Identity, Womanhood In Zadie Smith's On Beauty

Voice, Identity, Womanhood

In Zadie Smiths On Beauty (2006) it can be seen how characters are experienced by the reader through the use of voice. This voice provides evidences of the identity within each individual which then shapes the story. Through this identity the vocalization of the word of woman is seen through the strong female characters of Carlene, Kiki and Zora. These three aspects can be seen in the close reading of the moment when Kiki is looking outside and admiring the garden when Zora comes in and is about to make breakfast following the information that Kiki will later go visit Carlene which shocks her daughter because of the tension between the Kippses and the Belseys. Along with the moment when a Kiki visits Carlene for

It starts off with the intertextuality when Kiki reflects on the hymn “Hallelujah” as a metaphor for the progression of her love with Howard. Howard once, in the past, describes this song as a “hymn deconstructing a hymn” (Smith, 2006: 173), always critical and opinionative about everything, whose opinions Kiki accepts at this point in their relationship. Later on in their relationship Kiki asks in a rhetorical question why she had “always conceded what was left in the past to Howards edited versions of it.” (Smith, 2006: 174) Presently she comes to the conclusion that her marriage went from joy, Buckleys beautiful version of the song, to the end of her marriage, the death of Buckley. The lyrics of the song; “all I learned from love was how to shoot someone who outdrew you” (Buckely, 1994) also reflect on the life of Howard and Kiki. Kiki therefore realizes that Howards ‘academic’ voice had been accepted by Kiki during their marriage, not for the better as she concludes. As although she is a strong opinionated woman she was never intellectually opinionated in the way she thought her husband was and therefore his voice ended up replacing

Zora is seen to care about her self-image and the identity that she puts forward to the world. She states that she “can only eat one meal a day at this point” (Smith, 2006: 197) and she swims on a regular basis. She also states the need to go shopping. This therefore indicates her need to fit into these westernized standards of beauty where she needs to constantly put forward a good front and be skinny. Thus, this indicates how she is insecure about her own identity and pressured by beauty standards placed onto woman on a daily basis. Kiki on the other hand, is described to have “flopped forward” (Smith, 2006: 197) indicating her size, she therefore does not care about these beauty standards. Kiki states that these beauty standards “are in the air” (Smith, 2006: 197), they are unavoidable, woman are not safe anywhere. Also, that they “seep in with every draught” (Smith, 2006: 197), seep having a connotation with water and water being the cure for a draught. Kiki therefore has the point of view where she does not care to reflect these beauty standards in her identity. Thus, from the two different perspectives seen in the voices and identities of Kiki and Zora, the voice or the voiceless concerns of the general female population are raised.

Due to the voices of the characters of Zora, Kiki and Carlene in the novel On Beauty (2006) by Zadie Smith in the close readings of the moments when Kiki first