History Literature / WhiteTeeth

* TheOphelia: Archie's first wife, [[MeaningfulName Ophelia]].

* HollywoodJehovahsWitness: Archie's wife Clara was raised in a very strict Jehovah's Witness family. This becomes important later when her mother, her [[spoiler: ex-boyfriend]] and a group of JW's protest Marcus Chalfen's experiment.

* TheOphelia: [[spoiler: Archie's]] first wife, [[MeaningfulName Ophelia]].

* StartsWithASuicide: In the first chapter, [[spoiler: Archie]] attempts suicide due to the failure of his first marriage. [[spoiler: Another character intervenes, so it's also an InterruptedSuicide.]]

* AdaptationExpansion: A number of events that the novel mentions in passing as having already happened are actually depicted onscreen such as Samad and Archie meeting again for the first time after the war, Samad and Alsana's wedding, and Clara [[spoiler: recovering from the motorcycle accident where she loses most of her teeth.]]

''White Teeth'', a 2000 novel by Zadie Smith, chronicles the lives of two WorldWarII 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 their classmate Joshua Chalfen are accused of using drugs on school property, Joshua's intellectual parents decide to be an [[SarcasmMode uplifting influence]] on the poor working class children. [[MrsRobinson Joyce Chalfen]] aspires to become a [[FreudWasRight mother figure]] to the TroubledButCute 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.

* TimeSkip: More prominent than in the novels by cutting the briefly shown events of Millat, Magid, and Irie’s early teenage years and jumping from 1985 straight to 1990 when they are fifteen years old and their story begins in earnest.

* Hypocrite: Many of the Muslim characters, especially the ones who are [[YouAreWhatYouHate constantly ranting about how "immoral" the West is]].

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 [[SarcasmMode uplifting influence]] on the poor working class children. [[MrsRobinson Joyce Chalfen]] aspires to become a [[FreudWasRight mother figure]] to the TroubledButCute 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.

** Halal butcher Mohammad Hussein-Ishmael is a recent KEVIN recruit and is looked down upon by Millat as an embarrassment partly because of his love of {{Creator/Elvis}} and him being considerably overweight. In the TV adaptation; he is far more composed and assertive, and is the one to recruit Millat into the organisation.

** It is implied that one of the reasons Samad chooses to [[spoiler: send Magid to Bangladesh rather than Millat is because Magid saw him in a compromising position with Poppy Burt-Jones, and Magid being thousands of miles away means that Alsana won’t find out he has been unfaithful.]] [[spoiler: Whereas in the novel, a letter from Archie’s Swedish pen pal indirectly makes the point that Millat may do better in life if he isn’t growing up in Magid’s shadow.]]

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Several characters in the television version. For example, Joshua Chalfen, who is a pudgy nerd in the novel, is played by PrettyBoy Creator/JamesMcAvoy.
** The novel suggests he grows out of the dorkiness, and possibly slims down too... but having been that kid is still informing who he is...
** Also Irie; whose weight (thirteen stone), buck teeth, glasses and unmanageable afro are major factors in her poor self-image is played by Sarah Ozeke who has none of these traits other than wearing glasses in some scenes.

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* YoungerThanTheyLook: Alsana is no older than her thirties for most of the novel, but she could almost pass for an old woman because of her flabby torso (partly due to having given birth to twins, but also because she works at home and has become quite lazy), her [[MyBelovedSmother sometimes hysterical protective instinct for her two boys]], her puritanical attitude toward sex, and [[RacistGrandma her latent dislike of homosexuals in particular and anyone who isn't Bengali in general]].

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Several characters in the television version. For example, Joshua Chalfen, who is a pudgy nerd in the novel, is played by James [=McAvoy=].

* EyeScream: 'Dr Sick' suffers from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemolacria haemolacria]], just to make him even more creepy (and unforgettable)

** Millat is a voracious devourer of American pop culture (the films of MartinScorsese in particular), and feels a great deal of guilt because of this. In fact, at one point he reflects that, in some ways, he's more American than he is either British or Bengali.

* BullyAndWimpPairing: Subverted (inverted, perhaps?) with both Archie and Samad. Archie ''appears'' to embody the working-class macho man, but he's actually quite ineffectual for the most part. Samad, meanwhile, comes off as prissy and overly intellectual but [[MinoredInAssKicking bloodies the face of a drunken white man who racially harasses him at O'Connell's pub]].

* FunWithAcronyms: [[spoiler: 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.

** [[spoiler: Millat gets off with a mere slap on the wrist for trying to assassinate Dr. Perret (although this is largely because so many eyewitnesses mistake him for Magid and vice versa).]] He also inexplicably survives a sexual encounter with an HIV-positive girl despite not using a condom (this being during a time when getting AIDS was practically an instant death sentence).

** [[spoiler: Millat gets off with a mere slap on the wrist for trying to assassinate Dr. Perret (although this is largely because so many eyewitnesses mistake him for Magid and vice versa).]]

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: Both in- and out-of-universe with the term "Aryan." Smith uses it to denote both the olive-skinned Eurasian peoples who colonized India thousands of years ago and the more contemporary sense of the pink-skinned peoples who populate Europe, Australia, and much of the Americas today. This gets [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Samad scolds Alsana for acting too "Western" and she responds by pulling out an encyclopedia entry on Bangladesh that confirms that Bengalis are an Indo-''Aryan'' people, and thus Western in the first place.

** Millat is a voracious devourer of American pop culture, and feels a great deal of guilt because of this. In fact, at one point he reflects that, in some ways, he's more American than he is either British or Bengali.

** Hortense's actual grandpa is a white man with a confused and ultimately destructive attitude to black women- it seems he loved Ambrosia but his ingrained colonial attitudes meant the relationship could only leave her hurt.

* EyeScream: 'Dr Sick' (presumably a genuine medical condition)

''WhiteTeeth'', a 2000 novel by Zadie Smith, chronicles the lives of two WorldWarII 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.

!! ''WhiteTeeth'' provides examples of: