outside reading i

Outside Reading I-
a reflective essay
by Zadie Smith
Sweet Charity
October 10, 2010.

Sweet Charity by Zadie Smith is a short narrative about Zadie and her friend, Christine. It recounts the gifts of charity between two people, not only gifts of money but also gifts of compassion and friendship.

 

 The piece starts off with a recount of Zadie and Christine’s meeting. Without knowing any previous information about the characters, a reader can make inferences about their personalities based on the symbolism Smith provides- clothing. Christine is well-dressed and discreet, wearing a neat and sensible skirt suit, reflecting her proper and virtuous attitude. Zadie is wearing miss-matched shoes and a tartan beret, echoing her eccentric, laid-back, and self-described “insufferable” persona.

 

Christine’s acts of charity to Zadie are those of compassion, confidence, and motivation, while Zadie is the wealthy one. When Christine (a struggling single-mother) asks Zadie for a loan, she complies but soon grows impatient with the lack of repayment and response. But as Zadie puts it, “there should be a word for ‘the fatal underestimation of another’s honesty,’” because all of Christine’s supposed avoidances were nothing more than misunderstandings.

 

The final line is “Then Christine did me one more charity: she forgave me.” By using the colon and placing “she forgave me” at the end of the sentence, it builds suspense and emphasizes the importance of compassion and friendship- maybe it’s even more important than monetary charity.

 

Smith reflects the importance of friendship using literary techniques. She mentions personal (and in some instances, embarrassing) stories about herself that make the reader feel connected. She recounts “One day, my skirt, for which I was too fat, freed itself from its safety pin and fell round my ankles, revealing my brother’s boxers,” and she describes the actions of her summer saying that she was “smoking weed [and] practicing a signature inspired by Elizabeth I.” These are stories that one may not usually offer freely, so they help establish Smith as a relatable person rather than just an elusive narrator. The writing style is very abstract, which helps create feelings of association. It may be easy to get lost while reading this, and though confusing at first, the abstraction makes it seem like Smith is writing to an old friend who already knows her. For instance, Smith goes from a paragraph that talks about money, to one that begins with “Can’t have been an easy e-mail to write. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and she knew how it looked.” What e-mail? Knew how what looked? It is as if Smith assumes one knows the answers to these questions, assumes one knows her.

 

This mood is extremely effective; the personal connection it establishes is reflective of the actual literary content (the importance of friendship.) However, for an AP Exam, this tone may not be acceptable. As it is a narrative, it is in the first person, and uses informal dialogue (“’I’m arsking you aquestion.’”). While this creates a wonderful personal tone and image, it is not considered formal.