White Teeth Themes

White Teeth follows a handful of families—some immigrants, other native-born citizens—living in London during the late 20th century. Despite their different backgrounds, each family experiences similar dilemmas: the children choose different paths from their parents, and the parents struggle to connect with their children. Though the intertwined Jones, Iqbal, and Chalfen families are shown to be both highly fragmented and dysfunctional throughout White Teeth, none of the characters are able to break away completely…

White Teeth focuses on the lives of Londoners of different ethnicities and class positions, with distinct cultural backgrounds and relationships to their British identities. The Bowdens and Iqbals are recent immigrants, while Archie Jones and the Chalfen family are more established Britons who benefit from their status as “authentic” white English nationals. In charting the microaggressions that many of its non-white characters face, the novel suggests that racism is deeply embedded in British culture. Although…

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…