White Teeth
White Teeth, a 2000 novel by Zadie Smith, chronicles the lives of two World War II veterans and their families in late twentieth-century London. Samad Iqbal is an intelligent and voluble but underemployed waiter, and Archie Jones is a laconic and indecisive everyman, but they are drawn together by their shared experiences in the war, similar family situations, and mutual need for a balancing influence.
When Samad's son Millat, Archie's daughter Irie, and Joshua Chalfen are accused of using drugs on school property, Joshua's intellectual parents decide to be an uplifting influence on the poor working class children. Joyce Chalfen aspires to become a mother figure to the Troubled but Cute Millat, while Marcus Chalfen decides that Irie Jones and Millat's more studious twin Magid can be of assistance in a controversial experiment he is conducting.
As the three families become involved with religious fanatics, political intrigues and ethical dilemmas, it becomes apparent that the fate of a single mouse may rest in their hands.
White Teeth provides examples of:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Several characters in the television version. For example, Joshua Chalfen, who is a pudgy nerd in the novel, is played by James McAvoy.
- Animal Wrongs Group: Joshua Chalfen is part of a radical animals rights group.
- The Dark Side: a character who is a Star Wars fan lampshades this trope when he hears that Irie is working for Dr. Chalfen.
- A Date with Rosie Palms: this is cause for serious angst for one character, since it is against his religion, but he uses a loophole to justify his transgression.
- Back for the Finale 'Dr Sick'
- British Teeth: Played with. Teeth are, naturally, a recurring motif.
- But Not Too Black: In-universe- Irie (who is mixed-race) is hugely hung up about her Jamaican hair and typically curvaceous figure, wishing she could have sleek hair and a willowy body like she perceives all the Caucasian girls at school do.
- Eye Scream: 'Dr Sick' (presumably a genuine medical condition)
- Evilutionary Biologist: In universe, several characters consider Marcus Chalfen to be this, although 'Dr. Sick' is better example.
- For Science!: Marcus's position on Future Mouse.
- Fun with Acronyms: Millat is part of a group of young radical second-generation British Muslims called K.E.V.I.N.: Keepers of the Eternal and Vigilant Islamic Nation.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: The source of all the political extrapolations about Future Mouse.
- Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: Archie's wife Clara was raised in a very strict Jehovah's Witness family. This becomes important later when her mother, her ex-boyfriend and a group of JW's protest Marcus Chalfen's experiment.
- Hot for Teacher: Samad, though not a student, has an affair with a teacher after he gives up pining for her.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Enough to populate the entire city of London, it seems.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father: At the end of the novel, it is impossible to tell which of the identical Iqbal twins is the father of Irie's baby.
- The Indecisive: Archie
- The Ophelia: Archie's first wife, Ophelia.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: At the end of the Second World War, Samad insists that Archie must prove himself by executing the sick Nazi doctor they have captured.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Millat and Magid, respectively.
- School Study Media
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Charismatic, Book Dumb Millat and studious, officious Magid.
- Starts with a Suicide: In the first chapter, Archie attempts suicide due to the failure of his first marriage. Another character intervenes, so it's also an Interrupted Suicide.
- Troubled but Cute: Millat. Joyce Chalfen certainly thinks so.