Submission

In Intimations, Zadie Smith discusses a whole host of emotional responses she has so far experienced during the coronavirus pandemic, including the disruption of daily routines, isolation from friends and neighbors, the collapse of work/life boundaries, and more. Yet, throughout the book, she both explicitly and implicitly demonstrates that submission, as opposed to resistance, to factors outside of one’s control can allow a person to regain a sense of freedom. Smith’s conclusion is supported by numerous examples of her own submission to such factors and the positive outcome thereof.

In her very first essay, “Peonies,” Smith begins to explicitly set the groundwork for her claim that submission to reality breeds freedom. There, Smith traces her own journey from harboring internalized misogyny and rejecting all expectations of her womanhood to accepting herself as a woman with whatever contradicting or surprising traits that might entail. She also...