources and that people can have agency without desiring to change their socioeconomic status, it seems to be a moot point to say that any of NW’s characters have agency if I can have agency by just taking a walk. Yet, at the same time, I now wonder if I am catching myself in the same predicament that other people in our class were caught in. Natalie seems to have agency whereas I do not consider myself to (if I merely take a walk) because I value escaping poverty more than taking walks. Perhaps Alkirke’s definition is vague because it fights the quantification of agency. It stops people from saying that one form of agency is greater than another, and that what matters to one person, should be the concern of many. 

Work Cited

Alkire, Sabina. "Subjective Quantitative Studies of Human Agency." Social Indicators Research 74.1 (2005): 217-60. Print.

Smith, Zadie. NW. New York: Penguin, 2012. Print.