White Teeth

Clara’s reasons for marrying Archie can be traced back to an earlier relationship: “Just as a good historian need recognize Hitler’s Napoleonic ambitions in the east in order to comprehend his reluctance to invade the British in the west, so Ryan Topps is essential to any understanding of why Clara did what she did” (23). Clara’s race, Jehovah’s Witness upbringing, and buckteeth made her unpopular at school, and she developed an interest in Ryan largely because he was unattractive, awkward, and as much of an outcast as she was.

For some time, Clara’s interest remained a fantasy. Her mother, Hortense, was a devout Jehovah’s Witness and forced Clara to spend her free time proselytizing. However, while knocking on doors one day, Clara came face to face with Ryan, who invited her inside. The two began dating, with Clara tolerating Ryan’s self-absorption and obsessive interest in scooters. It was through Ryan that Clara met the other attendees of the End of the World Party and “discovered dope, forgot the staircase [to heaven], and began taking the elevator” (33).

One day, Clara came home to find Ryan talking to her mother. These conversations continued, and Ryan began to change, “[shedding] his turtleneck, [avoiding] her in school, [buying] a tie” (34). Eventually, it became clear that Hortense had successfully converted Ryan, and Ryan tried to bring Clara back into the church.

One month before New Year’s, Ryan met Clara after school. She dismissed his warnings about damnation and demanded that he take her home. The two continued to argue as they got on Ryan’s scooter, and he crashed it into a tree, knocking out Clara’s front teeth.

The couple went their separate ways, and Clara—inspired by her mother’s belief that the world would end on New Year’s, 1975—came up with the idea of a mock “end of the world” party. Once there, however, Clara found herself “falling into a melancholy. For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt—something is gained but something is lost” (37). Therefore, when she saw Archie, she latched onto him as “the last man on earth” (38).  

Hortense disowned Clara after discovering her relationship with Archie, and the couple marries, moving into a house in Lambeth. Clara is generally content with her new life, despite Archie’s shortcomings and his tendency to spend more time with Samad than with her: “No white knight, then, this Archibald Jones. No aims, no hopes, no ambitions. A man whose greatest pleasures were English breakfasts and DIY. A dull man. An old man. And yet…good. He was a good man” (41). The wedding itself had been a civil ceremony attended only by Samad and his wife Alsana, although Archie’s one-time Olympic rival, Horst Ibelgaufts, sent him a letter that seemed to refer to his recent marriage.

Roughly three months after the wedding, the Iqbals are scheduled to come to dinner, and Archie and Clara get into an argument about tidying up. Clara admits she is worried about cooking for the Iqbals, and Archie assures her that “they’re not those kind of Indians” (46).

Samad and Alsana are, in fact, Bangladeshi. Samad works as a waiter in his cousin Ardashir’s Indian restaurant—a job he considers beneath him. Alsana, who is pregnant, works as a seamstress and is unhappy about their recent move to the Joneses’ neighborhood. She accuses Samad of buying a house he cannot afford just to be closer to Archie. When Samad fails to secure a raise, the couple has a fight that culminates in Samad complaining that Alsana never cooks and Alsana punching her husband before storming out of the house wearing nothing but a coat.

Alsana walks to the cobbler where her niece Neena works. She squabbles with Neena—whom she refers to as “Niece-of-Shame” (52)—and picks up a pair of Samad’s shoes that needed repairing. Rather than taking the shoes home, she puts them on and wanders up the street where the Joneses live. Clara is outside and greets Alsana, mentioning the dinner scheduled for that evening—something Samad had not told Alsana about. Clara, in turn, is surprised to learn Alsana is pregnant, and the women wonder whether “[T]heir husbands told each other everything [and] [t]hat it was they themselves who were kept in the dark” (55).