White Teeth: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

By February 1975, Clara has abandoned the church for Archie Jones, but she is not yet a “carefree atheist”: Hortense has ostracized her because of the affair, and Clara realizes that she must get married (since her mother “would prefer her to marry an unsuitable man rather than live with him in sin”). Clara and Archie move into a two-story house in Willesden Green, a suburban neighborhood that Clara finds disappointing. She realizes that though Archie has some good qualities, “romance was beyond him, passion, unthinkable.” Archie is a good man, but a dull one; Clara did not notice his physical deficits at their wedding, but now she notices his age. 

The two married on February 14, Archie in a mohair suit and Clara in a long brown woolen dress and a set of false teeth. Samad and Alsana are their witnesses and the only attendants: all other friends and relatives declined the invitation, and only Horst Ibelgaufts sent a congratulatory letter. Back in the present, Archie and Clara are struggling to move furniture into their house and arguing; Clara realizes that Archie  can never decide what he wants, which is why he reverts to flipping coins to make decisions.

Clara asks Archie if he thinks that Samad and Alsana, who are coming for dinner, will want her to cook Indian curry, but Archie says that “they’re not those kind of Indians.” In fact, the two are Bangladeshi, and they, too, have just moved to Willesden, after saving up money: Alsana sews for an edgy clothing store called Domination, and Samad is a waiter at a curry house run by his distant cousin, Ardashir Mukhul. Samad splits his tips with the other waiters, including the good-looking Shiva, who is adept at flirting with customers. Shiva becomes enraged when he has to give up his tips, and he makes fun of Samad, calling him a “sad little man.” Samad is desperately unhappy, and he wishes that while working, he could wear a sign explaining that he is intelligent and has had impressive careers in the past. 

Samad asks Ardashir for a raise, since he needs money to finance his move to North London, where he and Alsana—who is pregnant—hope to raise their family. Samad had assumed that living with Alsana would be easy, but she is often angry, which Samad thinks is “the new way with these women.” That night, Alsana rages at Samad, complaining that her child will grow up around Clara and Archie’s “half-blacky white” children, and that they cannot afford to eat after moving to a more expensive neighborhood.

Alsana puts on her coat and leaves the house. She reflects that the neighborhood, though expensive, is a nice area—unlike Whitechapel, where they lived before (“where that madman E-knock someoneoranother gave a speech that forced them into the basement while kids broke the windows with their steel-capped boots”). In comparison, Willesden is markedly more liberal and diverse. Alsana visits her niece, Neena, who works at the cobbler and whom Alsana calls “Niece-of-Shame.”

After leaving the cobbler, Alsana runs into Clara, who is sitting in the back of the white van she and Archie are using to move into their house. Clara is quickly losing her Jamaican accent, and she greets Alsana cheerfully. The two begin to talk, and Clara expresses surprise when Alsana tells her that she is pregnant: the two “girl-wives” realize that while their husbands even though their husbands tell each other everything, they still keep things from the wives themselves.