Zadie Smith White Teeth Analysis

In Zadie Smith’s first and third novels, White Teeth and On Beauty, respectively, Smith utilizes the plot point of having a husband cheat on his wife with a younger and white woman. Through this plot point, Zadie Smith explores the marital dynamics of two couples: Alsana and Samad Miah in White Teeth and Kiki and Howard Belsey in On Beauty. Howard and Samad both sleep with women who are very different from their wives; Howard has relations with Claire Bowden (who is white, very thin, and academic) (and then with Victoria Kipps, who is young, extremely beautiful, and one of his art students), and Samad has relations with Poppy (who is white, childish, and a school teacher). These couples’ plot events are similar, but the reasons and outcomes

of these events are vastly different in the novels. Smith creates two different realistic portrayals of adultery, and focuses on different aspects of the affair. I argue that the affair(s) in each novel exposes one of the truths of each novel; the differences in the marriages and affairs highlight the differences in the novel and the different parts of society which Smith critiques.
I. White Teeth
In White Teeth, the infidelity plot highlights the absurdity of supposedly multiculturalist and “accepting” London.

The infidelity plot highlights the way foreign cultures are not accepted in London through the affair that Samad Miah, a Bangladeshi man, begins with Poppy Burt-Jones, a white, British, much younger band instructor. Poppy is very different from Samad’s wife, Alsana. Alsana pushes Samad around—sometimes literally. One fight described comes to blows, after exposing how unhappy they are as a couple. Samad tells her that she is “‘a mother who is going mad. Utterly cuckoo. Many raisins short of the fruitcake. Look at you, look at the state of you! Look how fat you are!’ He grabbed a piece of her, and then released it as if it would infect him. ‘Look how you dress. Running shoes and a sari?’” (166). This interchange exposes one of the main themes of this novel which is even more strongly presented in On Beauty: society’s expectations of feminine beauty. Samad is very attracted to Poppy Burt-Jones physically, and is in the affair for the physical and nothing more, and tells her, “‘There is nothing funny about this situation. There is nothing good about it. I do not wish to discuss the rights or wrongs of this with you. Let us stick to what we are obviously here for, . . . The physical, not the metaphysical’”

(155).
A scene wherein the fact that Smith is critiquing the supposedly multiculturalist London is very present is that where Samad visits Poppy Burt-Jones’ orchestra room. Poppy introduces Samad to the orchestra: “‘Say “Hello, Mr. Iqbal”’” (Smith 128). The band responds, “‘HELLO, MR. ICK-BALL,’ came the resounding chorus from all but two of the musicians” [which two the reader can infer to be his own sons] (Smith 128). Smith emphasizes the mispronunciation, and concurrent misunderstanding on the part of the band of Samad’s last name, mispronouncing “Iqbal” in morphemes that the British tongue knows well, “Ick” and “Ball.” Poppy continues the well meant but ultimately off-the-mark multiculturalist effort to include “Indian” music: “‘And not only is Mr. Iqbal our audience for today, but he’s a very special audience. It’s because of Mr. Iqbal that next week we won’t be playing Swan Lake anymore’” (Smith 128). Instead, the band will play: “‘Something very exciting. Next week I want to try to experiment with some Indian music’” (Smith 129). This plan is met with much opposition from the band members. The cymbalist mocks his idea of traditional Indian music by imitating it: “‘What, you mean that Eeeee EEEAA aaaa EEEeee AAOoooo music?’” (Smith 129). The narrator informs the reader that these impressions are rooted in “the beginning of a Hindi musical, or in the back room on an ‘Indian’ restaurant,” which are likely the only (albeit diluted) forms of Indian culture with which the students would have had contact (Smith 129).
These impressions have a strange effect on Samad: while Poppy is trying to multiculturalize her students by having them play Indian music, Samad has begun daydreaming about appropriating Poppy into his own land, by imagining her thus:
[These impressions], along with screeching parodic violins, penetrated Samad’s deep, erotic half-slumber and sent his imagination into a garden, a garden encased in marble where he found himself dressed in white and hiding behind a large tree, spying on a be-saried, bindi-wearing Poppy-Burt Jones, as she wound flirtatiously in and out of some fountains; sometimes visible, sometimes not. (Smith 129)
Poppy brings the situation slightly under control, by yelling above the noise: “‘I DON’T THINK IT IS VERY NICE TO—’ and here her voice slipped back to normal as the class registered the angry tone and quietened down. ‘I don’t think it is very nice to make fun of somebody else’s culture’” (Smith 129). The students act ashamed. Poppy then asks a student how she would feel if someone made fun of Queen. The answer: “‘Wouldn’t like it, miss’” (Smith 129). To which Poppy replies, “‘Because Freddie Mercury is from your culture’” (Smith 130). Samad’s internal monologue tells the reader that Samad has heard that Freddie Mercury is actually a Persian, but he did not want to interrupt Poppy: “But who wanted to split hairs? Not wanting to stop the lovely Burt-Jones while she was in something of a flow, Samad kept the information to himself” (Smith 130).
Poppy admonishes her students for making fun of other people’s cultures, unaware that she has just done so herself: “ ‘Sometimes we find other people’s music strange because their culture is different from ours, .

. . But that doesn’t mean it isn’t equally good, now does it?’” (Smith 130). Now, Poppy tries to educate the class, by pointedly asking Millat what kind of music he likes. In doing so, Poppy ignores the fact that Millat has lived in London his entire life. Millat responds by “[swinging] his saxophone to his side and beg[ins] fingering it like a guitar. ‘Bo-orn to ruuun! Da da da da daaa! Bruce Springsteen, miss! Da da da da daaa! Baby, we were bo-orn—’” At this point, Poppy interrupts Millat, unsatisfied with his unexotic answer: “‘Umm, nothing—nothing else? Something you listen to at home, maybe?’” (Smith 130). Samad tries to help his son out by miming “the jerky head and hand movements of bharata natyam, the form of dance Alsana had once enjoyed before sadness weighted her heart, and babies tied down her hands and feet’” (Smith 130). Millat, rather hilariously, mistakes these movements for the “Thriller” dance of Michael Jackson. Poppy assumes, simply because of Millat’s heritage, that “at home,” he and his family listen to what Poppy considers “Indian” music. Samad even tries to promote and further entrench this assumption by miming moves of music that Poppy wants Millat to say he listens to at home. Millat, however, answers Poppy truthfully, as he listens to

Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson at home.
Thus ends the music section of the multiculturalism section of Poppy’s character ark. After the band session ends, Poppy leads Samad to her closet office, and she begins to discuss why Magid wouldn’t talk to her in school that day. The answer which a reader will know is that Magid is in silent protest concerning the Harvest Festival. Poppy Burt-Jones, however, assumes it is something to do with, to borrow Smith’s highlighting italics, their culture: “‘I don’t mean what day it is—I don’t look that ditsy, do I? No, I meant what day is it; I mean, for Muslims. Only I saw Magid was in some kind of costume, and when I asked him what it was for he wouldn’t speak. I was terribly worried that I’d offended him somehow’” (Smith 132). Samad, wanting to hide the actual answer from her, agrees that it is, as she says, a type of “‘vocal