The Assumption on the Topic of White Teeth's Audience

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Recommended: Racism in literature

The Assumption on the Topic of White Teeth's Audience

Zadie Smith’s world wasn’t a made up fairyland with an elven language, ethereal metaphors or green setting, no, within her novel, White Teeth, it was a clear reflection of what type of society that she lived in. A society where everything seen can be an interpretation of what society wanted out of you, a false representation that was found in the comfortable ideals of Euro-Centric beauty which were hard to attain yet were so sought out no matter the amount of pain or crippling amount of self-hatred that seems to creep into your life and alter your self perception. This is what Smith explores. Now I may have an unfair insight towards why Smith wrote the types of characters that she did, so realistic in their flaws and manners, yet she states that the book’s settings were created by mish-mashing pieces of literary works that she had previously read from a young age, mind you White Teeth was written while she was attending university, was what made it so interesting.
Why is it that a book that follows the life of people of different races sparks so much interest in others? Is it the fact that so many can say yes, that resonates within me, I know the struggle, I know what this character is going through (you see that’s when a novel becomes something more other than a false hope that young adult novels seem to advertise through the false sense that this is what the real world is like, beige characters that seem to repel multifaceted characteristics that make them tangible and attainable) in comparison to the usual book with almost all white characters such as that in most young-adult popular books? What’s going on within the literary world if we can’t form connections with characte...

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... that is being subjected to stereotypes, he’s the one that’s going to have to go in and make people realize that one in not the same as others.
Now in what ways does Zadie Smith employ this incorporation of a modern world? Through humor.
The syntax itself is cryptic within the novel contains the small jabs towards one’s own character. Archie is excited at the thought of having a blue-eyed baby, but Maureen on the other hand pities Archie for how oblivious he is towards someone’s nature or background, “always talking to Pakistanis and Carribeans like he didn’t even notice,” Maureen is even astounded that Archie would not bother mentioning “what colour [Clara] was until the office dinner.” The excerpt underhandedly points out the distaste that most display towards Archie. It’s passive racism that takes place hidden beneath the radar that some don’t even call it that.

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