Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in White Teeth, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family Ties
Race, Racism, and Multiculturalism
Female Independence
The Influence of History
Summary
Analysis
Joyce Chalfen goes to Alsana’s house and asks to speak to her, but Alsana refuses to let her in the door; Samad, who is watching television, puts in earphones so he does not have to hear the women bickering. Alsana begins to sing over Joyce’s pleas: “Whether you want me to be involved or not,” Joyce says, “I am.” Alsana believes that “involved” happens over a long period of time, that it is neither good or bad, just a consequence of living—of “occupation and immigration,” “empires and expansion.” She realizes that the exhausted way Joyce says “involved” suggests that the word means the same thing to her: “an enormous web you spin to catch yourself.”
Alsana’s ruminations on the term “involved” implicate both colonialism and patriarchy, two systems that “involve” others—women and colonized peoples—whether they want to be involved or not, and that act as major undercurrents in the novel, influencing all the characters’ lives.
Themes
Alsana finally lets Joyce in and offers her a cup of tea with adding cheerfully that their water may or may not make Joyce sick. She also tells Joyce that she is the only reason that Magid and Millat are apart, since the Chalfens have involved Magid “in something so contrary to our culture, to our beliefs, that we barely recognize him.” Unbeknownst to the two women, Millat has been standing in the hallway, listening in. Joyce suggests that the brothers meet at a “neutral place,” and Alsana tells her that she’s just making things worse. Joyce says that she thinks Millat is still traumatized from Alsana burning all of his “secular” items.
Though both women believe each other to be the source of the problems dividing Magid and Millat, the truth is somewhere in between: Alsana’s sons are conflicted over their ties to both Eastern tradition and heritage, represented by Alsana, and British society, represented by Joyce.
Themes
Millat’s subconscious is “split-level”: he is trying to be ascetic in his habits in order to align with KEVIN and its teachings, and he believes that relying on faith, like Samad does, is “contemptible,” since to KEVIN, Islam is a religion that can be “intellectually proved.” Yet he is unable to purge himself of the West, since he is still obsessed with gangster movies. Worst of all, he’s angry and self-righteous, especially when it comes to Magid. These are not pious thoughts, but Millat feels that he has the “fundamentals” down—clean living, praying, fasting, working for the cause. Still, he wants to face off with his brother, gangster-style.
Millat is struggling with his ties to KEVIN, since he cannot completely separate himself from aspects of Western culture he finds appealing—particularly the gangster mentality he has learned from gangster movies, which allows him to act more powerful. His struggle here is also reminiscent of Samad’s struggle to live up to his own standards of purity, as described earlier in the novel.
Themes
Alsana persuades Samad to talk Magid into meeting with Millat, and Samad takes Magid to O’Connell’s to do so. The other patrons are confused by Magid, since Samad rarely brings guests, and Magid is far younger than the other pub-goers. Mickey tells Magid that he has a “sympathetic” face, and that he is “civilized”; but when Magid asks for a bacon sandwich, Mickey’s mood changes. He reminds Magid that’s a Muslim, and that he shouldn’t upset Samad by eating pork. Eventually, Mickey gives in and goes out to get some bacon; Magid invites him to the FutureMouse launch, telling him that Marcus’s research could help to cure his disfiguring skin condition.
Magid’s calm, rational ways even win over Mickey, who is drawn in by Magid’s Anglicized mannerisms and his promises that science might help cure his skin condition. Magid is acting like European colonizers, attempting to convert the “less cultured” to European systems of knowledge and culture. His example demonstrates how internalized oppression can cause even members of marginalized groups to perpetuate their own oppression.
Themes
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Samad is angry at Magid for talking to Mickey about the FutureMouse, and he calls Magid “a thorn in [his] foot.” He tells Magid that Alsana wants him to meet with Millat, though he wishes that his sons would stay far away from each other. Samad is horrified to hear that Magid has ordered a bacon sandwich, and he calls his son “Mr. White-trousered Englishman with his stiff-upper-lip and his big white teeth.” He tells Magid that KEVIN, including Millat, is organizing against the FutureMouse, but Magid’s expression remains blank. Samad tells his son that meddling with a creature is tantamount to interfering with God, and that he wants to disown Magid for his disobedience. Archie flips a coin to decide whether the two boys should meet, but the coin lands in the pinball machine.
Samad is embarrassed by Magid’s adherence to Western culture: to Samad, Magid has adopted the ways of his British oppressors, and he is defying his Islamic upbringing by turning to atheism and science. Yet Archie’s attempt to rely on chance to answer questions—a coin flip—fails, suggesting that Magid’s rational methods might be closer to the truth of the world. Samad’s mention of Magid’s “white teeth” links Magid’s new persona to a betrayal of his roots, while also suggesting that Magid might be making himself vulnerable to those who would oppress him—just as the teeth of the Congolese men allowed J.P. Hamilton to target them more easily.
Themes
Clara offers to let Millat and Magid use a room at the university where she’s taking classes as a neutral space, since it’s hard to find genuinely neutral spaces. The university, though, is only 12 years old, and built on empty wasteland. Clara gives the key to the room to Joyce, who gives it to Irie, who she wants to set up the meeting. Irie walks to the Iqbal house, thinking back on the memories she has shared with Millat over the years and feeling as if she could “drown” in them. At home, Millat is reading about sajda, the act of prostration during prayer, but he becomes distracted, takes off his T-shirt, and practices lines from gangster movies at himself in the mirror. Irie walks in on him, and she goes up to him to explain the proposed meeting, putting one hand on his chest; suddenly, the two are kissing and making love on Millat’s prayer mat, though they quickly stop. Horrified, Millat begins to pray for absolution, while Irie weeps and leaves the room.
Though Clara hopes to help the Iqbal sons find a space without any history in order to settle their differences without intrusions from the past, “history” finds them nonetheless—in the form of Irie Jones, Millat’s oldest friend and the person who knows him best in the world Millat’s genuine connection with Irie briefly overcomes his devotion to Islam, again demonstrating the difficulty of escaping both one’s own history and history more broadly.
Themes
Irie thinks that Millat doesn’t love her because he is too “damaged” to love, but the narrator notes that this isn’t true, asking, “what was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species?” “Not everybody deserves love all the time,” the narrator remarks, though Irie firmly believes that there must be a reason that Millat doesn’t love her. She thinks that the reason must be Magid, since Magid has made Millat feel inferior all his life. She walks to the Chalfens’ house, makes her way to Magid’s room, and makes love to him, too; immediately, though, Magid realizes why Irie has come to him, and after, they lie together in silence. Magid says that Irie has “tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land with an X.”
Throughout the novel, the narrator shows that individuals are highly complicated, neither good nor bad: in both the present and the past, the novel’s characters act in both honorable and dishonest ways, and they are not necessarily deserving of constant love. Magid’s remark recognizes that Irie loves Millat because she believes that through Millat—someone she has ”history” with—she will be able to understand her own complicated history and lay claim to an identity, as a shipwrecked person might claim an island.
Themes
Finally, on November 5, 1992, at 3 p.m., Magid and Millat meet together in the university room after an eight-year gap. Magid explains that he sees the FutureMouse project as “correcting the Creator’s mistakes,” but Millat says that the “Creator doesn’t make mistakes”; the brothers begin to argue, and their argument escalates. They use the different items in the room—chairs, erasers, the overhead projector, the filing cabinets—to defend their distinct viewpoints, discussing the Qur’an, Mangal Pande, genetic experimentation, and finally, their own separation.
The brothers attempt to work out their differences in the same way that Samad and Archie attempted to work out the story of Mangal Pande in O’Connell’s, using the space to play out different situations just as their father once did: Millat and Magid seem to be inadvertently repeating the past.
Themes
The narrator comments that immigrants are often thought of as “resourceful,” “constantly on the move,” “footloose”: but Magid and Millat leave the “neutral room” “weighed down” and “burdened,” feeling as if they have made no progress. They seem to occupy a space “equal to themselves” and “equal to Mangal Pande’s, equal to Samad Iqbal’s”: they are both trapped in the present moment together. The narrator refers to Zeno’s paradox, which shows reality to represent both “multiplicity” and a “seamless, flowing whole”: likewise, the brothers are racing toward the future, attempting to differentiate themselves, only to find that they tend to keep enacting their past instead. Immigrants cannot escape their history.
In the novel, immigrants are shown to be both irrevocably tied to history and determined to escape it. They hope to move away from the stories of the past, but they nonetheless find themselves reliving what they hope to leave behind. For example, Millat and Magid hope to differentiate themselves from their father, but they find themselves repeating Samad’s story—both rebelling against and assimilating into Western culture.
Themes
