The Waiter’s Wife

Alsana—the titular “waiter’s wife”—is one of the story’s protagonists. She immigrated to England from Bangladesh with her husband Samad. Alsana and Samad have an arranged marriage. She is “from a respected old Bengal family” (Paragraph 54) and has been trained to hold England and English customs in a degree of reverence even as she chafes against English prejudices. Alsana helps to support the family by sewing for a local BDSM shop—a job at odds with her personality—and is described as “small and rotund, moon-faced and with thick fingers she hid in the folds of her cardigan” (Paragraph 2). Though her own prejudices initially make her suspicious of Clara, who is Black, the two eventually become close friends, especially when they bond over their pregnancies. Alsana is pregnant with twin boys at the end of the story.

Alsana is a complex character. She makes money through the domestic act of sewing but refuses to participate in the domestic act of home cooking. She is not demure or meek, but “prone to moments, even fits—yes, fits was not too strong a word—of rage” (Paragraph 42). She even goes so far as to assault Samad when she doesn’t like what he says. She is judgmental and prejudiced, often making assumptions about others based on their ethnicity, nationality, and race. She desperately wants to be seen for “her respectability, and besides she was really very traditional, very religious, lacking nothing except the faith” (Paragraph 66).

However, Alsana craves modern luxuries, like independence from Samad and from the need to cook. She has strong feelings about what kind of childhood her children should have and is determined to set them up for success, giving them life advice while they are still in the womb, blessing them with strong names, and making sure they live “near green spaces [which] was morally beneficial to the young” (Paragraph 54). She seems unhappy in Britain and constantly questions Samad’s ability to support them in this new country.

She embodies almost all the story’s themes. She constantly swings between tradition and modernity; she struggles to fully embrace her traditional gender role; she loves history and is concerned about her children’s future; and she has little identity outside her role as Samad’s wife. Though appears relatively static in her beliefs throughout most of the story, in the end she both recognizes the limitations of her approach to marriage and reveals that her strategy of silence is more complex and less naïve than Neena thinks.

Clara is described as “tall, striking, a black girl with a winning smile, wearing red shorts of a shortness that Alsana had never imagined possible, even in this country” (Paragraph 2). While it is unclear where she is from in the short story, in White Teeth, it is revealed she is from Jamaica, and she uses Jamaican speech patterns throughout the story. She is married to Archie, and the two also have a significant age gap between them. Clara loves to sew, and she spends a good bit of time with Alsana. She is pregnant with a daughter at the end of the story.

While Alsana is high-strung and traditional, Clara is curious and open to modernity. She wears contemporary clothes and, at Neena’s urging, explores feminist theory. She has a good sense of humor, finding humor even in dark and serious topics. She does not disagree with Alsana’s critiques of their husbands’ age, indicating she too has concerns about their husbands’ advanced age and the difficult experiences they’ve lived through. She often serves as a calming presence to Alsana.

Archie is Clara’s husband and Samad’s war friend from World War II. He is part of the reason Samad moves to Britain and is the reason the Iqbals move “north, two minutes from Archie and his favourite watering hole” (Paragraph 5). Little is known about Archie other than that he is native to Britain. He appears only in the first part of the story; after that, he is only talked about.

Ardashir is Samad’s cousin and the owner of The Palace, an Indian restaurant. He is described as a man “whose wiry frame paced the restaurant, one benevolent eye on the customers, one ever-watchful eye on the staff” (Paragraph 9). He demands that the staff ingratiate themselves with him, and his behavior toward them is condescending. Ardashir is very business savvy: “He had taken the simple idea of an Indian restaurant (small room, pink tablecloth, loud music, atrocious wallpaper, meals) and just made it bigger. He hadn’t improved anything; it was the same old crap but bigger in a bigger building in the biggest tourist trap in London. Leicester Square” (Paragraph 34). He is very stingy with his money, refusing to help even his family when they are in financial straits. He is especially happy at finally achieving a better status in life than Samad and remains competitive with his cousin.

Shiva is the best and most popular waiter at The Palace, most likely due to his good looks and youth. He is an aspiring actor who gets larger tips by flirting with local play producers and “blubberous white divorcee[s]” (Paragraph 14) He is “the only Hindu on the staff, a tribute to his waitering skills that had triumphed over religious difference” (Paragraph 14). He is especially rude to Samad, constantly mocking the fact that Samad likes to reminisce about his past, more interesting life. Shiva is especially resentful of the communal tip system, as he dislikes having to split his tips with the other waiters, who earn far less.