Relationships and White Teeth

It seems like everything in the world is changing because of the current COVID-19 pandemic, but perhaps the aspect most changed in all our lives are our relationships. Some of us are quarantined with our families, significant others, or friends, others are separated and feeling distant and alone, some are dealing with losing their loved ones to the virus, and some are on the frontlines doing their best to protect us all. But whatever the situation is, we are all missing someone, and this is because our relationships with others are the most central aspect of our lives. Relationships in all forms play a significant role in the choices we make, the actions we take, and the people we become. This is prominently exemplified in Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth as every relationship in this novel is very complex and complicated yet despite this immensely influential, lasting, and important in the characters’ lives. White Teeth demonstrates that we need to take care in choosing what friendly, romantic, and familial relationships we engage in and how we treat them because these relationships shape and influence everything about and around us.

Friendship is the very core of this novel as pretty much every relationship stems from the friendship formed between Archibald Jones and Samad Iqbal. This novel truly begins and ends with Archie and Samad’s incredibly unlikely friendship. The friendship between the pair starts because they are in the war together and is described as, “…precisely the kind of friendship an Englishman makes on holiday, that he can only make on holiday. A friendship that crosses class and color, a friendship that takes its basis physical proximity and survives because the Englishman assumes the physical proximity will not continue” (Smith 82). This quote illuminates that the pair have nothing in common, and yet despite this Archie and Samad remain friends after the war as well as for their rest of their lives. Furthermore, this friendship defines most of who they are and what they do, as exemplified in one instance in when Archie thinks about who his mentor is and concludes that, “For him, it’s always been Samad… Always Sammy. Through thick and thin. Even if the world were ending. Never made a decision without him in forty years” (Smith 440-441). Here Archie demonstrates how much he values his relationship with Samad as Archie is terrible at making decisions and usually just resorts to a coin flip no matter how big the decision is. That is, unless Samad helps him make his decisions. This friendship clearly illustrates the fact that our relationships play a huge role in who we are and what we choose to do as seen with Archie, a man who refuses to make any decision unless it is a random outcome made with a coin or a decision made with the help of his best friend. And as is only fitting, the novel ends with Archie and Samad’s friendship as the man who Samad believed Archie had killed previously is revealed to be alive and Samad is struck with shock and amazement that what he views as the most defining moment of their friendship was actually a lie. This is seen as Samad

…realizes that he has been lied to by his only friend in the world for fifty years. That the cornerstone of their friendship was made of nothing more firm than marshmallow and soap bubbles. That there is far, far more to Archibald Jones than he had ever imagined…And then, with a certain horrid glee, he gets to the fundamental truth of it all, the anagnorisis: This incident alone will keep us two old boys going for the next forty years. It is the story to end all stories. It is the gift that keeps on giving. (Smith 441)

Samad did not think Archie could ever surprise him and yet here in this moment Archie somewhat damages their friendship but more than that surprises Samad beyond all belief, something he thought could never happen. Archie is the only one who seems to know his identity throughout the novel and is easily defined as a predictable, common, plain, reliable character until this moment. In this moment it seems like Samad’s hurt or anger at being lied to is almost entirely eclipsed by his disbelief and excitement that Archie’s lie and the new situation formed from it will fuel their friendship for at least the next forty years. Samad enjoys the surprise and new content this lie will give to their friendship. In the beginning Archie and Samad formed a friendship out of circumstance and it was one they thought would not last, but throughout the novel it becomes clear that theirs is the strongest friendship and one that will last. Thus, their relationship demonstrates the importance of taking care in who we choose to engage with as these two thought their friendship would be short lived and it turned into what they both view as the most important relationship in their lives. Furthermore, almost every relationship in this novel forms as a result of this friendship. One such relationship is that of Clara and Alsana, who’s relationship is hard to describe as a friendship exactly, and yet the two do come to depend on and be there for each other as they both realize their husbands keep them out of the loop on most things. This is seen as Clara and Alsana are talking and realizing their husbands leave them out of a lot and specifically as Clara suddenly finds out that Alsana is pregnant. Alsana then asks if their husbands tell one another anything, “But as soon as she had said it, the weight of the other possibility rested on the brains of the two girl-wives. That their husbands told each other everything. That it was they themselves who were kept in the dark” (Smith 55). Their relationship is not necessarily friendly, but the two women do have a lot in common in their lives and thus they form a unique bond that stems from their similar situations and relationships with Samad and Archie and the fact that their husbands tell one another much more than they ever tell their wives. Essentially, it is a kinship formed in response to the relationship between their husbands as their husbands seem to place more value in their friendship with each other than in their marriages with their wives. Another friendship that stems from Archie and Samad is Irie and Millat’s friendship as it is very centered on the history they have with each other, just like their father’s friendship is. This is exemplified in one instance as Irie walks to see Millat and thinks:

If someone asked her just then what memory was, what the purest definition of memory was, she would say this: the street you were on when you first jumped in a pile of dead leaves. She was walking it right now. With every fresh crunch came the memory of previous crunches…Irie wished she could give herself over to these past-present fictions: wallow in them, make them sweeter, longer…But she had in her hand a cold key, and surrounding her lives that were stranger than fiction, funnier than fiction, crueler than fiction, and with consequences fiction can never have. She didn’t want to be involved in the long story of those lives, but she was. (Smith 378-379)

Irie demonstrates the tangled web that is history in these lines as any relationship starts to be linked to this idea of history, and once there is history it is that much harder to let go of a relationship. History makes every relationship feel substantial, important, and hard to let go of. This is further demonstrated as Millat says to Irie, “’But you're different…you're different. We go way back. We've got history. You're a real friend. They don't really mean anything to me.’ Irie liked to believe that. That they had history, that she was different in a good way” (Smith 225). Just like their parents, history is at the very core of the friendship between Irie and Millat. History is the biggest reason that Archie and Samad’s friendship survives as it does and this fact further proves that we must carefully choose what relationships to engage in as history is yet another tie that can keep us engaged in relationships even when they do not benefit us. Friendship in White Teeth is immensely complicated and yet even more so relatable with its unique relationships and demonstrations of how impactful each and every one of these relationships are in shaping all of the character’s lives.

Romantic relationships are the most complex, confusing, and defining relationships we face, and thus this is prominently reflected throughout the novel. In the article ”Certainty in Its Purest Form: Globalization, Fundamentalism, and Narrative in Zadie Smith's White Teeth” by Benjamin Bergholtz there is a part where he points out that, “…the narrator notes that ‘[w]e,’ not ‘they,’ ‘have been here before.’ The inclusive ‘we’ suggests the narrator is aware that ‘this is a rerun’ (White Teeth 135) for her characters as well as her readers” (554). He is specifically talking about the characters and readers familiarity with immigrating traumas, but I believe this statement is also applicable to the way in which the relationships in this novel are something the readers are familiar with as well. Meaning that Smith accurately depicts relatable relationships in this novel that are recognizable, familiar, and reminiscent “reruns” of our own lives. Although every relationship in the novel is extremely relatable perhaps the most relatable one is the relationship between Irie and Millat, as theirs is a relationship of unrequited love. Having feelings for someone who does not return them is a situation everyone experiences at some point and thus Irie’s frustrations and longing are very relatable. The scene that best depicts the relationship between Irie and Millat is when Neena is explaining to Irie why Millat is not interested in her and she says, “…you’re all he’s got. He needs you. You two have history. You really know him…He doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. Just like his father. He doesn’t know who he is. But you know him, at least a little, you’ve known all the sides of him. And he needs that. You’re different” (Smith 237). To which Irie then thinks, “Sometimes you want to be different. And sometimes you’d give the hair on your head to be the same as everybody else.” The position Irie is in is one that is so relatable for so many in that she is in love with someone who only sees her as a friend and she is trying to change herself believing that if she looks or acts a certain way he will change his mind in how he feels about her. This exemplifies the fact that Irie spends a lot of her time trying to impress Millat and trying to get him to like her and thus that her relationship with him greatly affects who she is as a person as well as the choices she makes for a large part of her life. This only gets more complicated for Irie when she goes to see Millat and touches his chest

Just at the point between two belts where his heart, constricted by the leather, beat so hard she felt it in her ear. Lacking experience in the field, it was natural that Irie should mistake the palpitations that come with blood restriction for smoldering passion. As for Millat, it had been a very long time since anybody had touched him or he had touched anybody. Add that to the touch of memory, the touch of ten years of love unreturned, the touch of a long, long history—the result was inevitable” (Smith 380-381).

Irie and Millat then make love and both immediately regret it, her because she sees he does and Millat because he does not love her and what he did with her is against the rules of KEVIN. Irie then furiously goes to see his twin, believing it is his fault that Millat is so messed up and cannot love and then makes love with Magrid in revenge and in an attempt to defend Millat, but this only makes her feel worse. Then she ends up pregnant and does not know which twins it is and never can because they are identical twins and no test can tell their identical DNA apart. Throughout all of these events Irie spends so much of her time trying to save Millat and trying to figure out how to get him to love her as she is unable to see that he only sees her as a friend. She tries to change herself and makes choices, like sleeping with Magrid, or trying to change her hair in a painful process, all for Millat. Millat and Irie’s friendship is fine, but her romantic desire to be with him is bad for her wellbeing because she cares so deeply for him that she wants to fix him, but it is not her job or burden to carry and she is only hurting herself in the process. She does not realize this as she is blinded with love and thus, she continuously pursues it and it is not until the very end of the novel that she finally accepts the situation as she accepts herself and pursues a relationship with Josh instead. Irie was struggling with her identity for many reasons but her feelings for Millat were definitely one of the most prominent ones and this demonstrates the care we must take in our relationships. If Irie had realized how bad her feelings for Millat were she would have been able to be much happier and saved herself so much heartache and pain. Instead it was a lesson she had to learn the hard way, which is something many of us go through too. Irie allows her romantic feelings for Millat to change her as well as her life and thus the mistakes she makes demonstrate the importance of taking care in choosing our romantic relationships.

The three core families in the story, the Joneses, the Iqbal’s, and the Chalfen’s believe they are all vastly different from one another. Yet, they really are much more similar than they think as all three families have in common the fact that the children choose the opposite path of their parents as well as the parents of all three families not really being able to connect with their children. These three families have immensely complex and conflicting relationships and yet despite that every single member finds themselves immensely affected by their family. Josh Chalfen, Millat Iqbal, Magrid Iqbal, and Irie Jones all go against their parents’ wishes in one way or another. Josh joins an organization named FATE that is protesting and wants to shut down his father’s work with FutureMouse. Millat goes on a rollercoaster of rebellion starting with telling his friends his name is Mark in an attempt to repress the Islamic culture his father wishes him to engage in, next stopping at his joining with KEVIN, an extremely radical group that directly spites his father as Millat chooses the most extreme path he can, and ultimately ending with his attempt to kill Dr. Perret. Samad sends Magrid away to Bangladesh with the belief that this will integrate him into the Muslim culture and the result of this is that Magrid becomes an atheist entirely devoted to science and reason. Irie wants to study dentistry at university but first wants to take a year off in Africa, which her mother Clara is completely against and so Irie runs to her grandmother’s house and stays there for quite some time. The different ways the families run also affect the other families as demonstrated by the Chalfen’s influence over Irie. Irie’s relationship with Marcus specifically affects her and the article “Reading White Teeth to Improve Intercultural Communication” by Matt Thomas in which Thomas demonstrates this fact as he states that, “Irie approves of Chalfenism, and believes that by allowing herself to be assimilated into this sect of homogenous Western culture, she will abandon the chaos of her multicultural identity. This, in Irie’s mind, is the only path to cultural immersion and acceptance” (19). Irie sees the Chalfen’s way of life as desirable and she fully trusts them as well as their judgement in a way that she does not trust her own family. She sees them as normal whereas she views herself and her mixed family as not. And because of the way she views this family she even allows Marcus to determine her value in this instance by what Marcus says about her to Magrid in a letter which is:

You’ll like her, she’s a bright girl and she has the most tremendous breasts…Sadly, I don’t hold out much hope for her aspirations in the field of “hard science,” more specifically in my own biotechnology, which she appears to have her heart set on…she’s sharp in a way, but it’s the menial work, the hard grafting, that she’s good at—she’d make a lab assistant maybe, but she hasn’t any head for the concepts, no head at all…so it might have to be dentistry for our Irie” (Smith 305).

Irie trusts Marcus, and just as we generally always listen to and trust the advice of those who we trust when they tell us things, Irie too does here even if it is not what she truly wants. Because of her faith in Marcus, she allows him to determine her fate in this moment and gives up on what she really wants to do simply because he does not believe in her. Thus, Irie demonstrates the care we must take in our relationships as in this instance I believe she wrongly lets someone convince her she cannot pursue the career she wants when she absolutely could and should pursue it if it is her dream. When it comes to the start of her relationship with the Chalfen’s, “Irie knew the deal she was about to make . . . she wanted it; she wanted to merge with the Chalfens, to be one flesh; separate from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused with another” (Smith 284). Irie’s relationship with the Chalfen’s is one in which she allows it to change and shape her. In fact, as the article “The Mouseness of the Mouse: The Competing Discourses of Genetics and History in White Teeth” by Michele Braun points out, she knows, and hopes will “normalize” her. In this article, Braun discusses genetics, history, and how these two contrasting factors shape the characters throughout the novel. She states that, “The “mirrored perfection” of the “gorgeous logic” of Chalfenism emerges from their similarity, but as perfections of one another, these clones pay the price in boredom. No wonder the Jamaican-English Irie’s fascination with the Chalfen lifestyle and even the Bengali Millat’s rebellious rejection of their values (but not their money) offer the admiration that Joyce desires” (227). Here it becomes clear that Irie knows what the Chalfen’s are doing an even hopes it will normalize her. This quote also exemplifies the fact that all three families have very different lives and yet none of them are truly happy, even the Chalfen’s who appear to be perfect, and thus they are all turning to others to try and find happiness. That is, they are turning to the relationships in their lives in order to try and better their lives, thus demonstrating yet again how important relationships are in shaping our lives and why we must be careful in choosing them. All three of these families are vastly different and yet their relationships are all equally important and influential in shaping every single one of their lives. The Iqbal family is perhaps the most complicated of all as Samad and Alsana are locked in a toxic relationship in which they resolve most arguments with physical violence, Samad does not know who he is and thus he tries to force and identity upon each of his children, and the twins end up separated and opposites because Samad essentially kidnaps and sends Magrid away. As we discussed in class, “The more he feels his own identity fragmenting the more Samad insists on imposing a rigidly conceived ethnic and religious identity on his sons” (Frampton). Despite Samad’s attempts to control the twin’s fates, they both take the opposite paths of what he expected and yet still neither does what their father hoped they would. The interesting thing about the twin’s relationship is that they are entirely polar opposites and yet their relationship always brings them back to each other as their vastly different lives somehow always mirror each other and end up tied together. This is exemplified by them both breaking their noses at the same time despite being in vastly different places as well as both being tried for Millat’s attempted assassination of Dr. Perrett and both having to serve for it. Overall these three families may believe they are all incredibly different but it is apparent they all have much more in common than they think and they all demonstrate the substantial effects familial relationships have on who we are as well as why we must then take care in how we choose and treat these relationships.

It is essentially important that we take care in choosing our relationships because family, friends, and love are the most central part of living as these relationships are tied to our every action, decision, and overall life. We even turn to our relationships for advice on our other relationships and thus we are locked in a perpetual, never-ending circle that always brings us right back to our relationships. Smith’s novel demonstrates that relationships are tough, demanding, and exhausting work that lead us to feel every emotion, and yet they are also the most rewarding aspect of our lives. She proves that the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of relationships all shape our identity as our choices define who we are. Relationships are not easy; they are messy and unpredictable and thus we must take care in deciding which ones are beneficial, which ones we need to let go of, and which ones we should not pursue. If we can do this, we will all improve our lives because of it.

Works Cited

Bergholtz, Benjamin. “Certainty in Its Purest Form: Globalization, Fundamentalism, and Narrative in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 57, no. 4, 2016, pp. 541–568. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3368/cl.57.4.541.

Braun, Michele. “The Mouseness of the Mouse: The Competing Discourses of Genetics and History in White Teeth.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 48, no. 2, 2013, pp. 221–236. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0021989412468414.

Frampton, Edith. “Lecture on Genetics and White Teeth.” English 508W, 28 April 2020, Lecture.

Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. Vintage International, 2001.

Thomas, Matt. “Reading White Teeth to Improve Intercultural Communication.” Journal of Caribbean Literatures, vol. 6, no. 1, 2009, pp. 15–30. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2014390776&site=ehost-live&scope=site.