"Strolling toward nowhere": Urban Space and Narrative Time in Zadie Smith's NW
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2020
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Haverford College. Department of English
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only until 2021-01-01, afterwards Open Access.
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Abstract
Smith's experimental style reflects not just a different way of representing space and narrative time, but also a different way of understanding how people and spaces change within a singular place. The narrative is presented through depictions of geographical space rather than through a linear depiction of time, and the space of the city and the act of moving through that city is reflected within the text itself. Just as the novel itself is only experienced through the "routing" act of writing and/or reading, the city is only experienced through various routes of movement in both time and space. This thesis explores the relationship between the characters' mnemonic relationship with NW in terms of how they move through the temporalized and historicized space of the city and how these aspects interact with the novel as a text through theories on the navigation of space and narrative. It begins by looking at the structure of the novel as a whole and its position within broader realist and postmodernist traditions. It analyzes instances of movement and routing within the novel, showing how this movement reflects a dynamic definition of space, time, and the representation of memory. It also views how the characters' individual experiences with Northwest London affect their development throughout the novel to show how the action of the novel and the characters' development exists as an additional layer of history within NW as a space.