ZADIE SMITH’S IRONIC NARRATOR: THE MANY TRUTHS OF MULTICULTURALISM

Text topic: Literature and Truth

Text author: Татјана Милосављевић

Irony mocks truth in language by always implying at least two possible meanings: the literal and the figurative one. As such, irony as a figure of speech is conducive to the topics of Zadie Smith’s writing. The omniscient narrator of White Teeth tells the story of a transnational metropolis in an elaborate, ironic tone, verging on parody, in order to bring out the multifaceted and complex relational network that underlies the identities of the 20th century Londoners. The slippage and ambivalence inherent in verbal irony reflect Smith’s multiethnic setting, where no easy labels of identity apply, just as the meaning of an ironic utterance is not singular and is subject to multiple interpretations. The narrator of White Teeth conveys irony on the extradiegetic level with the function to expose how living in a multiethnic society leads to a deconstruction of the subject’s identity and his deeply-rooted, dogmatic truths about himself and the undying Other.