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
Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah is not a great speaker; listening to his speech, Millat feels “let down.” This is the founder of KEVIN, born Monty Clyde Benjamin in Barbados in 1960. He studied in Riyadh after converting to Islam at the age of 14, and he began to express radical opinions about the religion. In 1984, he traveled to Birmingham, England, where he locked himself in his aunt’s garage and spent five years studying the Qur’an: for this, he was nicknamed “the Guru in the Garage” in articles written by a journalist, Norman Henshall (KEVIN views these articles as anti-KEVIN propaganda). KEVIN is an extremist faction “dedicated to direct, often violent action,” frowned on by the rest of the Islamic community, and they have gathered at the Kilburn Hall to listen to Brother Ibrahim speak.
Here, the narrator makes light of extremist behavior, suggesting that the motivations underlying fundamentalist beliefs are often less than noble and perhaps even comedic. Brother Ibrahim seems to be more focused on his own image, and his own role as a leader of a movement, than religious teachings; here, fundamentalism represents a perversion of Islamic belief.
Themes
Mohammed Hussein-Ishmael, the butcher, forces his way through the crowd to sit next to Millat in the hall. Mo is helping to fund Brother Ibrahim’s tour around Europe, and he asks Millat if he finds the Brother impressive. Mo is a recent convert to KEVIN, and he is flattered that as a businessman, he has been called on for financial support. He has converted to KEVIN in part because of the violence he has faced: he was once tied up by three white men who set fire to his shop. Mo wants a “little payback,” to have the “degenerate nature” of white people explained to him. Mo asks Millat if it is true that he knows Marcus Chalfen, and that he is organizing a protest on December 31. Millat tells Mo that if he wants to “get near the center” of KEVIN, he can’t be talking about their plans. Meanwhile, Brother Ibrahim is discussing “a man who presumes to change, adjust, modify what has been decreed” by changing “an animal that Allah has created”: Marcus Chalfen. Mo, Millat, Shiva, Abdul-Jimmy, Abdul-Colin, Hifan, and Tyrone gather in the hall’s office together.
KEVIN appeals to Mo (and many of the other Muslim characters) because it offers a space for them to fight back against Western culture, in a society that does not accept them because of their beliefs. Marcus Chalfen’s experiment, with its racist, colonialist undertones, is the ideal target for KEVIN and its newly radicalized members.
Themes
Meanwhile, Joshua is listening to Joely, FATE’s leader, speak about FATE and a campaign they are launching: she is an intelligent, attractive woman who despises his father. Joely is married to Crispin, to Joshua’s disappointment; the two met at the University of Leeds and formed FATE in 1985, attracting other political drifters to conduct a “terror campaign against animal testers, torturers, and exploiters.” Kenny and Paddy, two seasoned FATE activists, tell Joshua that he will get over his crush on Joely. Crispin has already gone to jail for three years for fire-bombing a Welsh laboratory that used animal testing, and while in jail, Joely transformed FATE into a “viable underground political force.”
FATE and KEVIN represent another instance of parallels in the novel, or repeated histories: different groups with different values that nevertheless both oppose Marcus Chalfen’s FutureMouse experiment, and that pursue similarly radical and outlandish methods of protest.
Themes
Joshua met Joely and Crispin in Willesden, where they were looking for a squat; Joshua was immediately attracted to Joely, and he offered to help Joely and Crispin squat in an unoccupied Victorian building nearby. Joshua begins to realize that he loves Joely, that his parents are “assholes,” and that the animal kingdom is “oppressed, imprisoned, and murdered on a daily basis.” At one point, Joshua reveals himself to be the son of Marcus Chalfen, and Joely accepts him as a “convert from the other side.” FATE is plotting Marcus’s downfall, but Joshua is too in love with Joely to see what is going on. Joely asks the group whether they should devote their attentions to Marcus Chalfen or to releasing the FutureMouse from its captivity during the event on December 31, and Crispin decides to put it to a vote.
Joshua is too involved with FATE—and too in love with Joely—to realize that he is betraying his family by subscribing to FATE’s beliefs, though he will later renounce his connection to the group and return to “Chalfenism,” acknowledging that his family is a significant part of his identity.
Themes
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On December 20 at midnight, Irie picks up the phone in her house. Ryan and Hortense have called her at exactly midnight (0000 hours) on the twentieth—signifying the year 2000—to warn Irie about the end of the world. Ryan warns Irie not to get involved with Marcus Chalfen, whom he calls “an enemy of all humanity.” Meanwhile, Magid, completing work on the FutureMouse, is proud that he witnessed every stage of the FutureMouse’s development, which represents a triumph over randomness. “What is more God than that?” he thinks, removing his white coat.
Magid believes that the FutureMouse represents an antidote to the chaos and randomness of life. He believes that the mouse’s development will play out according to a predetermined history, repeating certain events that Magid and Marcus have planned precisely. However, the mouse will actually end up playing out a very different version of history, one that’s deeply tied to Magid’s family’s own history.
Themes
