Questioning of Perspectives

In penning White Teeth, Zadie Smith was attempting to illuminate the multitude of perspectives that we have in this world while also legitimizing each. By allowing each character’s perspective to take precedent at some point in the novel we are able to take a third person view to all these first person narratives. Writing the novel this way allows Smith to make the reader reflect upon their own perspective on the world and examine where the roots of that perspective lie. This relates to Marxism because this literary theory asks the reader, “to investigate the intricate web of social relationships not only within the text itself but also outside the text and within the world of the author. In adding this sociological dimension, Marxism expands the traditional, historical approach to literary analysis by dealing with sociological issues that concern both the characters in a work of fiction as well as the authors and the readers” (Bressler, 195). This makes White Teeth a primarily Marxist novel because as a reader one cannot ignore the numerous perspectives but must begin questioning their own.