1. Zadie Smith writes about having two voices. She said that she lost one to gain the other. "I regret it; I should have kept both voices alive in my mouth. They were both a part of me. But how the culture warns against it!" (180). Why does Smith wish she would have kept both voices? How does one lose their voice in this sense?
2. "There's no quicker way to insult an expat Scotsman in London than to tell him he's lost his accent" (180). Why do we hold accents and voices at such a high level? How do they define us?
3. Smith uses Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw as an example throughout her essay. How does this novel relate to Smith's argument?
4. Smith talks about a Dream City. "It's a place of many voices, where the unified singular self is an illusion" (184). What does she mean by this? What exactly is Dream City?
5. Smith discusses the difference of being proud and loving who she is. "I'm not proud to be female either. I am not even proud to be human-I only love to be so. As I love to be female and I love to be black, and I love that I had a white father" (188). What is the difference for Smith between these two words?
6. "For reasons that are obscure to me, those qualities we cherish in our artists we condemn in our politicians" (189). What does Smith mean by this? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
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