Author: Maha Samih Al-Anbagi

Abstract: Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth presents an energetic and thorough study of cultural identity and migration and the difficulties of living in a multicultural society during London's late 20th century. This paper argues that Smith's central cultural theme revolves around the dynamic tension between cultural inheritance and adaptation, the construction of hybrid identities, and the persistent, often troubled, compromise of belonging within a diverse, postcolonial capital. The interconnected lives of the Jones and Iqbal families show how Smith explores multiculturalism's advantages and disadvantages through her characters Archie, the indecisive Englishman, Clara, his Jamaican wife, Samad, the traditional Bengali Muslim, Alsana, his cousin/wife, and their children Irie, Millat, and Magid. The novel shows that hybridity develops through an active process which produces unpredictable results according to its established framework. Characters bear their historical and religious and national identity burdens while they attempt to fulfill their parents' expectations through British life today. Smith shows how generational clashes happen when children move between their ancestral connections and mainstream society, which leads them to create new identities through cultural blending. The novel White Teeth shows how multiculturalism fails to represent its complexities while showing how being British and not are socially constructed. Smith uses different storytelling techniques with irony and humor to show that cultural identity develops through time as people experience unexpected events which create their unique personal identities. Thus, this paper contends that Smith's profound cultural theme in White Teeth, and presents two opposing points of view about human belonging, which define both the nature of existence and the experience of life. The novel suggests that true understanding lies in embracing the chaos and living with cultural coexistence, symbolized by the shared, imperfect humanity represented in the "white teeth" of its diverse characters.

Keywords: Immigrants, families, identity, belonging, postcolonial, religion, multicultural

Article Info: Received: 15 Jan 2025; Received in revised form: 12 Feb 2025; Accepted: 15 Feb 2025; Available online: 20 Feb 2025

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.101.42