Not All That They “Post” To Be

When we meet the unnamed narrator in the prologue of Zadie Smith’s novel Swing Time, her life has just fallen apart. She’s alone in a rented apartment, dodging paparazzi, and her personal life is all over the news. The book that follows is the narrator’s attempt to explain how she got to this point, beginning with her first ballet class at age six. The narrator’s struggle to determine her identity, and to reconcile with the way she perceives herself with the way the exterior world perceives her, is the core theme of the novel. Throughout the book, the narrator is heavily influenced by others and attempts to recognize which of these influences is most in alignment with her personal aims and opinions.

The narrator’s friendship with Tracey can be viewed through the lens of identity. Tracey is crucial in establishing the narrator’s early priorities and perspectives, “there was always this mutual awareness, an invisible band strung between us, connecting us and preventing us from straying too deeply into relations with others” (16).  The narrator places enormous weight on her friend’s opinions, and the narrator dictates many of her choices, from the games she prefers to the career she aspires, based off of Tracey’s judgments. The narrator’s obsession with dance is largely motivated by her desire to gain closer proximity to Tracey.

Sexuality also affects the narrators’ identity and sense of belonging. Although the narrator remains Tracey’s friend, when the “nice” girls at school begin to ostracize her for early sexual maturation, the amount of time spent together occurs only on Tracey’s terms.

While playtime with girls like Lily Bingham offers the narrator relief from Tracey, this instance too offers alienation. Lily, a white, middle class, “color blind” girl is hurt when the narrator shows her a film scene with solely black performers. Meanwhile, the narrator can’t seem to grasp exactly what Lily means by “we” when she claims “we” would be displeased if only black children were allowed to attend dance classes. Just one instance of a character casually conferring/ negating the narrator’s black identity.

This alienation is mirrored in Africa. There, the black residents are impressed that “white women” like the narrator and her employer, Aimee (an actual white woman), can dance like black people do.

Smith’s narrator fails to inspire admiration the way other women in her life might, additionally lacking a dream to chase of cause for which she fights for. Instead, she remains laboring in the shadows of others. Her mother, (recruited to participate in social marches), Tracey (working as a stagehand where she assists Tracey in dealing with costumes and love affairs), and Aimee (her on-call assistant). Much of the novel’s tension arises from the narrator’s inability to form an identity outside of these three main women. Like her, we’re ultimately more interested in the three stronger women around her than in her own life. She’s essentially an observer, reacting to the movements of those around her — a shadow. We might not get a happy ending or clean precision, but by the end we do come to see portions of ourselves in many of its characters.

Works Cited

—, Swing Time, 2016.