Female subjectivity and the urban landscape in Zadie Smith's NW

Abstract

One objective of this work is uncovering how the notions of subjectivity, otherness, and the urban landscape relate to one another in the novel NW, as they are displayed in the characters’ lives and in the narrative texture of the work. The relevance of this lies on the fact that uncovering how these notions relate to one another is uncovering how women’s subjectivities often find themselves in the crisis the novel portrays. The discussion of an issue that often identifies us as women is fundamental in the context of the XXI century when more times than not we lose our awareness of where we stand in the world, what we are and what we might be in the future. A second objective is to explore how the crises that the characters’ subjectivities are going through in their relation with the urban landscape are represented in terms of the novel’s aesthetic and narrative resources. To gain further insight as to the richness, in literary terms, of the novel is to deepen the literary discussion surrounding contemporary British literature.