Confined in the urban zone: Postmodern city in Zadie Smith’s NW

نوع المستند : Research papers

المؤلف

English Department, Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages), Minia University, Minia, Egypt

المستخلص

In the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, literary representation of the city has proliferated as it becomes a central factor in constructing modernliterature and postmodern literature.Thecontemporary city reflectspostmodern reality in which, “the world itself becomes both discontinuous and indeterminate”(Lehan, 1998, p. 267). In postmodern literature, the city is complicated, anddiverse, of diminished humanity and human isolation and anxiety.This paper aimsto investigate the complex urban zone of the contemporary city as reflected in the postmodern novel NW(2012) by the British writer of Jamaican origin Zadie Smith. The paper attempts to answer the following questions: Does the city as a trope in postmodern literature become an equivalent to entrapment? How is the city transformed into a system of signs that cannot be deciphered? How is the construction of subjectivity affected by the postmodern city?Toanswer these questions, the study will employ Richard Lehan’s theorization of the postmodern city and the subject, in addition to Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality as a theoretical framework. These theories will be utilized to analyze the symbolic representation of city in literature as reflected in NW. By integrating postmodern theory, and literary analysis, this research seeks to fill the gap by focusing on the psychological weight that the postmodern city exertson the individual.By integrating postmodern theory, and literary analysis of Smith’s fragmented characters, this research aims to contribute to the understanding of the complex relationship between urban spaces, their literary portrayals, and the postmodern literature.

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الموضوعات الرئيسية

مجلة اللغات والترجمة
المجلد 11، العدد 4
أكتوبر 2024
الصفحة 100-112

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