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ISSN 2278-9529
Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal
www.galaxyimrj.com
The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 9, Issue-I, February 2018 ISSN: 0976-8165
Abstract:
White Teeth is the first novel of the contemporary female writer Zadie Smith, giving
her a quintessential overnight position among the greats of British literature. The novel is
quite extensive, both in terms of the number of pages and the abundance of topics. Faith,
religion, fundamentalism, extremism, feminism, love, coming of age, colonialism, origin and
identity are all dealt within this best-seller. Besides, the family concept has turned into the
disputable concentration for some imperative issues confronting Western social orders at the
turn of the 21st century. And White Teeth also recounts the stories of three families: the
Joneses who are half-English, half-Jamaican; the Iqbals, a Bangladeshi family, and the
Chalfens, a white English family unit of Jewish origin. Therefore, the focus of this study is
the families and their values in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth written in 2000.
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The Families in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
colonial Britain by utilizing components of the family history to cast a light on her characters.
Furthermore, Odoobo (2009) indicates that the novel is a journey to the London rural areas
where British of Asian origin struggle to assimilate in England, and in the process result into
another meaning of being English.
The novel White Teeth consists of a plethora of episodes narrated with an ironic
undertone and in a casual, modern language. Bruce King in his review summarizes Smith’s
work as in the following:
Besides, critics regularly call attention to the way that Zadie Smith's books are just
concerned with character. As stated before, her brilliant novel White Teeth fixated on the
account of three families living in London with the focussing on the characters' personality
emergencies. Simultaneously, Jagger and Wright (i) emphasize that the family has become the
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questionable centre for numerous imperative issues confronting Western social orders at the
turn of the 21st century. In the same way, Smith tails the families for the duration of their lives
with a blend of direct and non-straight portrayal. By thinking back through history, Zadie
figures out how to help the way that a large number of the characters' issues are identified
with their personality and she shows how "possibility, decision and destiny" are conclusive in
what shapes the person. As indicated by Thompson (2005), Smith challenges thoughts of
social legacy similar to a vital piece of the distinguishing proof process through which
workers and their consequent ages develop. Or maybe, the characters of White Teeth
recognize their valid selves through a blending of the past and introduce, a rootedness which
sticks to both individual histories and current conditions.
In the novel the story goes back to the Second World War, when the Englishman
Archibald Jones (Archie) and the Bengali Samad Iqbal meet as young soldiers and become
friends through a common secret. Thirty years later, both men in London are struggling with
burst dreams, younger wives, unruly children and the big issues of their lives: race, religion,
colour and history. The plot threads are so varied, the fates are so well interwoven that a brief
synopsis of White Teeth is not possible. Down to the minor characters, Smith equips her
characters with loving biographies, creating a world in which the reader can completely
submerge.
The main characters in White Teeth are Archie, his young Jamaican wife Clara and her
daughter Irie, and Samad Iqbal, his wife Alsana and their twin sons Magid and Millat. As
mentioned before, Archie and Samad became friends in the British Army during the Second
World War. Samad is from Bangladesh and decides to move to London in the 70s with his
young wife Alsana, where he only knows Archie. Archie has separated from his first wife at
this time and meets the 19-year-old Jamaican Clara, thus they marry and move into the
neighbourhood of Samad. The two wives are almost pregnant at the same time and so their
children grow up together.
Even though the plot of White Teeth is loosely prepared around Archie Jones, it
is Samad Iqbal who initially consists of the weight of Smith’s complicated analysis of the
way records and family tree have produced a war between multiculturalism and
fundamentalism in turn-of-the-century London. Samad’s complicated stories as a Bengali
Muslim preventing to defend the British crown in World War II, his agonized responses to the
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The Families in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
forces of assimilation in London, and his struggle to reconnect his twin-sons with a
Bengali identification is clearly described in White Teeth. His wife Alsana on the other hand
becomes rude towards him after he has separated the twins, so they face a crisis within the
marriage.
Remarkably, White Teeth recounts the narrative of these two families with various
foundations living in North London. They are basically connected by the companionship of
the two fathers, the Bangladeshi Samad Miah Iqbal and the Englishman Archibald Jones, who
became more acquainted with each other while serving in the British armed force amid the
Second World War. The kinship between the two altogether different men is fixed forever
when Archie finishes Samad's request to execute a French researcher who should work
together with the Nazis. Thirty years later they live in a similar London neighbourhood, are
both married to twenty years youngster women. Samad's twin-sons Magid and Millat, and
Archie's daughter Irie, are close friends, and in common are second-generation immigrants in
multicultural London. Additionally Alsana Iqbal, who had been guaranteed to Samad in
marriage even before her introduction to the world, and Clara Jones, little girl of the Jamaican
workers Hortense and Darcus Bowden, progress toward becoming companions in their
regular battle with their elderly spouses, their solid willed children and their multicultural
London condition.
Later on in the novel, a third family, the half Jewish, half Catholic Chalfens, who
speak to a pretty much run of the mill British family, join the plot. As the concentration shifts
from the parental age to their high-school children, the clash of the heroes against the
apparitions of their past turns out to be not so much incensed but rather more effective. Irie,
from whose point of view the last entries of the book are principally told, is the person who at
last joins all families and their histories: she has laid down with the two twins Magid and
Millat, around the same time, and will along these lines never have the capacity to tell who
the natural father of her little child is. The man who at the very end of the novel lives next to
Irie and satisfies the part of a father to the baby is Joshua, the most established child of the
Chalfens. In this way, the novel closes on the hopeful note that Irie has freed her little girl
from the limitations of family history, which has dependably pained her in her own particular
immaturity, as at last each of the three families and their extraordinary histories are joined in
this little family.
The family Jones comprises of three relatives, Alfred Archibald (Archie), his second
wife- a Jamaican immigrant- Clara Bowden and their daughter Irie. Archie is an Englishman
who was first married to Ophelia Diagilo, an Italian lady who left him following thirty years
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of marriage. Zadie Smith depicts Archie’s feelings about his first wife and marriage as in the
following:
This episode acquaints the reader with the story, for Archie needs to submit suicide
due to his destroyed life which was dictated by his opportunity in the armed force and his
marriage to Ophelia. The conduct of Archibald Jones depicted toward the starting as of now
demonstrates his powerless character that he can't manage troublesome circumstances in life
and that Archie has no fearlessness. He owns some struggles in making any decision in which
he cannot undertake without the help of a coin. Besides, Archie has no inspiration to proceed
with his life which does not bode well any longer. Notwithstanding, Archie does not look for
any answer for the change of his life since he doesn't feel in charge of himself or for others.
His closest friend with whom he feels exceptionally associated since 1945 is Samad Iqbal.
Amid the story the character of Archibald Jones changes slightly. He tunes in to struggles of
other individuals and tries to tackle them which is a proof that it is less demanding for him to
think about different problems or individuals than to think about his own particular issues.
Later in the story Archie meets the considerably more youthful Clara at a gathering of
a hippy-cooperative also, weds her a little while later. Clara, who is a tall dark Jamaican
woman with a Caribbean complement, was nineteen years of age when she initially met
Archie. The young girl emigrated with her mother from Jamaica to London when she was a
teenager and has a missing tooth as a result of an accident. Nevertheless, Archie discovers her
lovely in all faculties with the exception of possibly, by ethicalness of being dark, the
established. Despite all the disapproval of her mother, Clara concludes to abandon her home
and weds Archie Jones, trusting that he can furnish her with the better life she seeks after.
After a short time the couple’s daughter Irie – a second generation immigrants’ child- comes
to world. For many second generation immigrants’ youngsters, this biracial foundation is a
hazardous one, particularly as Irie's external appearance is that of a black Jamaican young
person, in spite of the fact that she has never been to Jamaica.
When we initially meet Irie, she is unsure about her race and might want nothing
superior to blur into the white working classes, to be free of the racial polarities that
characterize her personality. She yearns for a "neutral space" (White Teeth 426) free of race
and verifiable battle. Besides, in her puberty, Irie has wild twisted hair, however needs to
have it straight to look more like a genuine English young girl who typically has no twisted
hair. Paul Jay in his Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies identifies
Irie’s physical struggles in this way:
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The Families in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
Irie ponders whether there may be an association between her own body and the body
being portrayed in Shakespeare’s works, and she gets a handle on at a connection between the
lyrics' talk about darkness and magnificence and her own particular nerves about the
excellence of her dark body. Moreover, Irie's hesitance about race is paralleled by her
expanding consciousness of how class contrasts shape her character. As Jay points out (168)
“Englishness, she begins to see, is defined not only in terms of whiteness but in terms of a
vaguely defined middle-class.” Irie is additionally somewhat pudgy which makes her
extremely despondent furthermore, her modesty in obscure circumstances demonstrates her to
have no self-assurance. To cover these human errors, Irie utilizes a profane dialect in her
training to make an outlook. Besides, she doesn't know excessively about her mother's history
on the grounds that nobody needed to advise her. Despite everything, Irie not only
trusts to move forward her quality of life and increment her conceivable outcomes but also is
working her way towards a full run of choices she needs to be able to have in her life. Later
she becomes pregnant, but is not sure who the real father of her baby is. The reason for that is
because Irie had a relationship with both of the identical twins Magid and Millat, and it is
impossible to determine the real father since these two men are genetically the same. However
in the end of the novel Irie and the white English Joshua of Jewish religion become lovers.
The second family presented in the novel is the family Iqbal whose individuals are
Bangladeshi Muslims and touched base in London in 1973. They settled down in Whitechapel
where they confronted prejudice and violence, but after a year they moved to Willesden.
Samad Iqbal is a moderately aged man who is knowledgeable and consequently extremely
disappointed with his activity as a waiter in his cousin's restaurant. Additionally, Samad is
having a hard time with the British culture and he never really feels welcome in England, only
tolerated. Although he is a studied man, he can only work as a waiter all his life, nor can he
reconcile his religion and values with Western society.
Samad is caught between devout obligations and common enticements, but tries to live
his life in a world which is losing religion. He considers that in some place there is the other
Samad who is an exceptionally great and devout man, but he has to bargain with
the genuine Samad who cannot stop boring other individuals. Thus ethnicity and religion play
a major role in Samad’s view of individualism.
For Samad, immigrating to London from Bangladesh achieved a higher way of life for
himself and his family from one perspective, yet then again it positively had extremely
negative consequences for his mental and otherworldly prosperity. Later Samad demolishes
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his marriage by concealing his intends to isolate the twins from Alsana, who can't excuse him
for covertly taking one of her sons. And with his secret love affair with the music teacher,
Samad felt regretful because of being together with a white race woman.
Moreover, Samad’s lifestyle and religious attitude that he believes the west has
corrupted are all central to Smith’s larger goals in the novel. Despite the fact that he utilizes
his entire existence and capacities to live as indicated by the standards of Islam, he never fully
figures out how to achieve this objective. Samad, who encounters religious struggle, expects
all from his children and his wife for what he has failed to do. He
is specifically crucial because thru him Zadie Smith focuses on a set of transitional forces
shaping modern globalization, and in a presence that chronicles their approaches.
So, Millat continues to grow up in London and gets on the streets while Magid goes to
school in Bangladesh. Millat constantly worries his parents, but the boy is confident enough
not to be intimidated by his father because he knows that he is not a failure. It is not revealed
about Magid exactly how it is there in Bangladesh, but he returns eight years later as a
diligent and educated law student with the disappointment of his father, who had hoped that
he would become strictly religious in the old country. Yet, Samad mentions his misfortune as
in the following:
You try to plan everything and nothing happens in the way that
you expected…’ … ‘There are no words. The one I send home
comes out a pukka Englishman, white suited, silly wig lawyer.
The one I keep here is fully paid-up green bow-tie wearing
fundamentalist terrorist. I sometimes wonder why I bother
(White Teeth 407).
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The Families in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
In spite of the fact that Samad's wife Alsana assumes a minor part in the novel, she
merits being said because she is one of the examples for the first generation immigrants. This
woman was twenty years of age when she came to England and was at that point coordinated
with Samad. She is from a regarded family in Bangladesh, yet in Britain she is sewing at
home to increment the family wage. Likewise her husband, Alsana is a religious woman of
Islam and believes that everything is arranged by Allah. In the entire novel, Alsana has a solid
disposition towards English life, and she has the desire to protect her Bangladesh culture, thus
she does not acknowledge her son Millat being engaged with the Chalfen family.
The third family in Smith’s novel is the middle-class Jewish English one called the
Chalfens. This family exists of the couple Joyce and Marcus and their four children named
Joshua, Jack, Oscar and Benjamin all who are proud intellectuals. The Chalfens do not have
any friends, they require just themselves and believe that their little family is a fixed group for
them. The feminist and Catholic Joyce Chalfen – a horticulturalist graduated from Oxford,
and her husband Marcus is a researcher concentrating on specific reproducing. Both Chalfens
say immediately what they think about, and essentially expect to make something better for
humanity and life.
Joshua, the most mentioned child in the novel, is the oldest son of this family and the
school-friend of Millat and Irie who once were caught by their headmaster while consuming
marijuana. As a result, these teenagers were punished, so they became closer to each other.
And since Joshua is good at Biology and Maths, he is obliged to help Millat and Irie in those
school subjects. When Millat and Irie first met the Chalfens at their home, the couple behaved
hospitable to their son’s friends as if they had known each other for a long time. Remarkably,
Irie and Millat spend a great deal of their time with this family because Irie is delighted by
their intellectualism, and Millat by their generosity in general. As Irie and Millat spend
notably more time in this house than their own homes, their mothers become distressed by
thinking that they are going to lose their children. Interestingly, the Chalfens take much more
care about Irie and Millat than their own son and as a result Joshua becomes jealous. Later,
Millat helps the Chalfens in housework and earns his own money, and Irie becomes the
assistant of Marcus during his researches about altering the DNA of a mouse.
Conclusion
Zadie Smith has a place with one of Great Britain's most commended youthful creators
since her first novel White Teeth was distributed in 2000. Up to this time, she has written five
significant books and a few short stories which were converted into various languages , and
promised her a conspicuous place in the contemporary British literary scene. Her White Teeth
focuses on the deep contemporary issues of characterizing personal identity and where people
originate from.
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Smith's White Teeth is brimming with cleverness and incongruity and the entire novel
denotes a huge millennial work in the terms of depicting a multicultural society. Smith's novel
for the most part closes on a constructive note and commends multiculturalism through a
portrayal of on the level of individual characters and extends to the level of society, thinking
about verifiable and ethnic foundation. The novel is usually loaded with mind and capacities
as ironical mirror to the general public.
The account of White Teeth is set in a multicultural London and it contains a rich
accumulation of characters, and the content uses both practical and awesome methodologies.
The reasonable approach can be found in the ways the settings are envisioned and repeated
that show scenes which could really happen in these rural areas. Moreover, the incredible
approach can be found in the way the creator makes the plot one stride encourage with a
slight embellishment, so the reader all the more effortlessly can see and comprehend the
complexities.
The characters of White Teeth in Smith's London originated from different main-lands,
societies, and religions, which makes the convergence of movement and race a standout
amongst the most instantly clear subjects of the novel. But additionally, these characters
found much more unique approaches to adapt to their circumstance. Smith portrays the
colossal disaster of movement, which incorporates lost strength and status and the struggle to
assimilate in another culture without losing one's local character.
In White Teeth Smith presents three unique families of totally extraordinary religions
and life styles. The first family in the novel consists of Archie, his nearly thirty year’s
younger wife Clara and their daughter Irie. Archie always carries a coin in his pocket and
arranges all his plans according to this coin by tossing it. The humanist Archie who is a white
Englishman is not prejudiced against race, so he marries the black Jamaican Clara who is
proud of her ancestors. In their marriage Archie is a traditional husband who takes care of his
family, and Clara who lives the desired life is faithful and dutiful towards him. Their hybrid
daughter Irie on the other hand does not like her physical appearance and thus struggles
among her friends, however she is happy in her life.
The Iqbals are the second family who consists of Samad, Alsana and their twin-sons
Magid and Millat. Regardless of their numerous distinctions in ethnic foundation, the groups
of the characters Samad Iqbal and Archie Jones include a fundamentally the same as unique.
While Archie is the cliché working Englishman, an atheist and of Anglo-Saxon origin, Samad
is a Bengali Muslim. Their spouses, Clara and Alsana, are altogether different also Clara is a
Jamaican Jehovah's witness, and Alsana is Bengali, at any rate generally. Even though these
two women do not have much in common, their friendship continues. Be that as it may,
connections can be found that extension these social or religious holes. For example, both
Archie and Alsana are paying little respect to their differentiating societies. Another case is
the way that both Alsana and Samad are Bengali.
The third family in the novel are the Chalfens with four smart, well-educated children.
Both the Jewish Marcus and his Catholic wife Joyce are very rational people but do not have
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The Families in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
any friends. Their family dialogues deal with a range of different subjects and the children are
lucky because of getting all the guides they need for their lively improvement.
Works Cited:
Bentley, Nick. Contemporary British Fiction. Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
Gunning, Dave. Race and Antiracism in Black British and British Asian Literature. Liverpool
University Press, 2010.
Jay, Paul. Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies. Cornell University
Press, 2010.
King, Bruce. “Review.” World Literature Today, Vol. 75, No. 1, Winter, 2001, pp. 116-117.
Mullan, John. “Short Sharp Shocks.” The Guardian, 28.09.2002.
Odoobo, Kelvin. “Book Review: White Teeth By Zadie Smith.” The New Times, 11.12.2009.
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