The personal essay Find Your Beach appeared in The New York Review of Books the 23th of October 2014. It is written by Zadie Smith and features her thoughts on life and happiness. These thoughts originate from an ad across from her window and Smith gives us a tour inside her head, showing us how a New Yorker and an Englishwoman regards the concept of happiness. This non-fictional analysis of the essay will include an analysis of the tone of the essay, an analysis of the ways in which the Smith analyses the ad across from her window and lastly a discussion of Smith’s experiences in the pursuit of happiness.
The tone of Smith’s personal essay contains rather good artistic effects. She uses a great deal of humour in her description of the pursuit of happiness on Manhattan. “It seemed a gnomic message, deliberately placed to drive a sleepless woman mad.” (p. 1, l. 11-13) The use of humour makes it easier for the readers to be captured by the text. “I contribute to it. I ride a stationary bike like the rest of them. And then I despair when Shakespeare an Co. closes in favour of another footlocker.” (p. 5, l. 2-5), the use of self-irony seen in this quote brings the author down to the readers’ level, where they can easily relate, and hence makes it possible for Smith to bring forth her points.
Smith interprets the ad across from her…show more content… At first she continues discussing the focus of the ad. She talks about how the ad’s intentions are more than just the obvious one mentioned above, which is apparent in this quote: “The dream is not only of happiness, but of happiness conceived in perfect isolation. Find your beach in the middle of the city. Find your beach no matter what else is happening.” (p. 3, l. 8-11) As she states, the ad’s intentions can be seen as a sort of metaphor for the search of happiness – if you choose to drink this beer you will be able to find your haven of no importance of where you