Exploring Multiculturalism and Cultural Hybridity in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth

Abstract

Zadie Smith was awarded for the ways she deals with multiculturalism and hybridity in White Teeth. The characters Joneses, Iqbals and Chalfens are from three ethnically diverse families. In addition to this achievement, she also manages to make her characters appear both multifaceted and memorable to her readers. As part of the characters' experience as immigrants, they are confronted with conflicts between assimilating and preserving their cultures. The novel depicts the lives of a wide range of backgrounds, including Afro-Caribbean, Muslim, and Jewish. In keeping with Smith's epigraph, “what is past is prologue,” the characters and their various cultural backgrounds show the complexity involved in immigration and replanting one’s roots. White Teeth introduces us to a whole array of personalities and destinies, all vivid and with stories to tell. Quite the contrary; the novel sets both the objects of irony and satire, implying the need for a more nuanced reading and understanding of such characters and settings. The characters are brimming with “hybridity”; mixed backgrounds, a variety of religions, a subsequent generation of blended cultures. Though the characters inhabit such vastly different spheres, they are united and able to relate to one another through their common humanity. Zadie Smith’s writing suggests that the reality of past and history must be recognized in order to move forward.