WHITE TEETH BY ZADIE

SMITH
Muhammad Yousaf
MS English Literature (CUSIT)
Post modernism
About the author
• She was an English novelist, essayist and short story writer. Born in North
London 1975 to an English father and a Jamaican mother.
• She read English at Cambridge, graduated in 1997.
• Her acclaimed first novel, “White teeth” is a vibrant portrait of contemporary
multicultural London published in 2000.
• Won The guardian, the common wealth writers prize.
• Also became fellow of royal society of literature.
• In 2001, writer at residence at the institute of contemporary Arts in London.
• Nominated by Granta magazines as one of the 20th “Best of young British
novelist”.
Continuation
• Also the writer of “The Burned Children of America”, “On beauty”
• She moves to America in 2010 and Currently professor of fiction at
New York university.
• Influenced by Forster, Dave eggers, and Martin Amis.
• Recently in 2022, she got PEN/Audible literary service award.
• WT translated, movie, chapters, and pages.
• Parents marriage, divorce, change her name,
• She married to fellow Cambridge writer Nick Laird and have two
children, Catherine and Harvey.
Summary
• 1975- Archie Jones, suicide, saved by Hussain Ishmail, said not
licensed for suicide, Wife OPHELIA, met Clara Bowden, married after
six weeks.
• Clara daughter of Hortense Bowden, flashback- Ryan topps.
• Samad Miah Iqbal, Friend of Archie, WWII, British army, captured a
nazi scientist, Dr-Perret, a chance to execute him.
• Samad wife, Alsana, from Bangladesh, neighbors of jones.
• 1975-2000, Good friends, Give birth at the same time.
• Alsana and Iqbal had twins, Magid and Millat.
Continuation
• And Archie and clara had a daughter Irie.
• 1984, children 9 years old, Samad infatuated with his sons’s music teacher,
filled with guilt, send magid to Bangladesh.
• Millat and Irie, caught smoking punishment, extra tutoring at Joyce and
Marcus Chalfen.
• Magid pro British, anti religion and interested in science.
• Millat Gangster, fundamentalist, Joined KEVIN (Keepers of the eternal
and victorious Islamic nation) anti Muslim group
• Marcus and joyce son Joshua joined FATE (Fighting animal torture and
exploitation).
• Magid returned, completely at odd with his brother.
• Irie, task, to reunite them
• Irie sexual encounter with Millat (pray forgiveness) And then with
magid.
• Marcus and magid, set up public demonstration of future mouse
genetic evolution. Will begin in December 31, 1992. All were against
them.
• Janes and Iqbal’s families also attend, Dr Perret Marc, appeared at the
head table. Iqbal realizes Archie lied to him about shooting Dr-perret
in 1945.
• Millat pulls a gun and Archie saved Perret again.
• Archie crashes into the table and smashes the glass box that holds future
Mouse. The mouse disappears into an air.
• Millat and Magid got punished, because the eye witnesses cannot tell the
twins apart. Sentences to community services.
• Irie jones and Joshua Chaflen became lovers.
• Ends in new years eve in 1999, Irie sits on the beach in Jamaica with
Hortense, her grandmother, Joshua and her little daughter.
• On the same night in London, Archie and Samad play cards with clara and
Alsana. On the first night O’Connels opens its door to women.
Themes
• Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary
work.
• “Novel fearlessly multicultural, Young author feels entirely free to inhabit the
heads of people of different sexes, races, religions. She does it with joy and
irreverence”.
1) Racism
• “One of the enduring qualities of her sharp-eyed but warm hearted book is
that it makes racism appear not only ugly and stupid but ludicrously out of
date”
• “National fuck”, “Pakis”, “Other jobs”, smith shows that bad ideas have a long
history and warns us that it might come back to bite us.
• Racism based on skin, color and ethnicity, is a full of fact in the world of
white teeth. Characters openly use racial slurs and make racist assumptions.
This behavior is true of people of color as well as white people. In the novel
racism is found in older generation not in young. E.g “brown” people “don’t
appreciate their children sufficiently.” For example, Hortense Bowden,
opposes her daughter Clara’s marriage to white man and when Alsana and
Clara first meeting.
2) Immigration
Three out of four main characters in White teeth are immigrants to Britain and
their experiences create the main conflict of the story.
Samad and Alsana-Bangladesh, Clara from Jamaica, Formal british colonies.
• They are educated in English and according British values. But to
Britain's they are Outsiders. These immigrants are cut off from their
native cultures but nit accepted in British culture.
• The sense of rootlessness passes to the next generation even though
they are born in England but always signaled out Like Irie, Majid and
Millat. And this also increase gap between them and children.
3) The purpose of existence
• From its opening attempt at suicide to its finale of attempted murder,
White teeth questions the purpose of human life and suggests that the
purpose will always remain mysterious.
• Archie- Ending life, his improves dramatically when he rebounds from
the suicide but he does not convert to religion.
• Samad- never stops questioning the reason of his existence. To find his
creator purpose is his major goal. He is guilt ridden when he breaks
Muslim rules. It shows how diverse these humans are.
4) Multiculturalism
• WT focuses on the lives of Londoners of different ethnicities and class
positions, with different cultural backgrounds, and relationship to their
British identities.
• Novel provides some hope for a peaceful multicultural world through
the young generation of Londoners, who form positive relationships
with each other.
5) The power of patriarchy
6) The influence of history
7) Identity
8) Fate and love
9) Family and Religion
10) Friendship and colonialism
1) Subjectivity
2) Irony
3) Identity crisis
4) Cultural hybridity-Cultural debates and ideas growing
5) Science no longer holds all the answers
6) Social institution are changing.
7) The difficulty in achieving happiness in modern world
Theory of Multiculturalism in White teeth
• The roots and history of the first generation of immigrants have made
identity issues for the second generations in the novel.
• Novel deals with many problems connected with living in a multi
cultural society and the gap between first and second generation of
immigrants.
• She has described the importance of the pre history of her characters
and the legacy of their origins and the questions of how they arrive at
the present.
• Some of her characters are closely connected with their descendants
and their roots and feel frustrated in a modern country.
• The first generation ambiguous past makes things problematic for their
children who are trying to create a sense of Britishness.
• Britain, a diverse country, WWII, need labors and professional skilled
people.
• Multi culturalism actually leads to prejudices and discrimination.
• Initially, Black identity, first generation on the basis of racism were
given lowest level of social hierarchy in Britain.
• In multicultural society in novel, many characters were constructing
their identity like second generation of Iqbal’s and Archie’s family.
Conclusion
Zadie Smith is a postmodern novelist who deals with construction of identity in the West. WT, which
is one of her debut novel, discovers and illustrates the concept of construction of identity in London.
WT deals with the matters and difficulties Britain faced after the WWII. With the arrival of
immigrants from Jamaica and Bengali to London, after colonized their country, highlighted
questions and concerns about construction of identity. Majid, for instance, as a Bangladeshi son,
attempts to resemble English boys even he changed his name, but at last he comes to the fact that
accepting his roots supports him to construct a healthy and strong identity in multicultural London.
Smith affirms that the second generation immigrants were not allowed to participate in English
society. She also illustrates how English society face difficulties in accepting the Other, or the
immigrants, as their own.