British Colonialism in White Teeth by Zadie Smith: Analytical Essay

In White Teeth by Zadie Smith, reminders of the past are everywhere, not always flattering to their subjects, and it at times seemingly all-consuming for the characters. For Smith, the past is so crucial that she begins the novel with a line from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “What’s past is prologue” suggesting that history and the past have a profound and inescapable impact. White Teeth winds through the years of an altogether unexpected life-long friendship between Bengali immigrant Samad Iqbal and Englishman Archie Jones. Smith uses the past to help the reader understand how history between characters is linked and how it can manifest in different ways as in the case of the families in White Teeth. Personal and shared histories play a central role throughout White Teeth for every character, whether they choose to embrace or reject it. The past is used to explain almost everything that happens throughout book, from explaining the lasting impacts of British colonialism, to providing the motivations for the actions of characters, to remaining a legacy the second generation chose to explore (or despise) in trying to understand their place in the world.

British Colonialism

It is the past, and the varied experiences of colonialism and assimilation that are present in the minds of Zadie Smith’s characters, and the impact of postcolonialism in shaping their lives. Many of the characters experienced British colonialism at some point in their lives, and it is colonialism that brought many to London, where they worked to maintain their identity as they started new lives. In White Teeth, the characters, especially those who are first-generation immigrants to Britain, grew up in British colonies where they were often made to take directions of the ruling minority and saw their traditional values and customs diminished or vilified. To illustrate the way British rule influenced the lives of the people in colonies, in Chapter 5 “The Root Canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal”, Smith portrays the events during the Second World War that led to Samad and Archie developing their life-long friendship. As a citizen of one of the British colonies Samad was required to fight in the Second World War as part of the British army and if it were not for that obligation and the time they spent stranded in a “tiny Bulgarian village”, the shared past of Samad and Archie may never have happened. Smith also provides another important link to the colonial past of the Indian subcontinent, when mentioning Mangal Pande, the great-grandfather of Samad. For him, the legend of Mangal Pande remained crucial to his connection to his homeland and the reputation of the Iqbal family. For him, the existence of Pande in colonial history gave him a sense of pride and allowed him to build his own identity on its importance to history. In Chapter 13, “The Root Canals of Hortense Bowden,” Smith introduces the history of colonialism in Jamaica and presents the story of Ambrosia Bowden, Clara Jones’s grandmother, and Hortense Bowden, Clara’s mother. Smith points to the colonizer’s attempts to educate and fundamentally change the lives of the local people, which often led not to a better life, but rather to its opposite. They tried to make the local population think, act and live like the British, and more specially there were those who “took great pleasure in the conversion of others” to religions the local population was unfamiliar with it including “Mrs. Brenton who introduced the Bowdens to the [Jehovah] Witnesses”. It is these experiences of a past living under British colonial rule and living with its lasting impacts that have shaped the lives on each of the characters, setting an environment for their motivations later in life, and to understanding the challenges they faced in assimilating to a culture very different from their own.

Character Motivations

Consequently, varying motivations for each character’s thoughts and actions are based on their awareness of their past and their acceptance or rejection of its importance.

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For Samad, the past, and especially the motivation to pass on the proud history of his home and especially the values he felt were a part of his youth motivates him to send his son Magid to Bangladesh. It was in sending him to this country, which his son had never set foot in, that Samad was certain would enable him to learn of the history Samad was so concerned would otherwise be lost to his sons’ assimilation to British culture. Samad is not alone in living, at least partially, in the past. As his wife Alsana Iqbal says in Chapter 4, “Three Coming” that despite her own lack of interest in revisiting of the past, she recognizes that Samad and Archie continue to have 'one leg in the present, one in the past,' and therefore 'their roots will always be tangled'. Samad’s obsession with the past is in stark contrast to Clara Jones’s utter rejection of her own. This rejection of the religion and burden of her family and her past allowed Clara to focus on raising her daughter Irie at a distance from the influence her mother Hortense.

in comparison to the connection and dedication to the past of the older generation, the second generation of characters find it challenging and, in most cases, not of interest to understand or have impact their lives. The three characters representative of the second generation are Samad’s twin sons Magid and Millat and Archie’s daughter Irie, all whose parents never told them properly where they came from or instilled a sense of pride in their heritage, as was the case for Irie. As they were all born in London and grew up surrounded by the English way of life, the western influence on them is apparent since their early childhood. Overall, both Magid and Millat are unaware of the concept of a Bengali identity that their father so desperately desired them to possess, and although in different way, pursue lives that actively reject the values their father found central to his own life. Of the second-generation children only Irie Jones expresses an interest in understanding her heritage despite first rejecting it, in favour of Chalfenism, because of how complicated it she perceived it to be. Early on, in Chapter 11 “The Miseducation of Irie Jones” the internal struggle Irie faces in being unable to accept her appearance as it contrasts sharply from the white, English beauty standards of the society she has grown up in. It is only after admiring the Chalfen family tree which dates back generations, she realizes that her own family history is hidden from her and seeks out answers to where she has come from. She is not able rely on her parents for information or direction about her ancestors and she becomes “sick of never getting the whole truth” and frustrated in her parents, especially her mother’s lack of interest in sharing any information. As a result, Irie’s grandmother Hortense is the one to introduce her to their family’s past and set off Irie’s embrace of her origin and invites her to Jamaica in 2000. It is this trip to Jamaica that Irie is overjoyed to go on because she wants to explore her past and her roots “[f]or Jamaica appeared to Irie as if it were newly made. Like Columbus himself, just by discovering it she had brought it into existence; … a place where things simply were. No fictions, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs; … it sounded like a beginning … Like the first morning of Eden and the day after apocalypse. A blank page.” However, Irie comes to believe that obsessing over the past is 'self-indulgent' because 'it doesn't fucking matter”, a change in perspective that occurred after she found out she was pregnant, and therefore likely realized that this new life, and the future, were far more important to focus on that the challenging and never-ending drama of the past. in comparison to the connection and dedication to the past of the older generation, the second generation of characters find it challenging and, in most cases, not of interest to understand or have impact their lives.

The personal and shared pasts of each of the characters play a central role throughout White Teeth, regardless of if they choose to embrace it or reject it. Author Zadie Smith explores the importance of knowing one’s past in maintaining or manipulating one’s identity, especially for immigrants, and later, their children who find themselves trying to find their way in competing cultures, with histories that find themselves in conflict. Reminders and influences from the past of each of the characters are central to understanding how they came to be in London, and how, through a life-long friendship, the past can both help and harm the families in connects. The past provides a common point of reference for the events that take place throughout the book, including frequent reminders the impact colonialism had, which then creates the context for many of the actions of the characters, and which finally presents a narrative of the past that can either be explored or ignored by the second generation.