Antiques as Signifier: Conflicting Mentality of Old People in the BrexLit Autumn

Abstract

In Ali Smith’s much-acclaimed BrexLit Autumn, the heroine Elisabeth Demand and her neighbor Daniel Gluck have attracted many critics’ attention as representatives of cosmopolitanism in opposition to the insular mindset of those who chose “Brexit.” However, previous studies have neglected the complex characterization of Wendy Demand, Elisabeth’s mother, and her fragmented national, social, and individual identities. In this context, based on Lacanian psychoanalysis and semiotics, this paper focuses on the characterization of Wendy from a particular perspective, that of antiques. It attempts to examine Wendy’s interactions with antiques as a signifier of her inner conflicts and state of marginalization. It will demonstrate Wendy’s hesitation between English and Scottish identities, her frustration with her fractured social network, and her pursuit of a socially accepted individual identity. It will reveal the particular role of antiques in this novel in disclosing the conflicting mentality of Wendy as a representation of the aging populace on the one hand and paradoxically of Scottish on the other hand during the time of “Brexit.”