“We are shameful of who we are and are always locating our identity.” In NW, Zadie Smith portrays Keisha Blake’s loyalty and disloyalty among friends and lovers, but she overall depicts her struggle to remain loyal to her own identity. Through Keisha Blake’s changing image and relationship to her identity, Zadie Smith explores how outside forces can shape an identity and complicate an individual’s connection to their own identity. Keisha Blake changes her name to Natalie in order to escape the literal definition of her name, “loyalty,” which emphasizes her struggle to balance the culture that she was born into the one that she aspires to be apart of. Keisha’s name change to Natalie represents how even though people may feel shameful of their
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Keisha Blake initially changes her name to fit into a university that lacks diversity, which portrays her discomfort with her own racial heritage in comparison to her college peers. She at first justifies her name change as a trial due to the claim that “university is a time of experimentation and metamorphosis” (238). University certainly is a time for change, especially since it is a major leap of independence in which students have more control of their life paths. However, Keisha Blake’s gentrified environment automatically makes her name change a question of race. Zadie Smith claims that “it was not that Mrs. Blake hadn’t noticed the white people walking around with the climbing equipment, or the white people huddled in stairwells discussing the best method to chain themselves to an oak tree… but she had thought it was more of an aesthetic than a protest” (239). Even though Keisha Blake’s character may not acknowledge them as the prime reason for the name change, racial associations with her name motivate her to distance herself from it. The mere mention of the white people around campus contrast the environment in which Keisha grew up in. Even though she changes her name for an “aesthetic,” an overwhelmingly white student population fosters gentrified names as the …show more content…
“Natalie Blake was crazy busy with self-invention. She lost God so smoothly and painlessly she had to wonder what she’d ever meant by the word. She found politics and literature, music, cinema… She put her faith in these things, and she couldn’t understand why” (247). Religion often comes along with the culture one is raised with, and Keisha sacrifices it when she changes her name. Not only does it portray that she loses her sense of religion, but she also loses her general spirituality and connection to her culture. She becomes so focused on assimilating herself into a western culture of literature, music, and cinema that she has lost a grip on her own origins. When conflicted about her inner emotions, she solely focused on her image. For example,“to explain herself to herself, Natalie Blake employed a conventional image” (267). Keisha Blake utilizes conventionality as an excuse for not understanding herself anymore.
Overall, Keisha Blake’s attitude of her past after her name change represents the negative impact that gentrification can have on an identity. For instance, “Natalie Blake had completely forgotten what it was like to be poor. It was a language she’d stopped being able to speak, or even to understand” (330). Instead of taking her poverty and learning to grow from it, Keisha improves her life
Keisha Blake initially changes her name to fit into a university that lacks diversity, which portrays her discomfort with her own racial heritage in comparison to her college peers. She at first justifies her name change as a trial due to the claim that “university is a time of experimentation and metamorphosis” (238). University certainly is a time for change, especially since it is a major leap of independence in which students have more control of their life paths. However, Keisha Blake’s gentrified environment automatically makes her name change a question of race. Zadie Smith claims that “it was not that Mrs. Blake hadn’t noticed the white people walking around with the climbing equipment, or the white people huddled in stairwells discussing the best method to chain themselves to an oak tree… but she had thought it was more of an aesthetic than a protest” (239). Even though Keisha Blake’s character may not acknowledge them as the prime reason for the name change, racial associations with her name motivate her to distance herself from it. The mere mention of the white people around campus contrast the environment in which Keisha grew up in. Even though she changes her name for an “aesthetic,” an overwhelmingly white student population fosters gentrified names as the …show more content…
“Natalie Blake was crazy busy with self-invention. She lost God so smoothly and painlessly she had to wonder what she’d ever meant by the word. She found politics and literature, music, cinema… She put her faith in these things, and she couldn’t understand why” (247). Religion often comes along with the culture one is raised with, and Keisha sacrifices it when she changes her name. Not only does it portray that she loses her sense of religion, but she also loses her general spirituality and connection to her culture. She becomes so focused on assimilating herself into a western culture of literature, music, and cinema that she has lost a grip on her own origins. When conflicted about her inner emotions, she solely focused on her image. For example,“to explain herself to herself, Natalie Blake employed a conventional image” (267). Keisha Blake utilizes conventionality as an excuse for not understanding herself anymore.
Overall, Keisha Blake’s attitude of her past after her name change represents the negative impact that gentrification can have on an identity. For instance, “Natalie Blake had completely forgotten what it was like to be poor. It was a language she’d stopped being able to speak, or even to understand” (330). Instead of taking her poverty and learning to grow from it, Keisha improves her life