Family Ties Theme Analysis

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 from their family backgrounds. Familial ties prove complicated and challenging, and yet ultimately too significant to leave behind altogether. The novel is concerned with the way in which modern relationships—between others and with one’s own self—are often provisional, unstable, and constantly in flux. While family relationships are not impervious to change, they tend to be more resilient and lasting than other bonds in the novel, demonstrating the importance of family in Smith’s telling of modern society.

The most obvious act of family fracturing in the novel is Samad Iqbal’s separation of his twin sons, Millat and Magid, in an attempt to restore his family’s ties to tradition and Islam. He sends Magid, whom he considers more primed for Islamic education than Millat, to Bangladesh. Though Millat and Magid grow up to develop different identities—Magid’s British-influenced atheism and devout support of Marcus Chalfen’s genetic experiments, versus Millat’s extreme Muslim fundamentalism, which leads him to oppose his brother and Chalfen—the brothers continue to bear similarities to each other. For example, both boys break their noses at the same age, ensuring that their physical appearances continue to match; Irie Jones has sex with both of them and becomes pregnant, never verifying the paternity and thus fusing their identities further.

Though Millat despises Magid’s atheism and the calm, philosophical attitude he adopts after living in Bangladesh, the brothers are eventually united, since they are both identified as the perpetrator of Dr. Perret’s attempted assassination (actually orchestrated by Millat), the former Nazi doctor who directs Marcus Chalfen’s FutureMouse project, an experiment in genetic testing. The brothers are then forced to carry out community service together. Millat and Magid develop distinct personalities, each in reaction to their direct environments: Magid’s dissatisfaction with “backwards” Pakistani society, Millat’s rage and disillusionment with racist, Western London culture. These personality developments separate the brothers from their family culture, controlled by Samad, whose strict adherence to Islam contradicts both Magid’s scientific, irreligious ideas and Millat’s extreme orthodoxy. Though the brothers’ ideological and philosophical differences are not resolved by the novel’s end, the many parallels in their lives emphasize that they’re still brothers and bound, irrevocably, by that relationship.

Like Magid and Millat, who initially break off from their family only to be eventually reunited, Joshua Chalfen becomes disillusioned with his father’s “Chalfenist” values, and defies them by joining the animal rights group FATE (“Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation”), which opposes Marcus’s FutureMouse project. Just as Magid and Millat change their worldviews, adapting to new ideology that they discover apart from their families, Josh seeks to separate himself from his family’s highbrow intellectualism and adherence to scientific values. Marcus and his wife, Joyce, a horticulturist who focuses on plant breeding, prioritize order, organization, and logical reasoning, while Joshua becomes rebellious and independent. Joshua is motivated both by a desire to fit in with other students at school who come from less privileged backgrounds—he takes the blame for a joint that Irie and Millat are discovered smoking, for example—and by his jealousy of Millat and Magid, who become the objects of his parents’ obsession. Realizing that he cannot compete with the Iqbal brothers, Joshua finds a new family in FATE.

Yet when Josh realizes that FATE, led by a determined, if somewhat erratic, couple, Joely and Crispin, is determined to take down his father, he begins to understand his inextricable connection to “Chalfenism” and his deep loyalty toward his family: “he never felt that he’d betrayed his father—the weight of what he was doing never really hit him—until he heard Chalfenism ridiculed out of Crispin’s mouth.” Josh feels that he is “facing the end of the world” by leading FATE in a head-to-head battle against his father, and he begins to understand that FATE’s plan—to pretend to hold Josh ransom in front of the audience assembled for the FutureMouse press conference on New Year’s Eve—is ill-fated, since “they have underestimated the power of Chalfenism and its remarkable commitment to the Rational.” Marcus’s adherence to rationalism and scientific values mean that he might not value his own son above his own scientific discoveries. Even though Josh realizes that “it is quite possible that love doesn’t even come into it”—meaning Marcus’s relationship to his family, which he regards as only one part of a life system governed by rationality and logic—he also feels comforted and relieved by his rediscovery of and reconnection to “Chalfenism” and its power. “Just thinking about that makes Joshua smile”: Josh feels an emotional pull toward his family values, despite their often problematic nature.

Smith proposes no easy resolution to Josh’s rebellion against his family, only suggesting that he turns away from FATE and toward “Chalfenism” in this crucial moment at the end of the novel. Yet this turning point—followed shortly by Magid and Millat’s union, after the attempted assassination at the FutureMouse conference—confirms the strength of family ties. Millat, Magid, and Josh are wayward sons brought back into their family’s orbit, despite their distinct personalities, ideas, and personal development. Instead of suggesting that these characters forfeit their ideological differences in order to return to their families, Smith shows that family structures are tenable even when family members are wildly different from one another. Though relationships within families fluctuate, they remain an important and ultimately unavoidable part of life.