White Teeth

White Teeth is a 2000 novel by the British author Zadie Smith. It focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones, and their families in London. The book won multiple honours, including the 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the 2000 Whitbread Book Award in category best first novel, the Guardian First Book Award, the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize, and the Betty Trask Award. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Plot summary

Samad, who has emigrated to Britain after World War II, has married Alsana. Alsana is also much younger than he is, and their union is the product of a traditional arranged marriage. They have twin boys, Magid and Millat, who are the same age as Irie. The marriage is quite rocky, as their devotion to Islam in an English life is troublesome. Samad is continually tormented by what he sees as the effects of this cultural conflict upon his own moral character and sends 10-year-old Magid to Bangladesh in the hope that he will grow up properly under the teachings of Islam. From then on, the lives of the two boys follow very different paths. Ironically, Magid becomes an atheist and devotes his life to science (a grave disappointment to Samad). Whereas Millat, despite his earlier womanizing and drinking, eventually becomes an angry fundamentalist and part of a Muslim brotherhood known as the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (or KEVIN).

The lives of the Jones and Iqbal families intertwine with that of the Chalfens, a Jewish-Catholic family of Oxford educated intellectuals. The father, Marcus Chalfen, is a brilliant but socially inept geneticist working on a controversial 'FutureMouse' project. The mother, Joyce Chalfen, is a part-time housewife with an often entirely misguided desire to mother and 'heal' Millat. Although they wish to be thought of as intellectual liberals, the Chalfens often demonstrate complete cultural ignorance and a blindness to the changes happening in their own family.

Later on in the story, Clara's mother, a strict Jehovah's Witness, becomes involved along with Clara's ex-boyfriend when Irie runs away from home.

Returned from Bangladesh, Magid works as Marcus' research assistant, while Millat is befriended by the Chalfens. To some extent the family provides a safe haven as they (believe themselves to) accept and understand the turbulent lives of Magid and Millat. However, this sympathy comes at the expense of their own son, Josh, whose difficulties are ignored by his parents as he, too, begins to rebel against his background.

The strands of the narrative grow closer as Millat and KEVIN, Josh and a radical animal rights group (FATE), and Clara's mother (Hortense) and her religious connections all begin to oppose FutureMouse as an evil interference with their own beliefs and plan to stop it. Irie, who has been working for Marcus, briefly succeeds in her long-hidden attraction to Millat but is rejected under his KEVIN-inspired beliefs. Irie believes that Millat cannot love her, for he has always been 'the second son' both symbolically and literally; Millat was born two minutes after Magid. After losing her virginity to Millat, she makes Magid the 'second son' for a change by sleeping with him right after. This causes her to become pregnant, and she is left unsure of the father of her child, as the brothers are identical twins.

Extraordinary consequences result as the seemingly divergent stories of the main characters coalesce in a stunning finale—the unveiling of FutureMouse, the revelatory actions of the warring groups, and of a long-kept secret from Samad and Archie's past.

Major themes

As part of the characters' experience as immigrants, they are confronted with conflicts between assimilating and preserving their cultures. The novel depicts the lives of a wide range of backgrounds, including Afro-Caribbean, Muslim, and Jewish. Just as the quote at the beginning of the novel states, “What is past is prologue.”

The multiple view points allow for Smith to approach the idea of multiculturalism and the racial undercurrents of Western society from the viewpoints of many different characters. While characters like Alsana deal with the prejudices of London society, she, too, can subscribe to similar prejudices. “Black people are often friendly, though Alsana, smiling at Clara, and adding this subconsciously to the short ‘pro’ side of the pro and con list she had on the black girl. From every minority she disliked, Alsana liked to single out one specimen for spiritual forgiveness." The wider scope of characters allows Smith to delve into all the people populating a community, viewing it from all sides and all nuances. Smith once wrote "I just wanted to show that there are communities that function well. There's sadness for the way tradition is fading away but I wanted to show people making an effort to understand each other, despite their cultural differences."

While the main families in the plot attempt to create lives for themselves, there is still a struggle to hold on to their past. For instance, Samad feels that the English life is not conducive to an adequate Islamic upbringing. He attempts to preserve Magid’s faith and sends him to Bangladesh. Yet, Magid grows up to be a man of science, not faith.

The leitmotif of teeth and in particular the white teeth of the title play a recurring role throughout. While the families in the book have numerous things that set them apart, white teeth is an overarching quality. No matter the color of their skin, the religion they follow, or the country they come from—they have white teeth. Although Clara loses her teeth in a moped accident early on in the narrative, they are replaced by a set of false ones, the existence of which is only discovered by her daughter when she is a teenager. Irie's decision (if it can be classed as her own decision) to become a dentist is another recurrence of this theme. Rather simplistically: Irie, by becoming a dentist, looking after the teeth of her community, shows that she is trying to look after a unifying element in society, rather than the diversifying elements. This unifying element (unifying parts of different cultures in a new host culture) is a typical theme of literature by and about the offspring of immigrants in different cultures.

This book also delves into the concepts of human relationship. Archie and Samad remain best friends despite the failed relationships of their families and culture. Magid and Millat, on the other hand, do not approve of each other's lives and never become cordial brothers.

Television adaptation

Notes