White Teeth Characters

Ambrosia is Clara’s grandmother and Irie’s great-grandmother, a Jamaican woman who becomes pregnant by Captain Charlie Durham, an Englishman, in the early 20th century. While pregnant, Ambrosia becomes a Jehovah’s Witness, but Hortense is the only descendent who inherits her piety.

Neena is Alsana Begum’s niece. Alsana often calls her “Niece of Shame,” in reference to Neena’s untraditional ways: unlike Alsana, she swears, talks openly about sex and feminism, and is a lesbian (which Alsana disapproves of).

Poppy is the music teacher at Glenard Oak Comprehensive School. She is a friendly redheaded woman who prides herself on her cultural awareness, though her comments about Indian culture are often misguided. She has a brief affair with Samad Iqbal.

Mickey is the owner and cook at O’Connell’s Poolroom, Archie and Samad’s favorite pub. He has an acne-like skin condition and is gruff but friendly with his patrons; all of his sons are named “Abdul,” like himself.

Joely is a young woman who leads FATE (Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation), the animal rights organization Joshua Chalfen joins after meeting Joely and her boyfriend, Crispin. Joely is firmly committed to her cause, and Joshua is deeply in love with her (though she does not reciprocate his feelings).

Mrs. Brenton is “a fiery Scottish spinster” who works at the Jamaican Methodist Church in Kingston and who introduces Ambrosia Bowden to the Jehovah’s Witness religion.

Mrs. Roody is a severe Scottish woman and Irie’s English teacher at Glenard Oak.

Ophelia is Archie’s first wife, an Italian immigrant he meets after the end of World War II. She undergoes a mental breakdown, believing herself to be the “maid of the celebrated fifteenth-century art lover Cosimo de’ Medici,” and the two separate.

Mo is the owner of the butcher shop on Cricklewood Broadway who discovers Archie attempting to commit suicide near his store. Mo’s shop is the target of several racist attacks, and in response, he becomes radicalized and joins KEVIN.

Tim is a party-goer at the End of the World party that Clara and Archie attend in 1975. He is the guest who invites Archie in, encouraged by his “huge, innocent, sweetly expectant” face.

Ardashir is the owner of the curry house where Samad works and one of Samad’s distant cousins. He is delighted by the power he exercises over Samad, whom he views as his “older, cleverer, handsomer cousin.”

Maxine is Neena’s girlfriend, a “sexy and slender girl” with “a beautiful porcelain face, dark eyes, and a lot of curly brown hair.” Maxine is flirtatious and energetic; like Neena, she represents a new kind of liberated, empowered modern womanhood.

Captain Dickinson-Smith is the leader of Archie and Samad’s World War II battalion (“the Buggered Battalion”), forced to become a soldier like his father and other male relatives, all of whom died on foreign battle fields. He is a closeted homosexual who secretly desires Samad.

Roy is a cruel, racist soldier in the “Buggered Battalion” who dislikes Samad greatly. His fiancé, a hairdresser, “slipped on a set of rollers and broke her neck on the sink,” which motivated him to go to war.

Will is a somewhat “simple,” patriotic British soldier in the “Buggered Battalion.”

Gozan is a café owner in Bulgaria whom Archie and Samad befriend.

Nikolai is a Russian soldier Archie and Samad meet in Bulgaria who captures Dr. Perret, and who allows Samad to “have” Dr. Perret (to take him captive and kill him) as a prize for winning a poker game.

Katie Miniver is the chairwoman of the parent-governors’ board at Glenard Oak, a “lanky white divorcée” who argues with Samad over the inclusion of the Harvest Festival in the school’s event calendar.

Zinat is the wife of Samad’s cousin, who runs a local discount shop; she is known as a local gossip.

Mad Mary is a “black voodoo woman with a red face,” one of the homeless people in Willesden, who harasses Samad and Poppy Burt-Jones.

Adbul-Jimmy and Abdul-Colin are Mickey’s sons, both of whom join KEVIN. Abdul-Colin is particularly radicalized against the West, criticizing the English for having “no faith.”

Denzel and Clarence are two older, impolite Jamaican men who are a fixture at O’Connell’s—Archie and Samad’s favorite bar—where they play dominoes in a corner. Denzel is “impossibly fat,” and Clarence is “horribly thin.”

These four teenagers are Millat’s South Asian friends, who style themselves as young gangsters and call themselves “Raggastani” (referring to “raga,” a type of Jamaican music, and “stan,” short for Pakistan). Hifan later recruits Millat for KEVIN, the fundamentalist Muslim brotherhood.

Varin is Mo Hussein-Ishmael’s trainee, a “massively overweight Hindu boy.”

Arshad is Mo Hussein-Ishmael’s son and employee, a “skinny guy with a handlebar mustache.”

Andrea is a hairdresser at P.K.’s Afro Hair who accidentally burns off Irie’s hair when she comes into the shop to have it relaxed.

Jackie is another hairdresser at P.K.’s, who identifies Irie as “half-caste”—meaning that she is biracial.

Mr. King is a white man in his mid-50s who owns P.K.’s Afro Hair, a salon for black women. He opened the salon after realizing how much money he could make exploiting low-income black women’s desire to meet idealized beauty standards.

The headmaster of Irie and Millat’s school is a “bleeding-heart liberal” who believes in the “edifying” power of the school and hopes to fix problems between students civilly, without “behaviour chastisement.”

Noel is an office worker at MorganHero, quiet and somewhat irascible.

Maureen is another office worker at MorganHero, who finds Archie’s biracial relationship with Clara bizarre and unnatural.

Sol s an old man who takes it upon himself to police Kilburn Park, even after his park-keeper job ended; he is likely a Holocaust survivor.

Benjamin, Jack, and Oscar are the younger sons of Joyce and Marcus Chalfen. They are aged 14, 12, and six, all “bouncy, curly-haired boys,” “articulate and amusing.”

Karina is one of the young women Millat sleeps with. Though it isn’t “just sex” with Karina for Millat, he eventually breaks up with her after committing himself to KEVIN.

Kenny is a “psychotic ex-postal worker” who “witnessed his father kill his puppy” as a child. He is a member of FATE.

Paddy is a “sensitive lifetime dole collection and pigeon-fancier,” and a member of FATE.

A member of KEVIN.