Translating Anger into Care: An Examination of Black Female Identity and Bonding in Zadie Smith’s Swing Time (2016)

Abstract

This article attempts to explore the political possibilities of anger as a potential source of Black female identity construction and solidarity in Zadie Smith’s Swing Time (2016). I will argue that Audre Lorde’s insights into anger in Sister Outsider (1984) are particularly suited to understanding how anger functions in Smith’s fictional work, where this emotion is presented as a powerful “energy” (Lorde 2019: 120) that has the potential to move the subject towards a more empowered selfhood. Nevertheless, I also explore, through the discourses of Lorde (2019) and bell hooks (1995, 2012), the social boundaries and potentially damaging effects attached to this emotion. More specifically, I consider how anger, by itself, is not enough to ensure a stable sense of self because it does not directly motivate the development of female solidarity. Instead, Smith demonstrates how anger may be effectively complemented through the paradigm of care, which does encourage the protagonists to move towards each other, and towards the liberating potential of a more outward view of the world.