White Teeth Research Paper

White Teeth Essay

Gina Pardue

HIST-H 109

PERSPECTIVES: WORLD 1800-PRESENT

Instructor Dr. Daron Olson

3/10/2012

White Teeth is a novel by Zadie Smith. In this novel, Smith writes about the Jones and Iqbal families and their struggles to fit in with the other families in Britain; primarily London. Smith covers multiple generations of these families so that the reader can understand the history of these families. She writes about the struggles of the Jones and Iqbal families with racism both toward others and received from others. Smith covers many aspects of history in the twentieth century including World War II and how that war brought the Jones and Iqbal families together. She explains through
Joyce is a horticulturalist and a writer. Marcus is a genetic engineer. They are Jewish. They have three other sons besides Joshua. The Chalfen’s view Irie and Millat as being disadvantaged minorities. They see it as their duty to educate them in Caucasian, British ways. They begin tutoring and schooling them each week. Marcus is involved in genetic studies of cancer and starts the FutureMouse experiment where he genetically alters mice to develop cancer in order to study the disease. Joyce takes a particular liking to Millat and treats him as one of her own children while ignoring her own son, Joshua. Joshua falls in love with Irie although she sees him as a nerd. Marcus begins to mentor Irie. (Smith,
Samad is troubled because neither of his sons are living the true Muslim way. Marcus gets Magid to come back to London, so he can be a part of the FutureMouse program. Millat refuses to see Magid and says that he is not his brother. After being coerced into seeing each other, Millat and Magid see that they still do not see eye-to-eye. Alsana despises the Chalfen’s because she believes the Chalfen’s have ripped her family apart. She knows the children have spent more time with the Chalfen’s than they have at home. She believes her family would have been fine if the Chalfen’s had not stolen her sons’ culture from them. (Smith, 2000) The story ends at the FutureMouse exhibit. The Jones, Iqbal, and Chalfen families are all there. Millat shows up only to kill the doctor. Samad sees the doctor and realizes that Archie did not kill him after the war. Millat attempts to shoot the doctor, but Archie saves him once more by pushing him aside. The bullet hits Archie in the leg and he crashes on the FutureMouse cage. The mouse runs away and Archie thinks, “Go on my son!” (Smith, 448) He knows the mouse will die from cancer, but he is glad to see the mouse free. (Smith,