In the essay “Speaking in Tongues”, Zadie Smith identifies a common problem in society. People always think about voices as singular or unchanging, but in truth everyone has a multiple voices. That’s a problem because society’s perception and the reality don’t fit. Distorted reality has always been a source of difficulties for different societies. It’s important for society to avoid blind acceptance to “Truths” that are far from reality.
In the beginning of the essay Smith describes how her voice changed as she moved in a different environment. At first, she spoke both her new voice and old voice, but later she unintentionally became single-voiced. However, the reader isn’t quite convinced about Smith’s single-voiced nature when she introduces …show more content…
There are big similarities between Smith and Obama. Both are biracial. They also similarly demonstrate their multi-voice nature. Smith as Obama indicates on our “collective messiness.” Smith’s characters are people in between things. Obama ignores unwritten rules that other black politicians obeyed. He isn’t afraid of losing “blackness” as a quality. On the other hand, Smith criticizes black community in public and doesn’t keep the business in family. Smith, through her essay, publicly disagrees with the idea of “keep it real” and therefore risks losing of “blackness.” But “blackness” doesn’t exist for Smith. She realizes that she, as Obama, is black and white and doesn’t feel the pride of being black or white. She never says I’m black, but she says I am “black, and, at the same time, white.” like Obama, she is a “Double-dealer.” Smith’s voice represents her true identities. She doesn’t diminish her identity to one race. Smith similarly to Shakespeare has an audacity to speak “simultaneous truths.” She, as other multi-voiced people, sees both sides of a thing: “I love to be black, and I love that I had a white father.” She easily, without burden and with freedom, uses black and white together, “contrasting voices”, because she recognizes that she has no role in genetics. After introducing Dream City, Smith systematically uses “We.” Why does Smith behave so? Where is her singular voice that she was claiming earlier? Does Smith want to show that she comes from Dream