A Psychological Study of Social Identity in Zadie Smith’s Swing Time

Abstract

The search for identity is the central theme of numerous literary works, often focusing on the protagonist. This study examines the protagonist's development throughout Swing Time by Zadie Smith, which, is motivated by a search for the individual's "authentic identity”. It's only appropriate that the protagonist of the novel is experiencing adolescence. As a British author, Smith uses her highly regarded novel Swing Time to investigate questions of black people's racial identity and their connections to other races. This study explores the challenges faced by black-skinned people. The difficulties that immigrant communities face, in contemporary Britain, in assimilating to the majority culture are depicted in Smith's Swing Time. This analysis is based on psychoanalysis theory, Erick Erickson’s theory, which is used to illustrate the difficulties experienced by the main character in the quest for identity. The researcher concludes that the narrator's influence from family and her lack of personal understanding explain her inability to adopt a tolerant and reasonable attitude when confronted with a multicultural society. It also shows the characters succeed or fail in developing their identity.