by ma.2005
Zadie Smith, in her novel ‘White Teeth’ examines the struggle with the issues of identity, otherness and cultural legacy of three different families, Jonases, Iqbals and Chalfens, with mixed ethnicities and different cultural backgrounds. Smith draws a different image of London where the novel takes place as she portrays diverse characters that have varied races and historical roots and that are mostly migrants from colonized nations before the Second World War, and also, addresses to the problems of characters that are arisen as a result of the dominant local culture which are the detriment of characters’ identity, the feeling of otherness and sense of belonging to an exact place.
In Zadie Smith’s work ‘White Teeth’, she constructs each character by engaging them to the context of history in two dimensional manners which are a) characters’ history which informs the reader about their personal background and b) characters’ history based on their ethnic background which enlightens the current issues arisen from characters’ dilemma on local culture and their origins. Furthermore, she reveals the historical facts about each characters’ origin and roots by frequently going back to the different past years and hence, makes an emphasis on the obsession, which almost all characters have with their past, no matter if they are born and raised or are immigrants in Britain, due to the fact that they originally belong somewhere else. Hence, they are in search of their original identity, which is suppressed by the local culture of Britain, to come out. Additionally, by these flashbacks, Smith aims to inform the reader about the periods of colonization in order to indicate the influential events on characters as a result of dominant British colonization.
One of the characters who is deeply obsessed with his culture is Samad Iqbal who is a Bengali waiter. He often mentions and revives his history and memories which are a confirmation for his construction of his own identity but in contrast, which are influential and enlightening factors on the issues of otherness, struggle of belonging:
A vein in Samad’s forehead was fighting passionately to escape his skin. He wished to defend a country that wasn’t his and revenge the killing of men who would not have acknowledged him in a civilian Street[1]
Smith takes the reader back to the years of Second World War in which Archie and Samad became life-long friends. The issue of identity firstly appears with this flashback as he feels the inferiority and otherness as a foreign colonized soldier. During the Second World War time, Smith portrays another history, which Samad aspires to fill the blank that makes him struggle constructing his identity, and which Samad reveals after and Archie were the last ones who were able to survive in their tank, Mangal Pande’s story.
Samad suffers the way the society regards and judges his identity as he cannot truly raise his voice about who he actually is, since he has the feeling of other in the society. Because the society contemplates Samad Iqbal with the steer of stereotypical discourses, he seeks for an alternative identity for himself which he could be proud of.
Smith conveys the dilemma which the characters face in the novel as they struggle constructing an identity by informing the reader about the characters’ past, therefore enlightens the fact that the characters actually are stuck between the local culture and their original culture as Smith portrays the feeling of inferiority and otherness which the characters possess as a result of the dominance of the colonizer’s culture and the concept of alienation in the postcolonial discourses.
Reference
Smith, Zadie, White Teeth, London: Penguin Books, 2001
[1]Smith, Zadie, White Teeth, London: Penguin Books, 2001:95
