The Complexity in Identity: Critical Analysis on Speaking in Tongues

“Speaking in Tongues” is typically thought of as a story with the given message of how we spoke in different languages and voices. In Zadie Smith’s “Speaking in Tongues,” she scrutinizes and describes the differences between the use of one voice and the use of multiple voices from her perspective. Speaking more than one voice makes it very powerful and useful when it comes to speaking towards different groups of people.  In the beginning of her story, she starts off by giving a brief summary of how the voice from her childhood is no longer the same voice she had when she got into college. She thought she was able to keep both voices, but she was wrong. Then she goes in and describes how people view her because she wasn’t from the same place. People talked and spoke differently. There was so much diversity, making it hard for her to fit in as she tries to become one of her peers by trying to adjust to the new environment and calls them “the voice of lettered people,” (132). She just wanted to be accepted for whom she was and when she finally got to fit in, she only thought that her type of English language represented everyone else and that no one spoke differently (132). At first she had only one voice, but later on, she adds in another voice. She tried to add a “new kind of knowledge to a different kind,” but mentioned that her old childhood voice was no longer able to convey her thoughts when she got to college (132). Throughout Zadie Smith’s essay, she discusses the many different types of voices used by many famous people, but never really honors herself and how great her “voice” actually is. In the passage, why does Zadie Smith keep mentioning, “voice” and what does she mean by “voice”? Zadie Smith speaks of herself as a single-voiced person, but in reality, she is multi-voiced. Going back to the beginning of the story, she always tells the reader that she has one “voice,” but she makes many references to multiple examples jumping from voice to voice coming from London to Cambridge University. As she speaks about the American culture, you also notice that she talks about the British culture and with that, it is shown that she possesses multiple voices. If we continue to believe that this story is only simply about different languages and voices, we will miss the complex idea behind the story which is the real meaning of cultural identity.

What makes up our “voice”? Is it our background or our color? In order to show what she means by “voice” in the passage, one of the many people discussed in her essay is Barack Obama and the difference voices he has. Zadie states, “Even I want to be Barack Obama,” (137) as she admires and praises the way Barack Obama speaks when talking to his fellow listeners. This makes the audience wonder why Zadie Smith decides to dedicate this passage on Barack Obama’s way of speaking? In this specific part of the passage, many rhetorical questions were used to show the curiosity that the author had about how Obama is able to speak in two different voices to a specific crowd. “How can the man who passes between culturally black and white voices with such flexibility, with such ease, be an honest man? How will the man from Dream City keep it real?” (140). The “black” and the “white” voices mentioned in the passage meant the black and white people he was surrounded around by since Obama’s mother was white and Obama’s father was black. He compares his white side to his black side since he came from two different cultural and racial backgrounds just like how Zadie Smith compares herself with her white and black side since her mother was black and her father was white. Who was he and what was he? How did he get different people to listen to him? “For Obama, having more than one voice in your ear is not a burden… it is a gift,” (136). He was just a “many-voiced man” (136).

Referring to the context about the “culturally black and white voices,” the underlying definition of someone’s “voice” in this context is mainly their identity, which represents who they are. This is because the text stated that Barack Obama was biracial, half white and half black, but no one would ever say “…Obama is not the first black president but the first biracial one,” (141). Instead in the passage, it was stated that he was “A clear and unified voice” (140). Even though he was able to speak in many different voices at many different cities and was able to represent for every American, in order to “keep it real,” he had to adopt those many different identities. He had to speak the way they spoke. He had to change the way he spoke in order for the people to pay attention to him when his mouth opened.

During his campaigns, he tries to unite everyone as one by using “we” instead of using “I” (138). He then becomes the one “voice” and the singular “identity’. In the text, it also mentioned that Obama came from “Dream City,” but what was “Dream City”? Dream City was “a place of many voices” (137). All of us come from “Dream City” and as we adapt to the surroundings around us, we will learn “to cross borders and speak in tongues” (138). We will no longer have the original voice we had. Later on, Obama then relates himself to the black girl named Joyce. She wasn’t completely black just like how Obama wasn’t.

I’m not black…I’m multiracial…Why should I have to choose

Between them?… It’s not white people who are making me choose…

No— It’s black people who always have to make everything racial. They’re

the ones making me choose. They’re the ones who are telling me I can’t be who I am… (140)

She shows us that she was not able to pick what race she was and instead was being categorized by race and by color when black people first see her by saying “It’s black people who always have to make everything racial” (140). People forced her to choose between the different skin colors, but they don’t allow her to be herself. Because people are willing to change themselves, they end up becoming someone they’re not. Joyce was just like Barack Obama, a multiracial human being. Due to her skin color, people considered both of them black. “..I ignore the box marked “biracial” and tick the box marked “black” on any questionnaire I fill out, and call myself unequivocally a black writer” (141). There was no multiracial category in other’s eyes, but only black or a white. There was no separation between multiracial people and black people. Do we have to isolate one identity just to find another one? Do we have to hide our real identity because we are ashamed of it? Your identity is not where you are from or what color you are born with and most importantly, it is who you are as a person and how you act. By listening to the people who tell you how to act, you have already let society shape your identity since “They’re the ones who are telling me I can’t be who I am” (140). They are the ones that have a say in this and because you are listening to them, you don’t know what you are. In this whole essay, Zadie Smith really categorizes everybody in a specific way to get a better understanding of what she is trying to say about identity and how people think about identity. In the essay, she doesn’t state herself as having several identities (many voices), but only one identity (one voice). This meant that because she tried to adopted the old and new voices, and as a result, she unified herself to be one “voice.” This answers the question to why she always mentions “voice” so often in the passage.

She presents Barack Obama in this text to demonstrate that he has a major connection with people conflicting background and conflicting history. Just like Barack Obama, Zadie Smith was stuck in between two “voices” as she gradually tries to change her “voice” from old to new. She loses her old one and can’t go back to her old voice. She was a black woman trying to accomplish goals in life by starting from the bottom to the top just like how Barack Obama was a black man starting to work from bottom to the top. They both looked from the same point of view. Changing voices may be uncomfortable but, like Obama, Zadie knew that she needed to change her voice for a specific audience in order to be successful. Because Obama changed his voice whenever he was with a different audience, he was successful. As stated in the previous paragraph, “Why should I have to choose between them?” (140). Why can’t they just accept them for who they were? Zadie Smith also had many voices just like Barack Obama. Because of all these techniques used in her writing such as rhetorical devices and imagery, it gives the reader a better understanding and visual of all the points that she is trying to make. The rhetorical devices used in the passages also made it clear what the author was thinking and represented the way she spoke. The way Zadie Smith wrote her essay made us confused and questioning, but the contradicting points she makes also let us see the way she looks from a different perspective. The way she used the strategies made the passage entertaining and sends us the message and gets the point across that people are not items and should not be classified by categories to find out what their real identity is even though our “voice” changes along with our cultural identity. What is your “voice”?

 

Cover Letter

When I first started this essay, I didn’t have an idea of what to use as an intellectual problem and claim. I was very confused. Then I decided to talk about voices and their identity because I feel like I can relate to it and it is talked about throughout most of the story. I chose to write about the Obama part of the story because Zadie Smith is also black and they can also relate to each other about having different voices (identities). I also talked about the rhetorical questions she used to write this piece to really bring out the thoughts she had. I don’t think I added enough literary devices when analyzing the piece and I am going to fix that in my final essay. I can maybe go more in depth when analyzing. Right now, my draft may not be the best piece so far, but I hope after the peer review and the feedbacks I am going to be able to write a better piece.

 

Bibliography

Smith, Zadie. “Speaking in Tongues.” The New York Review of Books 26 Feb. 2009. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.