79 pages • 2 hours read
Zadie SmithWhite Teeth
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Archie 1974, 1945”
Chapter 4 Summary: “Three Coming”
Clara calls Archie at work to tell him she is pregnant and that the doctor told her the child could end up having blue eyes. Archie takes this “rare genetic possibility” as “solid fact” (58) and begins handing out sweets to everyone in the office to celebrate becoming a father. While this is going on, Archie’s boss asks to speak with him in his office. Awkwardly, he tells Archie that he does not think Archie and Clara should attend the next company dinner, implying that Clara’s race makes people uncomfortable. He then tries to bribe Archie to stay away by offering him lunch vouchers. Archie fails to pick up on these hints, so his boss simply tells him that the next dinner will be short on space, and Archie leaves happy about the vouchers.
As time goes on, Clara and Alsana strike up a friendship, and they often meet for lunch in Kilburn Park. One day while they’re there with Neena, the conversation turns to their pregnancies; Alsana was alarmed to learn that she was carrying twins but grateful that Samad was not with her at the appointment because “a husband needn’t be involved in body-business, in a lady’s…parts” (63). Neena scoffs, asking whether her aunt’s pregnancy is “the immaculate bloody conception” (63). This segues into a broader argument about husbands, marriage, and family. Neena scandalizes Alsana by claiming she would have an abortion rather than raise a boy. Alsana disputes the idea that marriages need to be based on open communication or even knowledge of the other person: “Yes, I was married to Samad Iqbal the same evening of the very day I met him. Yes, I didn’t know him from Adam. But I liked him well enough. […] Now every time I learn something more about him, I like him less” (66).
Eventually, Neena apologizes, and Alsana concedes that her niece may have a point about men, though she sees no point in talking openly with Samad: “We married old men, you see? These bumps […] they will always have daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this” (68). Neena asks how Archie and Samad met, and the wives explain that it was during WWII. Alsana is contemptuous of this record and of what the men have made of their lives since then.
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Root Canals of Alfred Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal”
In keeping with an “instruction of Alsana’s to look at the thing close up” (71), the narrative flashes back to 1945. A 17-year-old Archie had just been stationed to a tank with Samad and three other soldiers, all of them tasked with keeping the roads clear. Samad was talkative, bragging about his great-grandfather Mangal Pande and repeatedly telling the story of how he lost the use of his hand: as the “hero of the 9th North Bengal Mounted Rifles, hero of the Bengal flying corps” (75), he had been sent to pilot planes in Europe and was wounded by a misfire.
After a month “roaming aimlessly through Eastern Europe” (77), the tank broke down outside a Bulgarian village. Since repair was not immediately possible, Archie and Samad were allowed to leave. When they returned, however, everyone (their commanding officer included) had been killed, and the radio stripped.
Archie and Samad repaired the radio and requested help. Unbeknownst to them, the war in Europe had ended, so no one came. Meanwhile, “[t]he strain of having to be continually at war in such a pleasant village began to pull at Archie and Samad” (81), and they spent more and more time relaxing at the local cafe and in the converted hospital where they slept. Despite the cultural differences between them, they became friends—something Samad sealed by telling Archie the full story of his great-grandfather.
The next day, a group of Russian soldiers en route to Poland arrived in town, searching for a Nazi scientist known to be in the area. Archie realized they must be talking about “Dr. Sick”—a reclusive, sickly man living nearby. Mistaking Archie and Samad for officers, the Russians asked them to lead the mission to capture the doctor. Samad, who had been disappointed to learn that the war was over, eagerly agreed.
That night, Samad led Archie and the Russians up the mountain to the doctor’s house. High on morphine he’d stolen from the hospital, Samad threatened to shoot himself in despair: “‘If I were to pull this trigger, what will I leave behind? An Indian, a turncoat English Indian with a limp wrist […] and no medals that they can ship home with me’” (95). Archie managed to calm Samad down, and the group arrived to find Dr. Sick (actually Dr. Perret) entirely undefended and with “what looked like blood-tinged tears rolling down his face” (97)—a side effect of diabetic retinopathy.
The group arrested Perret to stand trial in Poland. Later that night, however, Samad persuaded the Russians to hand Perret over. As Archie and Samad drove away with Perret, Samad began insisting that they kill Perret to ensure their contributions to the war effort. Archie was reluctant, but Samad only grew more determined, saying Archie should be the executioner. Finally, Archie dragged Perret away from the jeep; Samad heard a gunshot, and Archie returned alone a few minutes later, bleeding from a wound in his leg.
Part 1, Chapters 4-5 Analysis
In these chapters, Smith continues to explore multiculturalism and the immigrant experience in London. Although Archie is unremarkable in many ways, his casual acceptance of people of other races, religions, and ethnicities distinguishes him from much of English society. As the episode involving the company dinner demonstrates, many of the people Archie works with hold racist beliefs, even if they are reluctant to express their views openly. By contrast, Archie’s moments of insensitivity are rare and seem more related to his bumbling personality than his actual thoughts and feelings.
The conversation between Alsana, Clara, and Neena also touches on cultural conflict, though in a different way. For example, the fact that Alsana and Samad’s marriage was arranged is a “sticking point” for Alsana’s niece (66), who has grown up in England and has feminist sensibilities. It is worth noting, however, that Alsana’s ideas about marriage stem less from tradition and more from her own idiosyncratic ideas; her interactions with her husband make it clear that she’s not the “little submissive Indian woman” Neena describes (64).
Chapter 5 continues to develop the novel’s ideas about history, fate, and free will while providing greater insight into Samad’s character. Unlike Archie, who is largely content with his own insignificance, Samad makes it clear from the start that he believes he was destined for greater things. He takes his relation to Mangal Pande to mean that heroism is in his blood and complains that he “would have matched [Pande’s] achievements” (75) if he hadn’t lost the use of his hand.
The idea of genetic inheritance—whether physical characteristics or personality—is a major motif in the novel. As White Teeth progresses, it will become clear that genetics, and history in general, do not exert absolute control over characters’ lives in the way that Samad here predicts: “Our children will be born of our actions. Our accidents will become their destinies” (87).
Where Samad sees history’s power over human lives as an opportunity to secure his own legacy, Archie responds with fear. The more Samad tries to persuade Archie to execute Perret, the more frightened Archie becomes; the very arguments Samad advances—for instance, that the choice Archie makes here will reveal “what kind of a man [he is]” (101)—overwhelm Archie, who does not want to be saddled with the moral weight. Nevertheless, Archie does appear to shoot Perret eventually, which Smith implies is a pivotal moment in his developing friendship with Samad; by taking action, Archie convinces Samad that he isn’t simply “a cipher” and does actually “stand for” something (101).
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