Author
Zadie Smith
Year Published
2000
Type
Novel
Genre
Fiction
Perspective and Narrator
White Teeth is narrated by a third-person, omniscient narrator. This choice of perspective allows the author to
create a nuanced portrait of the intertwined lives of first- and second-generation immigrants and native Brits by
giving the reader access to the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of a diverse set of characters.
Tense
The first 19 chapters are narrated in the past tense, but the final chapter is narrated in the present tense, with the
exception of a flashback. The narrative jumps in time throughout the 20th century, but the final chapter concerns
a single day in 1992.
By shifting tenses, the author gives the events of the final chapter—which tie together all the divergent threads
recounted in the first 19 chapters—a sense of immediacy. Her use of the past tense for most of the book
underscores the novel's preoccupation with the ways personal, familial, and cultural histories inform the present.
About the Title
Teeth are a recurrent symbol in the novel. They symbolize identity, a primary preoccupation of the characters.
Just as teeth have roots, personal identities are inevitably rooted in the past. Like identity, teeth undergo
profound changes as a result of life experiences. Healthy teeth, like healthy identities, nourish the self and the
community—but teeth can also bite or rot, just as identities based on false premises can cause suffering and
conflict. White teeth symbolize alignment with British cultural norms, which the novel's characters alternately
resist and embody.
White Teeth | Context
British Colonialism in Jamaica and India
Jamaica
Two of White Teeth's principal characters, Hortense and Clara Bowden, immigrated to Britain from Jamaica.
Hortense was born during the famous 1907 Kingston earthquake, which killed 800 people and destroyed the
major cities of Kingston and Port Royal. Another character, Irie Jones, Clara's half-Jamaican daughter, struggles
to reclaim her familial history and visits Jamaica with her own daughter at the end of the novel.
In 1655 the British claimed Jamaica, at the time a Spanish colony. Jamaica became Britain's most prominent
slave market, and the slave population quickly outnumbered the European population. Jamaica was also a
lucrative agricultural colony, producing indigo, sugar, cacao, coffee, and cotton.
However, the colony was beset by problems. Diseases killed crops and European settlers. The British fought off
Spanish and French invasions and dealt with slave revolts and the guerilla warfare of the Maroons, descendants
of escaped Spanish slaves who had retreated to the highlands and intermarried with the indigenous population.
Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and freed all slaves in 1838. Colonial administration was reorganized
in 1866 when Jamaica became a crown colony, which allowed for some governmental participation by local
people.
Throughout the early 20th century, Jamaicans demanded more representation in their government. Jamaica was
finally granted its independence from Britain in 1962. Independent Jamaica sought capital and assistance for
development from the International Monetary Fund, an agency of the United Nations, beginning in 1963. As the
Jamaican economy expanded, tourism and mining became primary industries, but the country has frequently
struggled with political unrest, large national debt, and poverty. The first female prime minister, Portia Simpson
Miller, was elected in 2006.
,The Indian Subcontinent
Two primary characters in White Teeth, Samad Iqbal and his wife, Alsana, are Muslim immigrants from
Bangladesh. Samad is a veteran of World War II, where he served with Archie Jones in the British army. His
ancestor Mangal Pande played an important role in India's colonial history.
In 1600 British Queen Elizabeth I granted a group of London merchants a monopoly on all trade from Asia to
Britain. The British East India Company began trading in India, primarily for the colorful textiles. At this time
the Muslim Mughal (or Mogul) dynasty controlled much of the Indian subcontinent. To manage trade in India,
the East India Company established administrative departments and maintained a standing army. As the Mughal
dynasty weakened, the East India Company gradually acquired control over India, taking possession of Bengal,
the homeland of White Teeth's Samad Iqbal, in 1757. The British government began to regulate the powerful
company, ending its merchant monopoly in 1813. After 1834 the East India Company functioned as an arm of
the British government, responsible for the management of India.
Samad Iqbal's ancestor Mangal Pande was a soldier, or sepoy, in the Bengal section of the British East India
Company army during the 1850s. Many developments, including the arrival of Christian missionaries and the
fear of forced conversion, laws prohibiting traditional cultural practices, and the degradation of the Indian textile
industry, which made India into a market for British goods, created unrest among Indians. This discontent
sharpened when Britain gave its sepoys new Enfield rifles that used cartridges smeared in tallow made from pig
and cow fat. The cartridges had to be bitten open before loading, but the Hindu and Muslim religions prohibit
ingestion of these animal fats. On March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey (Mangal Pande in the text) shot at a British
army officer. He was hanged for this act of protest, but the uprising spread throughout the territory. After
months of fighting, the British finally crushed the rebellion. This event is known in British history as the Sepoy
Mutiny, but it is remembered by Indians as the First War of Indian Independence. In 1858 the British crown
took control of India from the East India Company.
In this new era British officials governed some areas while members of the Indian elite, who reported to British
authority, ruled others. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the British built extensive rail and
telegraph lines, developed industry and agriculture, and implemented a British-style system of education. In
1885 the Indian National Congress formed and began pushing for greater Indian authority and eventually
complete independence. Muslims in the Hindu-dominated colony wanted their own state in the northwest.
During the World Wars, large numbers of Indian soldiers served in the British army. In the 1920s Mahatma
Gandhi, a leader in the Indian National Congress, began promoting nonviolent resistance to British policies.
Britain, hard-hit by World War II, promised Indian independence after the war.
When India was granted independence in August 1947, the colony was partitioned into two nations: Hindu-
majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Violence immediately erupted in response to the British-drawn
borders; such violence persisted for years. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, and in 1971 the
independent nation of Bangladesh was carved out of Pakistan following a civil war. India and Pakistan fought
several wars over the Kashmir region located in the north of the Indian subcontinent in the years following
partition.
Indira Gandhi rose to power in the late 1960s and became the first female Prime Minister of India. During her
15-year tenure, extremist elements within the Sikh community, a religious minority, began violently agitating
for self-determination in the Punjab region, which spans parts of northern India and eastern Pakistan. Gandhi
responded in June 1984 by cracking down on the Sikh militants. On October 31, 1984, Gandhi was assassinated
by her Sikh bodyguards. Her death sparked widespread retaliatory violence against Sikhs across the nation.
These events are mentioned in White Teeth.
Culture, Politics, and Identity in Britain after World War II
The end of World War II marked the precipitous decline of the legendary British Empire, as the war-torn nation
lacked the resources to administer its colonial possessions. It also marked the beginning of major social,
cultural, and political shifts in British society. These shifts were driven largely by massive immigration from
former British colonies, as well as by the postwar rise of feminism and its demands for fundamental social and
legal reforms. White Teeth follows two immigrant families, the Jamaican Bowdens and the Bangladeshi Iqbals,
as they struggle to find their place in the rapidly changing society of post–World War II Britain.
To remedy the postwar labor shortage, British policy encouraged immigration from its current and former
colonies. Some native Brits felt threatened by these immigrants, resenting them as competition and as culturally
different. Race riots began in August 1948 and continued throughout the 1950s.
,By the 1960s immigrants, many of them from Jamaica, India, and Ireland, constituted over 6 percent of Britain's
population. Laws passed in 1965, 1968, and 1976 provided increasing protections against ethnic and racial
discrimination. In April 1968 conservative politician Enoch Powell delivered his infamous "Rivers of Blood"
speech, which is referenced in White Teeth. Powell predicted Britain would be destroyed by "dependent"
immigrants, and he called for harsh reforms of immigration policy. Many supported Powell's position, and in
1972, Britain's open immigration policy was reworked to be much more restrictive.
The tensions of a multicultural Britain were embodied in the burnings of British Indian writer Salman Rushdie's
novel The Satanic Verses (1988). In White Teeth Millat Iqbal participates alongside thousands of other British
Muslims in the most famous of these protests, in Bradford on January 14, 1989. Many British Muslims felt that
Rushdie, an immigrant and cultural Muslim, had committed blasphemy by writing what they considered a
parody of the life of the Prophet Mohammed.
In White Teeth, Millat Iqbal joins an Islamic extremist group and becomes radicalized. Modern Islamic
extremism can be traced to the teachings of Arabic scholar Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92). Al-
Wahhab's strict, narrow interpretation of Islam introduced the idea that non-Muslims should be eliminated rather
than tolerated. In 1928 a radical religious and political organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood was
founded in Egypt and soon spread to other Muslim countries. In the face of governmental suppression of their
activities, members of the Muslim Brotherhood began immigrating to places like Great Britain. Many Muslims
living in former British colonies also immigrated to Great Britain for economic reasons after the end of British
imperialism in the mid-20th century.
Despite Great Britain's multicultural policies, some Muslims living in the country have responded to the
challenges of assimilation, racism, and the need to preserve their identity by embracing Islamic extremism,
which sometimes expresses itself in violence. An example of the ways Islamic extremists embrace violent
reinterpretations of traditional Muslim ideas is the concept of jihad. Often translated as "holy
war," jihad traditionally refers to a Muslim's continuous inner struggle for self-improvement. Islamic extremists
have extended the meaning of the term to refer to a violent, physical war waged against the West, which is seen
as Islam's enemy. The idea of a global jihad against the West gained traction among some Muslims during the
1960s and 1970s. This ideology, combined with the mass immigration of Muslims into the United Kingdom, has
given rise to the presence of radical Islamist groups operating in Great Britain—like the fictional group KEVIN,
which Millat Iqbal joins in White Teeth.
White Teeth ends in the year 1999. The 2001 census determined that roughly 8 percent of the British population
belonged to an ethnic minority. Immigrants continued to settle in Britain, many of them refugees seeking
asylum from violent conflict in their home countries. In recent decades members of ethnic minorities have held
positions of political power. The philosophy of multiculturalism claims that cultural and ethnic minorities
should be recognized and protected from the marginalization and discrimination they often experience within
the dominant culture. Multiculturalism was a controversial political issue in modern Britain, which continued to
experience ethnically driven tension and violence.
Historiography and Postcolonial Studies
In White Teeth Samad Iqbal struggles to convince others that his ancestor Mangal Pande, who in 1857 started
the first Indian uprising against British colonial rule, is a heroic freedom fighter rather than the foolish coward
he has been characterized as in British history. Irie Jones feels her own familial history in colonial Jamaica has
been kept hidden, while the British Chalfens can date their family tree back to 1675. The concerns of Samad
Iqbal and Irie Jones are relevant to the discipline of historiography, the study of the writing of history. Their
concerns are also relevant to the discipline of postcolonial studies. This field of study critically examines the
historical narratives promoted by the colonizers and the ways in which those narratives continue to influence the
colonized in a postcolonial world.
Historiography critically examines the sources used, the details emphasized, and the ways facts and ideas are
synthesized in the construction of history. History does not merely present a list of facts but interprets and
explains historical events. As such, history is vulnerable to problems such as bias in source selection; the
personal, political, and cultural agendas of the historian; the limitations of the historian's understanding; and
other issues. The writing of history, therefore, is a political act. By ignoring certain sources, perspectives, and
interpretations while favoring others, historians have the power to present histories that justify and promote the
hegemony, or political and cultural dominance, of one entity over others. In the latter half of the 20th century,
postcolonial critiques of history have emerged, exposing these vulnerabilities and offering alternative historical
narratives.
Postcolonial studies is a broad academic discipline that arose after World War II, as the colonialism that
characterized the previous several hundred years of history began its precipitous decline. Colonialism is a form
, of imperialism, in which one group of people asserts political, economic, social, and cultural dominance over
another. Postcolonial theory critically examines the power dynamics inherent in colonialism and the ways these
dynamics have influenced history, literature, and other fields. After World War II, writers from former colonies
began to create literature examining the colonial experience and its aftermath. Postcolonial literature elevates the
previously silenced voices of the formerly colonized, debating issues such as identity, "otherness," resistance,
and hybridity in the wake of the colonial experience. It also critiques and often rejects the colonizer's depictions
of the colonized.
White Teeth is a work of postcolonial literature, which examines the experiences of immigrants from former
British colonies, while critiquing British historical narratives and exposing the imbalances of power persisting in
Britain as racism, stereotyping, and discrimination. In White Teeth, the formerly colonized grapple with the
burden of colonial history and with issues of identity, assimilation, and resistance.
Magic Realism
White Teeth can also be considered a work of magic (or magical) realism, a style of literature in which otherwise
realistic narratives incorporate mythical, magical, or fantastic elements. An example of this blending of the
fantastic with the real occurs when the twins, Magid and Millat Iqbal, both break their noses in accidents around
the same time, despite living on two separate continents. The term magic realism was first applied to art in the
mid-20th century and is most commonly used to describe the works of Latin American authors like Gabriel
García-Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Isabel Allende.
Magic realism's blending of the fantastic with the real is closely aligned with the task of postcolonial literature,
which seeks to promote experiences and points of view other than those of the dominant culture. This blending
of perspectives may be thought of as a form of literary resistance to the worldview spread by the forces of
colonization, which promotes itself while repressing other ways of experiencing reality. In works of magic
realism, the magical elements are narrated so matter-of-factly that the reader does not question their
improbability. Instead, the reader is gladly immersed in a hybrid world of unusual and unexplainable
experiences that have the feeling of reality—an experience that mirrors, in its complexity, the experience of
postcolonialism itself.
Genetic Research
In the novel, Archie Jones in 1945 fails to kill French scientist Dr. Marc-Pierre Perret, who worked with the
Nazi eugenics program. Perret eventually becomes the mentor of Marcus Chalfen, the geneticist whose
genetically altered FutureMouse has a real-world counterpart in OncoMouse.
Nazi Eugenics Programs
Eugenics claims to elevate the quality of the human species by eliminating those who are "genetically" inferior.
Eugenics was popular during the early 20th century, and the Nazi program drew inspiration from American
eugenics programs. The Nazis considered the "Aryan race" the epitome of human perfection, and they sought to
eliminate "weak genetics" that threatened the purity of this "master race." When the Nazis came to power in
Germany in 1933, they began to pass "race hygiene" laws, calling for the sterilization of persons carrying
illnesses thought, at the time, to be genetically based. Genetic Health Courts were established, where doctors
and lawyers examined medical records to determine which persons should be sterilized. Hundreds of thousands
of sterilizations were performed by the Nazis prior to World War II.
In 1939 the Aktion T4 program replaced sterilization with euthanasia. Roughly 70,000 Germans were
euthanized before the program's end in 1941. Aktion T-4 was the forerunner of the extermination camps in
which millions were murdered during World War II. The extermination technologies developed by Nazi
scientists for Aktion T4 were used to enact the mass extinctions at the camps. Physicians, justifying these
murders as necessary for the health of the larger community, conducted cruel "medical" experiments on
concentration camp prisoners.
OncoMouse
In the 1980s Harvard scientists, funded by the American DuPont Corporation, developed OncoMouse as a
means to further cancer research. The mouse is named for the oncogene, or cancer-promoting gene, that was
Zadie Smith
Year Published
2000
Type
Novel
Genre
Fiction
Perspective and Narrator
White Teeth is narrated by a third-person, omniscient narrator. This choice of perspective allows the author to
create a nuanced portrait of the intertwined lives of first- and second-generation immigrants and native Brits by
giving the reader access to the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of a diverse set of characters.
Tense
The first 19 chapters are narrated in the past tense, but the final chapter is narrated in the present tense, with the
exception of a flashback. The narrative jumps in time throughout the 20th century, but the final chapter concerns
a single day in 1992.
By shifting tenses, the author gives the events of the final chapter—which tie together all the divergent threads
recounted in the first 19 chapters—a sense of immediacy. Her use of the past tense for most of the book
underscores the novel's preoccupation with the ways personal, familial, and cultural histories inform the present.
About the Title
Teeth are a recurrent symbol in the novel. They symbolize identity, a primary preoccupation of the characters.
Just as teeth have roots, personal identities are inevitably rooted in the past. Like identity, teeth undergo
profound changes as a result of life experiences. Healthy teeth, like healthy identities, nourish the self and the
community—but teeth can also bite or rot, just as identities based on false premises can cause suffering and
conflict. White teeth symbolize alignment with British cultural norms, which the novel's characters alternately
resist and embody.
White Teeth | Context
British Colonialism in Jamaica and India
Jamaica
Two of White Teeth's principal characters, Hortense and Clara Bowden, immigrated to Britain from Jamaica.
Hortense was born during the famous 1907 Kingston earthquake, which killed 800 people and destroyed the
major cities of Kingston and Port Royal. Another character, Irie Jones, Clara's half-Jamaican daughter, struggles
to reclaim her familial history and visits Jamaica with her own daughter at the end of the novel.
In 1655 the British claimed Jamaica, at the time a Spanish colony. Jamaica became Britain's most prominent
slave market, and the slave population quickly outnumbered the European population. Jamaica was also a
lucrative agricultural colony, producing indigo, sugar, cacao, coffee, and cotton.
However, the colony was beset by problems. Diseases killed crops and European settlers. The British fought off
Spanish and French invasions and dealt with slave revolts and the guerilla warfare of the Maroons, descendants
of escaped Spanish slaves who had retreated to the highlands and intermarried with the indigenous population.
Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and freed all slaves in 1838. Colonial administration was reorganized
in 1866 when Jamaica became a crown colony, which allowed for some governmental participation by local
people.
Throughout the early 20th century, Jamaicans demanded more representation in their government. Jamaica was
finally granted its independence from Britain in 1962. Independent Jamaica sought capital and assistance for
development from the International Monetary Fund, an agency of the United Nations, beginning in 1963. As the
Jamaican economy expanded, tourism and mining became primary industries, but the country has frequently
struggled with political unrest, large national debt, and poverty. The first female prime minister, Portia Simpson
Miller, was elected in 2006.
,The Indian Subcontinent
Two primary characters in White Teeth, Samad Iqbal and his wife, Alsana, are Muslim immigrants from
Bangladesh. Samad is a veteran of World War II, where he served with Archie Jones in the British army. His
ancestor Mangal Pande played an important role in India's colonial history.
In 1600 British Queen Elizabeth I granted a group of London merchants a monopoly on all trade from Asia to
Britain. The British East India Company began trading in India, primarily for the colorful textiles. At this time
the Muslim Mughal (or Mogul) dynasty controlled much of the Indian subcontinent. To manage trade in India,
the East India Company established administrative departments and maintained a standing army. As the Mughal
dynasty weakened, the East India Company gradually acquired control over India, taking possession of Bengal,
the homeland of White Teeth's Samad Iqbal, in 1757. The British government began to regulate the powerful
company, ending its merchant monopoly in 1813. After 1834 the East India Company functioned as an arm of
the British government, responsible for the management of India.
Samad Iqbal's ancestor Mangal Pande was a soldier, or sepoy, in the Bengal section of the British East India
Company army during the 1850s. Many developments, including the arrival of Christian missionaries and the
fear of forced conversion, laws prohibiting traditional cultural practices, and the degradation of the Indian textile
industry, which made India into a market for British goods, created unrest among Indians. This discontent
sharpened when Britain gave its sepoys new Enfield rifles that used cartridges smeared in tallow made from pig
and cow fat. The cartridges had to be bitten open before loading, but the Hindu and Muslim religions prohibit
ingestion of these animal fats. On March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey (Mangal Pande in the text) shot at a British
army officer. He was hanged for this act of protest, but the uprising spread throughout the territory. After
months of fighting, the British finally crushed the rebellion. This event is known in British history as the Sepoy
Mutiny, but it is remembered by Indians as the First War of Indian Independence. In 1858 the British crown
took control of India from the East India Company.
In this new era British officials governed some areas while members of the Indian elite, who reported to British
authority, ruled others. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the British built extensive rail and
telegraph lines, developed industry and agriculture, and implemented a British-style system of education. In
1885 the Indian National Congress formed and began pushing for greater Indian authority and eventually
complete independence. Muslims in the Hindu-dominated colony wanted their own state in the northwest.
During the World Wars, large numbers of Indian soldiers served in the British army. In the 1920s Mahatma
Gandhi, a leader in the Indian National Congress, began promoting nonviolent resistance to British policies.
Britain, hard-hit by World War II, promised Indian independence after the war.
When India was granted independence in August 1947, the colony was partitioned into two nations: Hindu-
majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Violence immediately erupted in response to the British-drawn
borders; such violence persisted for years. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, and in 1971 the
independent nation of Bangladesh was carved out of Pakistan following a civil war. India and Pakistan fought
several wars over the Kashmir region located in the north of the Indian subcontinent in the years following
partition.
Indira Gandhi rose to power in the late 1960s and became the first female Prime Minister of India. During her
15-year tenure, extremist elements within the Sikh community, a religious minority, began violently agitating
for self-determination in the Punjab region, which spans parts of northern India and eastern Pakistan. Gandhi
responded in June 1984 by cracking down on the Sikh militants. On October 31, 1984, Gandhi was assassinated
by her Sikh bodyguards. Her death sparked widespread retaliatory violence against Sikhs across the nation.
These events are mentioned in White Teeth.
Culture, Politics, and Identity in Britain after World War II
The end of World War II marked the precipitous decline of the legendary British Empire, as the war-torn nation
lacked the resources to administer its colonial possessions. It also marked the beginning of major social,
cultural, and political shifts in British society. These shifts were driven largely by massive immigration from
former British colonies, as well as by the postwar rise of feminism and its demands for fundamental social and
legal reforms. White Teeth follows two immigrant families, the Jamaican Bowdens and the Bangladeshi Iqbals,
as they struggle to find their place in the rapidly changing society of post–World War II Britain.
To remedy the postwar labor shortage, British policy encouraged immigration from its current and former
colonies. Some native Brits felt threatened by these immigrants, resenting them as competition and as culturally
different. Race riots began in August 1948 and continued throughout the 1950s.
,By the 1960s immigrants, many of them from Jamaica, India, and Ireland, constituted over 6 percent of Britain's
population. Laws passed in 1965, 1968, and 1976 provided increasing protections against ethnic and racial
discrimination. In April 1968 conservative politician Enoch Powell delivered his infamous "Rivers of Blood"
speech, which is referenced in White Teeth. Powell predicted Britain would be destroyed by "dependent"
immigrants, and he called for harsh reforms of immigration policy. Many supported Powell's position, and in
1972, Britain's open immigration policy was reworked to be much more restrictive.
The tensions of a multicultural Britain were embodied in the burnings of British Indian writer Salman Rushdie's
novel The Satanic Verses (1988). In White Teeth Millat Iqbal participates alongside thousands of other British
Muslims in the most famous of these protests, in Bradford on January 14, 1989. Many British Muslims felt that
Rushdie, an immigrant and cultural Muslim, had committed blasphemy by writing what they considered a
parody of the life of the Prophet Mohammed.
In White Teeth, Millat Iqbal joins an Islamic extremist group and becomes radicalized. Modern Islamic
extremism can be traced to the teachings of Arabic scholar Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92). Al-
Wahhab's strict, narrow interpretation of Islam introduced the idea that non-Muslims should be eliminated rather
than tolerated. In 1928 a radical religious and political organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood was
founded in Egypt and soon spread to other Muslim countries. In the face of governmental suppression of their
activities, members of the Muslim Brotherhood began immigrating to places like Great Britain. Many Muslims
living in former British colonies also immigrated to Great Britain for economic reasons after the end of British
imperialism in the mid-20th century.
Despite Great Britain's multicultural policies, some Muslims living in the country have responded to the
challenges of assimilation, racism, and the need to preserve their identity by embracing Islamic extremism,
which sometimes expresses itself in violence. An example of the ways Islamic extremists embrace violent
reinterpretations of traditional Muslim ideas is the concept of jihad. Often translated as "holy
war," jihad traditionally refers to a Muslim's continuous inner struggle for self-improvement. Islamic extremists
have extended the meaning of the term to refer to a violent, physical war waged against the West, which is seen
as Islam's enemy. The idea of a global jihad against the West gained traction among some Muslims during the
1960s and 1970s. This ideology, combined with the mass immigration of Muslims into the United Kingdom, has
given rise to the presence of radical Islamist groups operating in Great Britain—like the fictional group KEVIN,
which Millat Iqbal joins in White Teeth.
White Teeth ends in the year 1999. The 2001 census determined that roughly 8 percent of the British population
belonged to an ethnic minority. Immigrants continued to settle in Britain, many of them refugees seeking
asylum from violent conflict in their home countries. In recent decades members of ethnic minorities have held
positions of political power. The philosophy of multiculturalism claims that cultural and ethnic minorities
should be recognized and protected from the marginalization and discrimination they often experience within
the dominant culture. Multiculturalism was a controversial political issue in modern Britain, which continued to
experience ethnically driven tension and violence.
Historiography and Postcolonial Studies
In White Teeth Samad Iqbal struggles to convince others that his ancestor Mangal Pande, who in 1857 started
the first Indian uprising against British colonial rule, is a heroic freedom fighter rather than the foolish coward
he has been characterized as in British history. Irie Jones feels her own familial history in colonial Jamaica has
been kept hidden, while the British Chalfens can date their family tree back to 1675. The concerns of Samad
Iqbal and Irie Jones are relevant to the discipline of historiography, the study of the writing of history. Their
concerns are also relevant to the discipline of postcolonial studies. This field of study critically examines the
historical narratives promoted by the colonizers and the ways in which those narratives continue to influence the
colonized in a postcolonial world.
Historiography critically examines the sources used, the details emphasized, and the ways facts and ideas are
synthesized in the construction of history. History does not merely present a list of facts but interprets and
explains historical events. As such, history is vulnerable to problems such as bias in source selection; the
personal, political, and cultural agendas of the historian; the limitations of the historian's understanding; and
other issues. The writing of history, therefore, is a political act. By ignoring certain sources, perspectives, and
interpretations while favoring others, historians have the power to present histories that justify and promote the
hegemony, or political and cultural dominance, of one entity over others. In the latter half of the 20th century,
postcolonial critiques of history have emerged, exposing these vulnerabilities and offering alternative historical
narratives.
Postcolonial studies is a broad academic discipline that arose after World War II, as the colonialism that
characterized the previous several hundred years of history began its precipitous decline. Colonialism is a form
, of imperialism, in which one group of people asserts political, economic, social, and cultural dominance over
another. Postcolonial theory critically examines the power dynamics inherent in colonialism and the ways these
dynamics have influenced history, literature, and other fields. After World War II, writers from former colonies
began to create literature examining the colonial experience and its aftermath. Postcolonial literature elevates the
previously silenced voices of the formerly colonized, debating issues such as identity, "otherness," resistance,
and hybridity in the wake of the colonial experience. It also critiques and often rejects the colonizer's depictions
of the colonized.
White Teeth is a work of postcolonial literature, which examines the experiences of immigrants from former
British colonies, while critiquing British historical narratives and exposing the imbalances of power persisting in
Britain as racism, stereotyping, and discrimination. In White Teeth, the formerly colonized grapple with the
burden of colonial history and with issues of identity, assimilation, and resistance.
Magic Realism
White Teeth can also be considered a work of magic (or magical) realism, a style of literature in which otherwise
realistic narratives incorporate mythical, magical, or fantastic elements. An example of this blending of the
fantastic with the real occurs when the twins, Magid and Millat Iqbal, both break their noses in accidents around
the same time, despite living on two separate continents. The term magic realism was first applied to art in the
mid-20th century and is most commonly used to describe the works of Latin American authors like Gabriel
García-Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Isabel Allende.
Magic realism's blending of the fantastic with the real is closely aligned with the task of postcolonial literature,
which seeks to promote experiences and points of view other than those of the dominant culture. This blending
of perspectives may be thought of as a form of literary resistance to the worldview spread by the forces of
colonization, which promotes itself while repressing other ways of experiencing reality. In works of magic
realism, the magical elements are narrated so matter-of-factly that the reader does not question their
improbability. Instead, the reader is gladly immersed in a hybrid world of unusual and unexplainable
experiences that have the feeling of reality—an experience that mirrors, in its complexity, the experience of
postcolonialism itself.
Genetic Research
In the novel, Archie Jones in 1945 fails to kill French scientist Dr. Marc-Pierre Perret, who worked with the
Nazi eugenics program. Perret eventually becomes the mentor of Marcus Chalfen, the geneticist whose
genetically altered FutureMouse has a real-world counterpart in OncoMouse.
Nazi Eugenics Programs
Eugenics claims to elevate the quality of the human species by eliminating those who are "genetically" inferior.
Eugenics was popular during the early 20th century, and the Nazi program drew inspiration from American
eugenics programs. The Nazis considered the "Aryan race" the epitome of human perfection, and they sought to
eliminate "weak genetics" that threatened the purity of this "master race." When the Nazis came to power in
Germany in 1933, they began to pass "race hygiene" laws, calling for the sterilization of persons carrying
illnesses thought, at the time, to be genetically based. Genetic Health Courts were established, where doctors
and lawyers examined medical records to determine which persons should be sterilized. Hundreds of thousands
of sterilizations were performed by the Nazis prior to World War II.
In 1939 the Aktion T4 program replaced sterilization with euthanasia. Roughly 70,000 Germans were
euthanized before the program's end in 1941. Aktion T-4 was the forerunner of the extermination camps in
which millions were murdered during World War II. The extermination technologies developed by Nazi
scientists for Aktion T4 were used to enact the mass extinctions at the camps. Physicians, justifying these
murders as necessary for the health of the larger community, conducted cruel "medical" experiments on
concentration camp prisoners.
OncoMouse
In the 1980s Harvard scientists, funded by the American DuPont Corporation, developed OncoMouse as a
means to further cancer research. The mouse is named for the oncogene, or cancer-promoting gene, that was
