From the outset of the novel, Samad Iqbal is described as a character with a deep attachment to history—one that keeps him mired in the past. Upon meeting Marcus Chalfen, whose genetic experiments are intended to bring about an improved future, Irie Jones reflects that “there existed fathers who,” unlike Samad, “dealt in the present, who didn’t drag ancient history around like a ball and chain. So there were men who were not neck-deep and sinking in the quagmire of the past.” In particular, Samad is obsessed with the story of Mangal Pande, a Hindu soldier he claims to be related to, who fired the first shot of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (attempted suicide as a political statement). It is rumored, though, that Pande was not a hero but a foolhardy drunk. Nonetheless, Samad chooses to believe that Pande’s actions were revolutionary, and that this story demonstrates the greatness and courage inherent in the Iqbal line, suggesting his fierce belief that the past powerfully impacts those who inherit it. Though Samad is often ridiculed for his faith in history, White Teeth shows that Samad has a reason to be attached. The past exercises control over the present, and even as characters attempt to free themselves from its binds, they are forced to confront narratives from the past.
Samad’s son Millat is also fixated on the story of Mangal Pande, which informs his decisions about how to respond to the FutureMouse project. Though Pande and Millat’s stories are separated by over a century, their twinned narratives highlight how the past informs the present. Spurred on by the extremist group KEVIN, Millat resolves to assassinate Dr. Perret, who is working on the FutureMouse project with Marcus Chalfen, since KEVIN believes that genetic experimentation runs counter to Islamic belief. Yet Millat is equally inspired by the story of Mangal Pande, since he believes that he can change the past, acting with a kind of conviction that Pande—who was likely a drunk, not a revolutionary—failed to claim for himself: “Because Millat was here to finish it. To revenge it. To turn that history around […] Where Pande misfooted he would step sure.” Though Millat is already respected by the other members of KEVIN (and adored by numerous women), he feels deeply insecure and uncertain about his own decisions, fluctuating between rebellion and extreme orthodoxy. Ultimately, though, Millat is unable to assassinate Dr. Perret, since Archie Jones steps in front of the bullet. Like Pande, then, Millat’s attempts to take action and prove his worth and passion for a political cause are ultimately futile: by himself “misfooting,” Millat inherits Pande’s own narrative.
Samad’s own character arc, too, aligns with Pande’s story, since his efforts to make a name for himself in London, his adopted home, are more ineffectual than productive. He struggles with his own diminished place in a society that marginalizes him on the basis of race, and, like Millat, he worries about the nature of his own desires, which he believe contradict Islamic teachings. Thus, Samad and Millat replicate Pande’s narrative, even as they seek to subvert it—by using Pande’s weakness to stimulate their own action and strength.
Additionally, Dr. Perret’s reappearance at the end of the novel also represents history’s hold over the present, albeit in a much more sinister way. Originally introduced as the Nazi prisoner Samad and Archie capture during their stint as soldiers in World War II—an infamous French scientist who helped the Nazis carry out gruesome ethnic cleansing experiments to “purify” society—Dr. Perret reappears as a major player in Marcus Chalfen’s FutureMouse project. Though the project is not overtly racist, it is still concerned with genetic experimentation, with potential links to eugenics. Thus, it seems that Dr. Perret never actually changed his ways, though Archie—who was tasked with killing him during the war—let him live, deciding his fate based on a coin toss. Dr. Perret represents the potentially destructive ways in which history does not always resolve itself: past evil returns to haunt the present.
Moreover, Archie’s decision to save Dr. Perret from Millat’s assassination attempt demonstrates the way in which the novel’s characters seem to inevitably repeat narratives from the past—even though this contradicts Archie’s own life philosophy. Throughout White Teeth, Archie insists on the power of chance, choosing to make decisions based on a coin toss. Unlike Samad, he does not believe in destiny: instead, he embraces life as chaotic and random. On one hand, Archie’s decision to save the doctor again—after saving him during the war—might represent his firm belief that decisions made by chance, at random, must be upheld: he might believe that he needs to repeat the decision produced by the coin flip he made during the war. Yet it also suggests that history is impossible to overwrite, since both times, Archie saves the doctor, repeating a previous event. Like Millat and Samad, playing out Pande’s narrative, Archie plays out his own narrative from the past, repeating actions, decisions, and outcomes that have already been made. In a flashback, Dr. Perret shoots Archie in the leg after the coin flip; at the FutureMouse conference, the bullet intended for Dr. Perret strikes Archie as he dives in front of Millat’s gun. In this way, time becomes cyclical: “every moment happens twice,” the novel’s narrator affirms, suggesting that history’s repetitive nature is inescapable, despite Archie’s reliance on chance.
White Teeth’s frequent flashbacks and forays into the stories of previous generations create a structure in which past and present are closely intertwined, and often, nearly identical. When the two women are pregnant with their children, Alsana Iqbal tells Clara Bowden that their “bumps” “will always have daddy long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this. Their roots will always be tangled. And roots get dug up.” While this is true for Irie, Millat, and Magid, who are frequently exposed to their family history and backgrounds, it also holds true for Samad and Archie themselves, who inevitably replay events from the past, despite their efforts to avoid this certainty. The stories of the past become the stories of the present—as in the story of Mangal Pande and Dr. Perret—and the novel’s characters find themselves returning to decisions and actions that have already occurred, bringing these moments back to life.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Influence of History ThemeTracker
The Influence of History Quotes in White Teeth
Strangely, Daria was the final pulse of thought that passed through Archie just before he blacked out. It was the thought of a whore he met once twenty years ago, it was Daria and her smile that made him cover Mo’s apron with tears of joy as the butcher saved his life. He had seen her in his mind: a beautiful woman in a doorway with a come-hither look; and realized he regretted not coming hither. If there was any chance of ever seeing a look like that again, then he wanted the second chance, he wanted the extra time. Not just this second, but the next and the next—all the time in the world.
“Talk, talk, talk and it will be better. Be honest, slice open your heart and spread the red stuff around. But the past is made of more than words, dearie. We married old men, you see? These bumps”—Alsana pats them both—“they will always have daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this. Their roots will always be tangled. And roots get dug up. Just look in my garden—birds at the coriander every bloody day. . .”
It’s all very well, this instruction of Alsana’s to look at the thing close up; to look at it dead straight between the eyes; an unflinching and honest stare, a meticulous inspection that would go beyond the heart of the matter to its marrow, beyond the marrow to the root—but the question is how far back do you want? How far will do?
“Do you know who this man is, Jones?” Samad grabbed the doctor by the back of his hair and bent his neck over the back seat. “The Russians told me. He’s a scientist, like me—but what is his science? Choosing who shall be born and who shall not—breeding people as if they were so many chickens, destroying them if the specifications are not correct. He wants to control, to dictate the future. He wants a race of men, a race of indestructible men, that will survive the last days of this earth. But it cannot be done in a laboratory. It must be done, it can only be done, with faith! Only Allah saves! I am no religious man—I have never possessed the strength—but I am not fool enough to deny the truth!”
O’Connell’s is the kind of place family men come to for a different kind of family. Unlike blood relations, it is necessary here to earn one’s position in the community; it takes years of devoted fucking around, time-wasting, lying-about, shooting the breeze, watching paint dry—far more dedication than men invest in the careless moment of procreation. You need to know the place. For example, there are reasons why O’Connell’s is an Irish poolroom run by Arabs with no pool tables. And there are reasons why the pustule-covered Mickey will cook you chips, egg, and beans, or egg, chips, and beans, or beans, chips, eggs, and mushrooms but not, under any circumstances, chips, beans, eggs, and bacon. But you need to hang around for that kind of information. We’ll get into that later. For now, suffice it to say this is Archie and Samad’s home from home; for ten years they have come here between six (the time Archie finishes work) and eight (the time Samad starts) to discuss everything from the meaning of Revelation to the prices of plumbers.
It worked like this: someone (whoever had actually bought a pack of fags) lights up. Someone shouts “halves.” At the halfway point the fag is passed over. As soon as it reaches the second person we hear “thirds,” then “saves” (which is half a third), then “butt!,” then, if the day is cold and the need for a fag overwhelming, “last toke!” But last toke is only for the desperate; it is beyond the perforation, beyond the brand name of the cigarette, beyond what could reasonably be described as the butt. Last toke is the yellowing fabric of the roach, containing the stuff that is less than tobacco, the stuff that collects in the lungs like a time bomb, destroys the immune system, and brings permanent, sniffling, nasal flu. The stuff that turns white teeth yellow.
All in all, then, the headmaster was wrong: Glenard could not be said to have passed on any great edifying beacon to future generations. A legacy is not something you can give or take by choice, and there are no certainties in the sticky business of inheritance. Much though it may have dismayed him, Glenard’s influence turned out to be personal, not professional or educational: it ran through people’s blood and the blood of their families; it ran through three generations of immigrants who could feel both abandoned and hungry even when in the bosom of their families in front of a mighty feast; and it even ran through Irie Jones of Jamaica’s Bowden clan, though she didn’t know it.
O what a tangled web we weave. Millat was right: these parents were damaged people, missing hands, missing teeth. These parents were full of information you wanted to know but were too scared to hear. But [Irie] didn’t want it anymore, she was tired of it. She was sick of never getting the whole truth. She was returning to sender.
Because Millat was here to finish it. To revenge it. To turn that history around. He liked to think he had a different attitude, a second-generation attitude. If Marcus Chalfen was going to write his name all over the world, Millat was going to write his BIGGER. There would be no misspelling his name in the history books. There’d be no forgetting the dates and times. Where Pande misfooted he would step sure. Where Pande chose A, Millat would choose B.
Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories. Archie does recognize the name, faintly, somewhere inside, but he is already twisting in his seat by then, trying to see if Samad is returning. He can’t see Samad. Instead he spots Millat, who looks funny. Who looks decidedly funny. Peculiar rather than ha-ha. He’s swaying ever so slightly in his seat, and Archie can’t catch his eye for a you-all-right-mate look because his eyes are locked on to something and when Archie follows the path of this stare, he finds himself looking at the same peculiar thing: an old man weeping tiny tears of pride. Red tears. Tears Archie recognizes.
