September 22, 2015
Have you ever stopped to think about what your beliefs truly are? Are they what they “ought” to be? Do you ever wonder about the cultural history of your family? Zadie Smith brings up both of these topics in her book White Teeth, portraying many different sides of each. The story takes place in England in an area with many different cultures coming together, mainly English, Jamaican and Bangladeshi, for purposes of this story. All have different religious beliefs and cultural differences but not everyone follows their historical beliefs throughout their life and certainly not faithfully. Religious moralities and race, ethnicity and multiculturalism are two moral theories that can shed some light onto the messages within
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the story. When studying divine commands and religious moralities you will find, if you did not already know, that there are many different religions within the world and even in each society. This is partly due to the many different cultures that have begun to meld together within each society and in some cases families. Each religion has its own perception as to what is good or bad behavior, what you are to believe or not to believe and if there is only one God, many gods or no god. Of the main characters in White Teeth, Samad Iqbal, appears to have the hardest time living up to beliefs as a Muslim. At his breaking point, Samad sends one of his sons back to his home country of Bangladesh with the hopes of him leading a more Islamic life. Unfortunately, his plan completely back fires and he pushes his son even further from their heritage. His son, Magid, comes home discovering that he is more into science and becoming a lawyer than continuing in the family’s cultural religion and beliefs. Some may think that this was Magid rebelling against his father for sending him away for eight years, but even his brother Millat, who stayed back home with the family, chooses not to follow in their path of Muslim faith. Both brothers went in completely different directions of their parents and of each other, Magid becoming an atheist and following science, studying with another character Marcus Chaflen, and Millat joining the group named KEVIN, which has strong religious beliefs including condoning acts of terrorism. Marcus Chaflen is a geneticist who founded the program FutureMouse with the help and research of Magid.
This program brought forward a lot of objections from many different organizations based on their individual beliefs. One shocking, or maybe not so shocking, disbeliever was his son Joshua. Being pushed away by his distracted parents, Joshua joined the group FATE, an animal rights organization, who did not believe in using animals as test subjects. Millat and his group KEVIN, did not agree with the works of Marcus because he was interfering with the works of God. FutureMouse conducted tests with mice by modifying their DNA and creating cancerous cells, which in KEVINS’s view, was interfering with what God intended. The last group that did not approve of Marcus’ work, were the Jehovah Witnesses, one in particular being Hortense Bowden. She went on to protest the work in the name of a different god than …show more content…
Millat. Hortense was a devout Jehovah Witness who continuously thought the world was going to come to an end and only 144,000 ones would be chosen to ascend into heaven. She tried with all her might to make her daughter Clara believe and practice her faith so that she would be one of the “chosen” ones. Living in England, Clara stood out like a sore thumb being tall, toothless and Jamaican and despite her mother’s persistence, she pulled away from her beliefs, married a much older, white man and became a non-believer. Her husband Archie Jones seems to be the simplest of characters in Zadie Smith’s story, believing in that things always happen for a reason, by chance of fate, or simply by the flip of his coin. Clara, a non-believer, and Archie, someone who just goes with the flow.
Neither were the best to give their daughter Irie a firm hold on what her family’s religion or culture was. While others didn’t seem to care where they came from and found their own passions and way of life, Irie wanted to know where she came from as a way to identify herself. She was not a confident girl and she thought that knowing her background, especially where her parents were so different, she might able to figure out who she was, or maybe who she was supposed to be. Unlucky for her, it did not satisfy that need that she was looking for and only found things that made her more upset with life in general, so her soul searching would
cease. Multiculturalism by definition is the view that various cultures in a society merit equal respect and scholarly interest. With all of these different cultures having their lives intertwine, it only seems logical that people would begin to form their own beliefs rather than those they were born into or forced to believe. In class book, Ethics, A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory, it discussed the Identity Argument. It states that, “The basic structure of the identity argument is comparatively simple. It maintains that race, ethnicity, or culture is so central to a person’s identity that it justifiably affects what a person is ought to do.” (Ethics, page 325) Going by that statement, a person’s morality depends upon their race, ethnicity, or culture and nothing else. Personally, I find that hard to believe after reading this book. There are so many things in this world that shape who we are and what our morality is. Each character in this book is a perfect example this. Despite what their race, ethnicity, or culture was, none of them were truly devout to the one they were raised in. Because we have such a multicultural world, there are a lot of people who take a hard look within themselves and may decide to follow a different religious or moral path. There is no right or wrong religion or right or wrong morals. Everyone must create their own moral code and then stick to it, if they want to truly call themselves which ever belief they have chosen. Now I am sure there are many people out there that may disagree with me, but we are all the same in the end. After all, we all have “White Teeth”.
April was a fair-skinned Metis. She never felt that she fit in to either culture. “How was I going to pass for a white person when I had a Metis sister?” (p. 49). She believed that her Metis heritage led to nothing but bad choices and it would only damage her future. She believed that the white society was classy, rich and they were treated with more respect. The family she was born into was one of alcohol abuse, parties and neglect. She hated everything about her Metis background. Her sister Cheryl on the other hand, was happy to be who she was and proud to express herself as a Metis person. Cheryl would defend the Metis traditions under any circumstance. She tried convincing April of the importance of their culture, ancestry and history. Cheryl sent April many letters, assignments and essays written by Metis people in hopes of changing April’s thoughts
traditions and cultural aspects of their race outwardly for the world to see. In Alexie’s mind, the
This was a trying experience the child was enduring. Thus, changing the child to be cold and bitter mainly towards the father. She is experiencing an internal battle of hating her own father. Where as in “Blue Winds Dancing,” it describes a young Indian boy away in college that doesn’t know what group of people he identifies with. He is concerned he doesn’t fit in with the whites located in the big city or with his Indian heritage back home. He feels anxiety in the white civilization because he feels like an outcast and he can’t seem to bring himself to mimic their behavior. He feels he is constantly reminded by whites that his race is less than. He expresses the frustration by quoting the
McBride’s mother grew with her Jewish family that came from Europe to America in order to get new opportunities for their family. Ruth McBride moved from many different areas throughout the country. Her father was abusive to Ruth’s family including her mother. Her mother had many disabilities, and her father seemed to have superiority
In the reading, “Trying Out One’s New Sword,” British philosopher Mary Midgley attempts to warn us of the view against ethical judgment, which is the view that judgments can only be vindicated relative to one’s own beliefs and cultures. Midgley argues that believing in only the customs of each specific culture brings out separation and divides people from understanding and criticizing one another. In this paper, I aim to clarify and describe Midgley’s point of view, which she often refers to as an isolation barrier, and conclude the paper by giving two reasons as to why I believe Midgley’s argument is incorrect.
...d and left with little cultural influence of their ancestors (Hirschman 613). When the children inadvertently but naturally adapting to the world around them, such as Lahiri in Rhode Island, the two-part identity begins to raise an issue when she increasingly fits in more both the Indian and American culture. She explains she “felt an intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new”, in which she evidently doing well at both tasks (Lahiri 612). The expectations for her to maintain her Indian customs while also succeeding in learning in the American culture put her in a position in which she is “sandwiched between the country of [her] parents and the country of [her] birth”, stuck in limbo, unable to pick one identity over the other.
Family’s beliefs and values may be different for some and in other cultures they may not be accepted. As teachers, we have to learn about different cultures and expand our knowledge so families could feel more accepted. In the book, Anti- Bias Education for young children and ourselves by Louise Derman-Sparks & Julie Olsen Edwards, talks about how culture and fairness involves two dimensions, children’s development of a positive culture, identity, and their respectful interactions with other cultures. With these two dimensions, it will help the child to continue to express their home culture at school while learning the different cultures at school with their classmates. They learn about what’s right from wrong, how to dress, and talk
...ly?s heritage. So ironically, while Dee is looking for her African-American culture, and it lies right in front of her eyes. Her sister, mother, grandmother, and herself are all a part of their family?s heritage, which stems from the African-American heritage that Dee is so desperate to find.
Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, is chock full of potential deconstruction ideas; however, an exciting scene to deconstruct is in “The Final Space” chapter when the Iqbals and the Jones are on the public bus heading towards the FutureMouse exhibit. The most obvious binary opposite is that of parent or adult and child. Adults are without doubt the privileged binary. They signify knowledge, wisdom, teaching, and training of young ones along with patience and selflessness, and are allowed to use bad words without penalty. They have all the answers. Children signify selfishness, constant bickering, needing to be taught to not interrupt, to share, to play nicely with others, and are always contrary. In fact, the first word many children learn is “no.” In this scene, though, Smith turns this idea completely upside down. As the adults are bickering, interrupting each other, insulting each other and unable to get along Irie Jones suddenly becomes the parent. She yells at everyone to shut up in much the same way a mother might yell at her bickering children in the backseat on the way home from the grocery store. Irie is suddenly the voice of reason. Her source of irritation is the childish and petty display of the adults in a public setting who have raised her and yet not raised her. Her exasperation and embarrassment come to a head and she explodes into foul language. Her mother tries to reprimand her, but Irie is beyond being told what to do. She goes on to rebuke the adults for acting like children, for their selfishness; she informs them that there are other people in the world, people who aren’t “relishing the fact that they are utterly dysfunctional” (426). Irie’s role reversal continues...
In the text, “The American Cultural Configuration” the authors express the desire of anthropologists to study their own culture despite the difficulty that one faces attempting to subjectively analyze their own society. Holmes and Holmes (2002), use the adage “not being able to see the forest through the trees” (p. 5) to refer to how hard it is for someone to study something they have largely taken for granted. The Holmes' article focuses predominately on paradoxes within our own culture, many of which we don't notice. In a paradox, two contradicting statements can appear to be true at the same time. This essay looks at two paradoxes commonly found in everyday life: the individual versus the family and religion.
As Indians living in white culture, many problems and conflicts arise. Most Indians tend to suffer microaggressions, racism and most of all, danger to their culture. Their culture gets torn from them, and slowly, as if it was dream, many Indians become absorbed into white society, all the while trying to retain their Indian lifestyle. In Indian Father’s Plea by Robert Lake and Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, the idea that a dominant culture can pose many threats to a minority culture is shown by Wind-Wolf and Alexie.
Racism is based on the belief that one’s culture is superior to that of others, and this racial superiority provides justification for discrimination. Racism begins with categorising by race, and therefore stereotyping particular cultures. A simple definition of prejudice given by St Thomas Aquinas states prejudice as “thinking ill of others without sufficient cause” (1. pg 21). Racism is a major issue in today’s society, affecting a large number of the world’s population and causing political and social turmoil. To evaluate the true meaning, effects and views concerning racism in today’s world, a number of literature sources were researched including novel, films, short stories, poetry, song lyrics, textbooks and magazine articles.
Everyone has the right to choose what they believe in but they cannot force someone else to follow their footsteps. Culture is the beliefs and characteristics of a particular group. People see the world in a certain way and their culture plays a huge role in this. “Wind-Wolf was not prepared for his first tentative foray into your world, neither were you [teacher of Wind-Wolf] appreciative of his culture” (Lake). Not appreciating someone’s culture is equivalent to disrespecting them. “Being proud of race, heritage, and culture” holds much importance because it makes up the backbone in everyone’s life (Lake). Wind-Wolf, in An Indian Father’s Plea, is such an amazing child because he believed in his culture and never stopped following it. Even though his teacher did not support what he believed
In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal “good” habits from abnormal “bad” habits.
Meshari Alanazi ENGL 8476 06 April 2015 Dr. Carey Mickalites A Response Paper on White Teeth by Zadie Smith The themes of Identity and Heredity are important elements of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. Identity, as generally comprehended, is the way in which a person looks at his/her own behavior and his/her own feeling about who he/she is as a person. However, heredity, in this context, can be defined as the identity that a person gets from the identities of his/her parents; who they are and what their behaviors, customs and traditions may be.