Rowdy de Graaf 3536920
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BA Thesis
24 June 2012
Irony and Politics of Ethnicity in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
BA Thesis by Rowdy de Graaf
_______________________
Utrecht University, Department of Humanities
English Language & Culture
2011 - 2012
1
Preface
The aim of this paper is to examine Zadie Smith’s 2000 novel White Teeth in light of
the current state of affairs regarding race, multiculturalism and religion in Europe and
the rest of the West. Published just prior to the 2001 attacks on the New York World
Trade Center, the novel portrays a diverse, post-colonial and multi-religious London
community that projects an inclusive, multicultural view of the world that seems at odds
with current trends in religious and cultural politics and popular opinion. After initial
analysis of critical response to the novel, and seeking a framework to analyse Smith’s
arguments with, it becomes clear that through the use of irony, here defined as the
author reversing expectations and evaluations of both characters and readers, she
distances herself from cultural determinism, and questions the influence that history,
race and religion have on identity, especially in the postcolonial sense. Finally, the
rejection of determinism, the embrace of hybridity and the promotion of chance as
influence on the course of our lives, in the novel explored through the separation and
personal growth of two twin boys and their father’s expectations of them, all evince an
individually-minded,
inclusive
and
multicultural
world-view.
2
Table of Contents
Preface ........................................................................................................................................ 2
White Teeth ................................................................................................................................ 6
Examination of Irony ................................................................................................................. 8
The Iqbal Twins ....................................................................................................................... 10
Twins and Environment ........................................................................................................... 13
Denying Determinism .............................................................................................................. 18
Irony, Hybridity and Inclusivity ............................................................................................... 19
In Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 21
3
Introduction
Much of modern British and European society is shaped by its colonial past.
Immigration and cultural exchanges between former colonies and nations establishing said
colonies have introduced entire subcultures into the Western social fabric, creating an
intricate and varied world in which we now live. Immigrants from former colonies and their
descendants have since integrated into British society to varying degrees, however continuing
to derive their identity from shared history, language, culture and religion.
Among the consequences of these many diverse groups co-existing in a relatively dense
society are racism, cultural and religious intolerance, present both between the English and
former immigrants, and among the immigrant groups themselves. As life in the West has
influenced former colonised groups now living in Britain, some among them now fear that
Western secular values are encroaching on their culture and historical heritage, leaving them
torn between East and West (Shore 8). This is particularly true of religious minorities, among
them Muslim groups, who find themselves in a society where intolerance of their religion and
philosophy is becoming more widespread as time goes on. Pnina Werbner notes that the
opposition between Islam and Western life is leading to popular views among Muslims that
the difference is “unbridgeable, apparently eternal,” and that the West is threatening to
become a dominant global hegemony to which Islam is the “last remaining adversary.”
Conversely, Western views of Islamic minorities present in the West view Islam as an
expansionist religious doctrine with “bloody borders” presently being “implanted in the
Western body itself,” leading to a confrontational attitude toward the Eastern religion that
critics have taken to calling “Islamophobia.” (Werbner 309). Both these trends have
manifested themselves in various ways over the past few years.
Intolerant attitudes towards Islam have influenced European and British politics for
some time now. Infamously, the British National Party has established itself as an exclusionist
4
presence in the national political scene, ostensibly favouring “real indigenous” Britons whose
sovereignty and security they believe to be under threat from being “driven out.” A recent
example of their ideology in action may be found in the party’s assertion that their chances in
local London elections were diminished by “big changes” in the London ethnic composition
(BBC News). Further, during a controversial political panel programme hosted by the BBC,
BNP leader Nick Griffin detailed his views on Islam, saying that it “does not fit in with the
fundamental values [sic] of British society.” In the same discussion, he characterised current
trends of multiculturalism as “destroying a culture,” presumably referring to his belief that the
British are “aboriginals” under attack (Telegraph).
Anti-Islamic discourse in politics is by no means exclusive to Britain. Dutch politician
and polemicist Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party have been the source of much local and
international controversy, receiving recognition from supporters, criticism from opposing
parties, and even personal death threats. Wilders’ sentiments have recently been given an
American audience as well. In April of 2012 he published a book directed towards the
American public, detailing how difficult his life has become since catching the public eye.
Given a platform on a right-wing cable network in the US, Wilders identified “cultural
relativism,” in his terms “politicians who are afraid to say that our own Western culture is far
better [sic] than Islamic culture” as one of the “diseases” of European politics today (Fox
News). Anti-Islamic tendencies such as these are widespread across Europe. For example, a
global controversy arose following the publication of a caricature depicting the prophet
Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-posten, which led to vandalism targeting
several Danish embassies in the Middle-East (Economist). A further example of anti-Islam
tension is the proposed Swiss ban on the construction of minarets on mosques in 2009
(Cumming-Bruce).
5
The nature of the division between Eastern and Western groups seems to draw from an
idea that the differences between the majority and the minority, for example Islam and the
Judeo-Christian and secular West are irreconcilable, and that the respective cultural groups
are incompatible with one another. Further abstracted, the issue becomes one of identity, and
what defines this notion. As it stands, divisive ideologies thrive on the notion that a person’s
identity is defined by group membership, nationality, history and ethnicity. In addition to
other motives such as fear, indoctrination or peer pressure, many forms of group intolerance
and hostility can be reduced to one group forming false assumptions of the other based on one
or only few features of said other group. Racism, in this way draws on (inaccurate)
expectations of one group in another and causes hostility, purely based on the notion that
racial features alone define certain ethnic groups, and are enough to form opinions and model
behaviours. The same applies to religious intolerance, or similar intolerance between cultural
groups, such as immigrants versus majority indigenous groups, or discrimination against
homosexuals.
Particularly of interest for the purpose of this paper, however, remains the nature of
attitudes between cultural majority and minority groups, which has become ever more
relevant since the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001 and London in 2005, and many
similar developments following them.
White Teeth
Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth pre-dates most of these events, but it sends a message
of multicultural inclusivity that has only grown in relevance in light of the increased cultural
and racial tension brought on by the 9/11 attacks, London bombings, and wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq (Stinchcombe 205). The novel has received significant critical attention since its
publication in 2000. Jonathan Sell describes it as a humorous, realistic portrayal of multiracial London that questions the definition of “Englishness” and what constitutes identity in
6
characters from diverse backgrounds: “Quite clearly Smith is clued into issues relating to
multicultural identity” (28). Cicelyn Turkson echoes the importance of what “being English”
means as a theme in Smith’s work, and examines the way White Teeth’s “concepts of origins
and cultural homelands […] illuminate identity as a process of constant transformation.” She
concludes that Englishness in White Teeth is coming to terms with a “multiplicity of […]
hybrid voices articulating the English experience” (6). Laura Moss also examines ethnic and
cultural hybridity in White Teeth, and argues that though history may not be central to Smith’s
characters to the extent of defining them, they are also not entirely free from it. (11).
Ziad Haider Rahman, reportedly the inspiration for the character of Magid is less
enthusiastic about Smith’s portrayal of race relations in Britain. The Cambridge graduate and
personal acquaintance of Smith revealed in an interview with The Sunday Times that he
thought the novel, though recognisable, presented a naively optimistic view of race in
London: “Conspicuously absent from White Teeth is the anger,’ he said. ‘We don’t see the
very dark aspects of racism. That’s something that divides the book from reality.’”
White Teeth makes a political statement by flaunting cultural determinism, as social,
racial and ethnically deterministic thinking is often a basis for racism and other forms of
intolerance. Rahman himself points out this fact as his main criticism of the novel, but in
doing so he perhaps misses a very important point behind White Teeth and literature with
similar themes and intentions. Rahman argues that White Teeth does not realistically represent
Britain, “white-washing” it. Smith’s ironic story structures, however, do not serve simply to
describe the state of race and cultural relations in the United Kingdom, but to present an
argument that envisages a move toward a post-racial Britain. By ironically subverting
determinism as Smith does through Magid and Millat Iqbal, she raises awareness among her
readers that a deterministic mind-set is unproductive and reflective of an incorrect, racecentric view of the world. (Chittenden)
7
I shall be drawing from these critics to argue that Zadie Smith presents an inclusive
multicultural world-view, largely through the use of literary irony, and that her cultural
politics of hybridity, “post-racial” society and rejection of cultural determinism could shed
new light on the cultural tensions that exist between minority groups in Britain and Western
society. Much of the critical analysis of White Teeth focuses on the concept of identity and the
various factors that influence it, particularly race, history, culture and religion. These
arguments are primarily concerned with the individual’s inner sense of identity, but I will
argue that this can also be expanded to one’s expression of identity, (“outer identity,”) and
the influence this has on the relationships and expectations between cultural groups.
Breeding Bin Ladens by Zachary Shore is relevant to the analysis of White Teeth in the
context of recent politics. In his examination of Muslim attitudes during and after various
terrorist attacks in both America and Europe, Shore sketches a necessary portrait of the
Muslim perspective on America and Western society. The relevance to White Teeth becomes
apparent when Shore details the course of one young Englishman’s life leading up to the
planning and execution of the London bus bombings of 2005. This in particular echoes the
story of Magid and Millat Iqbal in White Teeth, the sons of Muslim immigrants from
Bangladesh, one of whom intends to commit an act of religiously inspired violence at the end
of the novel. However, Smith’s fiction takes a decidedly different turn from its factual
counterpart, playing with readers’ expectations and forming an example of the world-view
Smith wishes to portray.
Examination of Irony
Smith’s novel can be taken to argue in favour of a relativist view of identity in
multicultural society, and one of the main literary vehicles she employs to do this is irony.
Jonathan Sell demonstrates that identity in White Teeth cannot merely be pinned down
in terms of ethnicity, culture, or religion. This theme is carried across in a variety of (often
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humorous) episodes throughout the novel, of which the separation of the Iqbal twins by their
father is the most noteworthy example. Sell concludes that White Teeth presents identity as
opposing cultural determinism. Smith does this by communicating ironic situations designed
to catch the reader’s attention.
Much of Smith’s multicultural London is constructed through irony operating on
multiple levels. In some instances, the irony exists consciously between the characters
themselves such as, for example, Samad’s assertion that “the Queen’s English” is nowadays
spoken only by immigrants (qtd. in Sell 28). In most cases, irony is there for the reader to pick
out, and is responsible for much of the novel’s comedic content. For example, Mick O’
Connel’s, the “Irish Pool Room” is owned, operated and (crucially) decorated by Bangladeshi
and Indian immigrants (183).
In order to create a workable system with which to analyse the ironies present in White
Teeth, it is prudent first to define irony as a concept. Irony in and of itself has proven intricate
enough to justify an entire field of study. Gregory Reece, in a discussion of irony in the work
of Søren Kierkegaard initially discerns three types of irony: first, as the “use of words to
express the opposite of their meaning,” second, in the sense of “literary incongruity,” and
third, “Socratic irony,” the “pretence of ignorance to draw out another’s false conceptions”
(Reece 6). Irony remains difficult to define, and to set out to definitively capture the concept
within the scope of this paper would be, to put it mildly, ambitious. Considering that none of
the consulted works provide such delineation, or sufficient parts of one to construct a whole,
it is prudent to choose a definition to suit the subject matter at hand. In Reece’s taxonomy,
“literary incongruity” appears to most closely resemble the phenomenon present in White
Teeth. Such incongruity bears the arguments that Sell uses to support his thesis of Smith’s
opposition to cultural determinism. Among these are Magid becoming an anglophile despite
the influence of his environment, Millat developing extremist beliefs, and Samad’s assertion
9
that he lives according to God’s will whilst simultaneously giving in to sexual and carnal
temptations (Sell 30-32).
Alan Partington provides more material to ground a working definition of irony.
Though his work appears to concern itself most with irony in everyday rhetoric, elements of
his interpretation lend themselves to literary analysis with equal relevance. Irony is a “reversal
of evaluation,” where evaluation is here “defined by Hunston as ‘an indication that something
is good or bad’” Crucially, he notes that evaluation does not need to be spelled out for the
audience, “but can also be implicit, with no obvious linguistic clues, exploiting the audience’s
ability to recognize a good – or bad – thing when they see it” (1553). This, more than
anything is true of literary irony in narrative, where ironic instances can function as covert
jokes between writer and audience, and also intimation of messages and themes. “[S]ignalling
one’s evaluation to others has two major social functions, […] it expresses group belonging,
[…] by warning of bad things and advertising good things. Moreover, it can assure an
audience that the speaker/writer shares its same value system”. In the sense of irony signalling
mutual group belonging between writer and reader, evaluation and irony could be constructed
as ensuring that the novel at hand is well received among its intended audience. Partington
also touches on the political potential of irony: “it can be used to direct, control, and even
manipulate the behaviour of others. […] Evaluation is the engine of persuasion.” (1554). In
this way, Smith employing irony in the sense of reversing readers’ evaluations in White Teeth
can be seen as an attempt to influence, if not the audience’s behaviour, then certainly its views
on the themes contained in the novel.
The Iqbal Twins
I have previously mentioned the lives and separation of Millat and Magid Iqbal, and
identified them as a main vehicle for establishing White Teeth’s world-view. Smith signals the
10
importance and ironic circumstance in the twins’ separate developments. First, the fact that
the two are nearly identical twin brothers is important, as reflected in JoAnna Stephens
Mink’s discussion of sibling relationships in literature: They often serve as a vehicle for
discussing duality, and “raise questions about our basic assumptions concerning individual
identity” (6).
In the case of White Teeth’s Iqbal brothers it signals that either individual could have
been in the other’s position, thereby inviting the reader to speculate about whether their
courses of life would have been the same if their situations had been switched. The possibility
of Millat having gone to Bangladesh as opposed to Magid is noted in the novel itself as well;
the thought process leading Samad to his eventual choice lingers on both possibilities for
some time: “For the first week it was definitely going to be Magid. […] But then the next
week there was a change of heart and it was Millat […] The following week it was Magid
until Wednesday and then Millat...” (194-195). The rapidity with which Samad’s thoughts
alternate gives the reader the sense that the decision is as much up to chance as it is to the
father’s discretion. This is further exacerbated when Samad is convinced first that it should be
Millat by Archie’s cryptic divination of a letter sent by long-time friend Horst Ibelgaufts –
which on its own bears no evidence of pertaining to Samad’s decision, – and then later by his
mistress Poppy Burt-Jones that it should be Magid because she claimed “to have just sensed
in a dream that it should be Magid…” (196).
The twins’ nearly interchangeable nature also lends itself well to a reading focused on
hybridity in the second-generation immigrant experience. Millat and Magid being torn
between two homelands, neither of which truly home, is analogous to the way Muslims feel in
Britain and America, for example, or the hybrid post-colonial experience in general. It is
important here also to note that according to Moss’ definition of the concept, being in a
hybrid state does not simply mean being part of one culture and leaning more or less either
11
way, but rather the creation of a “third element produced by the interaction of cultures,
communities, or individuals” (12).
The importance of Millat and Magid’s relationship as twin brothers is emphasised
repeatedly in the novel, and Smith goes to some pains to uphold a connection between the
two, even when they are continents apart. Smith spends a number of paragraphs describing
Alsana Iqbal’s reacts to the kidnap of one half of her progeny by pledging never to speak
directly or with certainty to her husband until her son’s safe return, because of the uncertainty
of Magid’s safety in the disaster-plagued area he was sent to (201). Soon after this is
established, the reader is presented with the first correspondence from Bangladesh. Word
reaches the Iqbal household that though Magid has arrived safely and is settling in, he has
suffered a broken nose on account of a vase falling on top of him in the early moments of a
hurricane. (Interestingly, and seeming to vindicate Samad’s actions in view of his
motivations, this all happens whilst Magid is in a mosque.) Further on Samad displays the
depth of his wishful thinking regarding Magid’s moral progress in Bangladesh, when he
approves of his son’s criticism that a vase should be placed in such a way as to be able to
cause people harm, saying: “Clearly he disapproves of iconography in the mosque, he dislikes
all heathen, unnecessary, dangerous decoration! A boy like that is destined for greatness, isn’t
he?” (215) As for the extent of Magid’s disfigurement, Clara comments on an accompanying
photograph that the broken nose appears “Roman,” and that Magid is now “like a little
aristocrat, […] a little Englishman.” Here Smith foreshadows the result of Samad’s
experiment with his sons, though he fails to pick up on it. Crucially, Clara hands the photo to
Millat, saying “you don’t look so much like twins anymore.” Then follows the most opaque
example of the bond the twins share: Millat comments that his brother looks like “a chief,” a
street-term meaning something other than what Samad interprets it as. The father proudly
agrees with Millat, calling him “a natural chief,” which in Millat causes such a fit of hilarity
12
that he promptly “slips on a wash cloth, [breaking] his nose against the sink” (216). For an
instant there was a difference between the twins, a breaking of their otherwise largely parallel
threads, and within the space of a paragraph the two are pulled together again, through the
force of Samad’s misguided appraisal of his distant son.
Another important factor is the opinions and motivations driving Samad to bring about
the separation. I will argue that Samad can be viewed as a representation of first-generation
immigrant values, unaccustomed, or at least unwilling to accept what Moss terms “everyday
hybridity.” Then follows a discussion of various scenes involving the twins during Magid’s
time in Bangladesh, in which Smith emphasises the connection the two share, and the
correspondence between the Iqbals in the United Kingdom and Magid, and what clues this
provides of Magid’s personal development and his parents’ expectations and attitudes
regarding his time abroad. Equally important is Millat’s development in the United Kingdom,
of which the novel provides a number of direct examples, which will shed light on Millat’s
journey from a life of “Western” hedonism to Islamic activism. Finally, I will examine the
impact of Magid’s return both on himself, Millat, and his family. The entire Iqbal episode laid
out in this way will show not only that irony is present in White Teeth, but also that it
embodies the novel’s vital arguments.
Twins and Environment
Millat’s radicalisation and Magid’s secularisation reflect Smith’s feeling that
environment does not or should not necessarily define character, which may be at odds with
readers’ initial expectations. When Samad sends Magid off to Bangladesh, he hopes that he
will return to his cultural roots: “[Samad became determined] to create for his boys roots on
shore, deep roots that no storm or gale could displace” (193). The ill-fated nature of this plot
provides an almost literal example of Smith’s opposition to Samad’s vaunted roots as a
defining factor of character. Turkson, interpreting Stuart Hall’s cultural identity theory, points
13
out that rather than being established, identity is continually produced, and that because
identity is constantly transforming, roots could well be replaced by routes. Eventually Magid
and Millat do evolve in terms of identity despite efforts to define it for them, indicating that
Smith is in favour of Hall’s routes (3).
Samad hopes Magid’s education abroad extends to his conversion to conservative
Islam. This alone is a prime set-up for the main irony in White Teeth, even disregarding
Millat’s opposite path. Samad is extremely prone to mistaking his sons’ identity for his own,
and forgetting the difference between his generation and his that of his sons. As a result he
fails to realise that Magid has never recognised himself in his Bengali cultural heritage, and
has even shown himself to be ashamed of being different from other British children. This
particularly comes to a head early in the twins’ upbringing, when a group of “very nicelooking white boys with meticulous manners” asked for a boy called “Mark Smith” at the
door (151). Magid, later revealed as wishing he were part of another family, had given his
chess club friends this stereotypically English-sounding name. It is perhaps no accident that
Mark Smith is popularly a very generic English name, akin in its lack of identity markers to
“John Doe,” and for Magid to have chosen it over his actual name indicates (with some
dramatic exaggeration) that he would rather choose to have no identity at all than to be the
son of Eastern immigrants.
When, given these conditions, Magid goes to Bangladesh to pursue an education, it is
difficult to rationalise Samad’s expectation of his son becoming a more pious Muslim, or
otherwise more entrenched in his father’s culture. Though it is not unreasonable to expect him
to turn to a more spiritual lifestyle, being that life and death situations are more likely in the
turbulent East, Magid’s attitude toward his heritage must not be forgotten. Samad often views
his sons almost as copies of himself, despite evidence to the contrary. Magid is much more
sympathetic to Western ideals and culture than Samad, and as such, when given the chance to
14
grow up outside of his father’s influence, he is able to enjoy a scientific and secular education
unfettered by what Samad prefers, permits or forbids. This is precisely what Magid ends up
doing, becoming involved in the Chalfens’ genetic research. The break with his father is
further demonstrated in an episode late in the novel where Magid joins Samad and Archie in
the Irish pool room, and insists that he wants a bacon sandwich, going against Samad’s
religious sensibilities, possibly to purposefully demonstrate the extent to which he has
become integrated with British culture, and rejected that of his parents (451).
Turning back on the idea that the Iqbal twins are a metaphor for hybridity in
postcolonial youth, Magid’s apparent rejection of a pious and conservative lifestyle dictated
by Islam reflects a turning away from the homeland culture under the influence of the
dominant national culture, and in Magid’s case, possibly in rebellion against his father’s
wishes for the sake of rebellion. Hybridity in the twins’ case, then, concerns an ambivalent
attitude toward the two cultures they are caught up in, and Magid’s role in the novel
exemplifies the part of the postcolonial experience that allies itself with the “target culture.”
Equally ironic is Millat’s role in the story. The younger of the twins proves himself to
be a delinquent with a penchant for soft-drugs, sex and rebellion, all traits that cause his
parents irritation and concern, particularly Samad. “In the language of the street Millat was a
rudeboy, a badman, at the forefront, changing image as often as shoes” (218). Millat’s course
is not so much a transformation as it is an unchecked development through several phases,
and though the reader enjoys significantly more time with him than Magid, his pubescent
estrangement from his family is what makes his change appear abruptly transformational. It is
mentioned repeatedly in the book that to Samad Magid was always the favourite son, so
Millat’s rebellion is perhaps not very surprising. The great irony in this case lies in the fact
that the Islamic fundamentalist group “KEVIN” which Millat becomes actively involved in
could be exactly the sort of thing Samad might have wanted for Magid, barring the violent
15
tendencies the group displays (293). The reader might expect Millat to become steadily more
acclimatised to British culture as time passes on, not because this is a trend with secondgeneration immigrant youths, but because in the structure of the novel, the two brothers seem
to be juxtaposed for a purpose.
This raises the question of precisely what assimilation into and integration with British
culture should be taken to mean. It is no coincidence that Smith repeatedly attacks
stereotypical views of what “Englishness” means, while at the same time producing scenarios
that invite the reader to judge whether a character is integrated with his surroundings or not.
The chapter heading “More English Than The English,” which, as Sell points out, likely
refers to Magid, directly points out the twins as an exploration of “Englishness.” In Sell’s
words, Magid is the character who “becomes ‘more English than the English’ is [Magid, …]
despite being sent to Pakistan for his education.” Certainly, Magid takes to “British culture”
more than his Bengali roots. Even his father thinks he has surpassed the English in terms of
Englishness, as evidenced by Samad’s lamentation of the way his sons are growing up:
“[Millat] is nothing but a disappointment to me. More English than the English. […] He is
coming back to study the English law. […] He wants to enforce the laws of man rather than
the laws of God” (406). What remains to be seen however is whether this definition of
Englishness, concerning itself with English law and lifestyle is adequate to describe the
English identity in a postcolonial sense.
Magid has doubtlessly become more English
according to Samad’s understanding of Englishness, but if we are to take Moss’
understanding of “English” national identity as having been “replaced by an acceptance, or at
least acknowledgement, of a multiplicity of identities,” perhaps Millat is a better candidate for
being described as “English,” at least for as far as his life leading up to joining KEVIN is
concerned. Many different cultures meet in the character of Millat, he is street-smart and
speaks a multilingual amalgam of English and various minority languages and dialects with
16
his friends. Millat appears to thrive in his hybridity early on, whereas Magid seems more
inclined to ally himself with his ideal of English and Western monoculture.
Millat’s steady course away from mainstream English culture is actually a fairly
realistic example of the cultural relapse that second-generation immigrants experience as they
build their lives in the country their parents emigrated to. Rubén Rumbaut conducted a study
of various groups of second-generation immigrants in the United States, and found a
phenomenon which he calls “reactive ethnicity” playing a part in how people assess their
identity:
In 1992 just over half of the sample identified as an American or as a hyphenated
American and fewer than one-third identified themselves by their national origin. […]
In 1995 […] these figures were reversed, with only one-third identifying as an
American or hyphenated American and about half by their parents’ national origin, even
among U.S.-born (74).
It goes without saying that these results cannot be expected to translate 1:1 to the United
Kingdom, but it is not unreasonable to expect that ethnic identification among immigrants is a
transnational phenomenon rather than being unique to the United States.
Studies such as the one investigating reactive ethnicity attempt to gauge assimilation
among immigrants, treating assimilation and identification as aspects of the same process. In
Millat’s case, however, assimilation occurs in a different fashion. Rather than growing
culturally estranged, his deviation from the life his parents would prefer he lead is not a
symptom of Millat rejecting his environment. Rather, Millat embraces his environment,
characterised by the many cultures that now comprise British society, and becomes adept at
moving within it. In this reading Samad’s actions are more understandable. The influence that
life in Britain has on him, in his view, is conducive to sinful behaviour. This is evidenced not
only in Millat’s promiscuity and low regard for the law, but in Samad’s own life as well. In
17
the months leading up to the decision to send one of his sons to Bangladesh, he willingly and
actively begins an affair with Millat and Magid’s schoolteacher, Poppy Burt-Jones. Samad’s
reasoning in coming to the Bangladesh decision involves her directly:
To Samad, (…) tradition was culture, and culture lead to roots, and these were good,
these were untainted principles. That didn’t mean he could live by them, abide by them
or grow in the manner they demanded, (…) And the further Samad himself floated out
to sea, pulled down to the depths by a siren named Poppy Burt-Jones, the more
determined he became to create for his boys roots… (193).
In the eyes of Samad, his weakness in succumbing to the affair with Poppy is symptomatic of
what the West is doing to his character, and this is what he wishes to save his children from. It
is interesting to see that a character so invested in the idea of the importance of roots is
himself evidence that roots alone are not sufficient to keep to a certain path in life. Samad
keeps relying on his determinist philosophy despite all evidence in his own life that it does
not hold true.
Denying Determinism
In the end, the question which this investigation of the Iqbal twins attempts to answer is
chiefly this: would Millat have gone down the same path as Magid, had he been sent away to
Bangladesh? If so, then the text would support determinism based on environment. The
twins, despite their similarities, are clearly unique and for two disparate personalities to
develop in a similar fashion influenced by the same environment clearly places a great deal of
stock in determinism. The reader, however, is to believe that the fundamental differences
between Magid and Millat’s characters, up to and including their attitudes to the multiple
cultures they are part of, are far more important to establishing their identity than mere roots.
Both characters end up being influenced by their environments, but are far from being
entirely defined by them, as Sell’s determinism would imply, leaving other factors such as
18
personality, predisposition and (crucially) chance entirely out of the equation. Sending Magid
to his ancestral homeland and having him return a devout anglophile makes a statement
through irony, reminding the reader that environment and culture, (Samad’s “roots”) are not
the only factors defining a person, and that there is a large number of intangible influences at
play that can sway someone’s personal, cultural, religious or intellectual development in any
direction.
Irony, Hybridity and Inclusivity
What remains to be established is how Smith’s ironic portrayal of postcolonial hybridity
in White Teeth come together to form, as this thesis claims, an inclusive, multicultural worldview, and how this could shed light on cross-cultural relations in Britain, and perhaps
Western society in general.
Irony as it is present in Smith’s novel informs the reader of her value judgments in the
many scenarios portraying race and culture relations. First, Smith herself has said that “the
novel is ‘a utopian view of race relations. It’s what might be, and what it should be” (qtd. in
Moss 14). This can be taken to validate the notion that White Teeth is intended at the very
least to comment on race relations, but analysing the literary irony present in the novel
without resorting to authorial opinion can be enough to shed light on the implications Smith
raises. Returning to Partington’s model of irony, which states that irony is the “reversal of
evaluation,” thereby communicating value judgments, allows us to examine Smith’s position
directly from the text.
Samad Iqbal’s many ironies indicate Smith’s problems with the identity he ascribes
himself, by extension commenting on first generation immigrants’ tendency to deny hybridity
in their lives. Throughout the novel he exemplifies how hybridity and multiculturalism are not
always conscious processes and are largely unaffected by personal effort or conviction.
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Samad’s inadvertent flexibility and exhibited hybridity hint that Smith believes that Eastern
immigrants are prone to being influenced by Western culture, despite claims otherwise.
Smith’s evaluation of the Iqbal twins’ separation and developments provide more
evidence of the novel’s themes of multicultural inclusivity. First, Samad sending one of his
sons to Bangladesh shows that his evaluation of his homeland and his projection of the
influence it will have on his son are positive. The fact that Magid returns as someone who in
Samad’s own words is “more English than the English” clearly reverses his evaluation of the
entire plot, constituting irony. This scenario establishes the disconnection that Smith wishes
to identify between roots and identity, and the influence of environment on character. This
notion is also conducive to a positive approach to multiculturalism: taken to its logical
conclusion it would prevent people from forming flash character judgments based on an
individual’s heritage, race or religion as they are in this case viewed as relative elements
rather than being pre-determined.
This same pattern can be found in the other twin, Millat. Viewed from Samad’s point of
view, Millat’s development from a boy under Western influence, taking to Western cultural
elements and leading a promiscuous existence, later becoming an activist in a Muslim
extremist group extolling their piety and adherence to the laws and word of God is a reversal
of evaluation as well. It is not unreasonable to expect that Samad ought to approve of having
a son who purports to live his life according to Islamic beliefs, yet, when Millat finally makes
this transformation he is viewed with as much disappointment as the much secularised Magid.
This indicates that Samad’s expectations insofar as they are expressed in the novel – wanting
“two good Muslim boys,” – are not adequate (406). Instead, it is hinted that Samad is much
more in favour of hybridity than he realises.
Samad’s trouble with hybridity is found in other areas as well, such as (very simply) his
misunderstanding of the word “chief” which ends up causing the twins, who were for a
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moment physically distinguishable because of Magid’s broken nose, to become similar again
by breaking Millat’s shortly afterward. Millat’s use of the word as intending an insult to his
brother’s likeness as opposed to the English definition as referring to rank is a small, apparent
innocuous example of Millat’s hybridity. Samad’s failure to recognise its intended meaning
accidentally leads to Millat breaking his nose, drawing the twins together back into a
metaphor for immigrant duality. The example of the twins’ parallel accidents alone contains
several instances of irony in a sociocultural context. Firstly, Samad appears to consistently
misunderstand his sons’ predicaments and intentions. The inference that Magid’s distaste for
decorative pottery is due to religious preferences is ironic because the actual reason for his
dislike is so clearly recognisable. The irony in this case adds humour to the text, and secondly
it becomes apparent that, in spite of Samad’s wishes, Magid has actually grown away from
religious orthodoxy during his time in the old country. This rather elegantly serves to
underline the importance of hybridity in White Teeth, and Samad’s failure to recognise this is
what causes many of the problems he encounters throughout the novel.
In Conclusion
Whether White Teeth is intended as an argument in favour of relative identity and
cultural equality, or whether it just employs these themes to be topical and conjure up
comedic situations, it is clear that the novel makes a number of potent statements on hybridity
in multicultural, postcolonial Britain. If understanding of hybridity and cultural relativism
were more widespread, unwarranted flash judgments such as exhibited by populist antiimmigration politics and (not wanting to equate them directly) racism could be greatly
diminished. It is interesting to wonder whether White Teeth would have had the same
reception if it had been published after terrorism assumed centre stage in the dramatic fashion
that it did. Seeming to go against the idea that cultural oppositions are as widespread and
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fundamental as both East and West appear to believe, the novel could certainly be expected to
be seen as even more utopian than it is now, with idealism taking the place of realism.
When read in conjunction with postcolonial critics and subjected to a framework of
irony, it becomes clear that Smith’s debut novel presents a world-view that is very much in
favour of multiculturalism, perhaps even post-multiculturalism – a state of hybridity in which
people are no longer defined by the extent to which they adhere to one culture or the other,
but instead belong to a third category formed by the sum of an individual’s ethnic, cultural
and racial experiences. Moving away from a deterministic view of identity and accepting that
some things are by definition unpredictable and/or subject to chance undermines ideologies
that seek to model behaviours, laws and opinions to ethnicity, religion and race. An ideal
result of White Teeth’s influence would be the raising of awareness that apart from
differences, there are similarities between groups of people that we may not be intuitively
aware of, and that we harbour expectations from these people that, put to the test, could well
turn out to be incorrect.
Smith employs irony not only to serve as a vehicle for the comedy for which the novel
has been so lauded, but also to point out the reader’s preconceptions that may be entirely
unfounded, to then reverse them outright, resulting in a readable and important exploration of
multiculturalism in Britain that could cast intercultural relations in recent years in a different,
more positive light.
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