Monday, April 14, 2008
Recurring Themes in SAMAD - White Teeth
There are a lot of symbols and themes that keep circling around, spialing throughout the text of WHITE TEETH. The overriding metaphor seems to be the dominance of English culture and ideals on all of the characters - on 120-1, Samad claims, "I have been corrupted by england, I see that now - my children, my wife, they too have been corrupted... Maybe I have been frivolous. Maybe I have thought intellect more important than faith." The ideal of intelligence over religious devotion is a Western one, as Samad realizes that he cannot be fully religious in England, constructing a system of "allowances" for himself to drink, masturbate, and ultimately have an extramarital affair. On 124, he admits it all to himself - "I swear. I eat bacon. I regularly slap the salami. I drink Guinness. My best friend is a kaffir nonbeliever... But oh it does count. It all counts on the great counting board of He who counts." Even though he tries to convince himself otherwise, Samad knows that the things that he does are wrong, but he does them anyway. The "Western" ways that he adapted as his own have come to dictate his actions more than his heritage, which he eventually throws aside, comparing heritage and religion to drugs(161). Samad's two mantras appear a number of times too, often when he feels like he needs to justify something to himself.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
As far as symbolism goes, the title of the novel is White Teeth, and so far in the book it seems as if none of the characters have “perfect” white teeth. The descriptions of Clara, and her daughter and so obviously meant to show they the do not posses this characteristic. I think that is it interesting that the characters all have bad teeth.
You can also look at it as “White teeth” are sometimes described as the mouth of evil, in Dracula as we may recall, all the vampires had perfect white teeth, it is the villain, the evil carnivorous monster that preys on the innocent. It seems like this is the “western society” that all these immigrants are forced to live in, and adapt to survive in this situation; and survival is more important than keeping to religious beliefs in this strange world.
Although Samad himself has stumbled within his religious observance, he is always careful to be strong in front of his children. Samad is very aware that the past is indicative of the future, which is why he is so obsessive of his great grandfather, the Mangal Pande. I think this is in sync with the excerpt from E. M. Forster at the opening of the book which warns that we never know "which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it forever" (Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread).
I think that the internal struggles that Samad has are because he is able to accept some things about English culture as well as his own while disregarding others. This reminded me of the term 'cafeteria Catholic' which refers to someone who picks and chooses which church doctrines they will observe and which ones they will ignore. This is a prevelent issue with the Pope visiting this week in a country where many of the Catholic practitioners eat meat on Fridays, don't go to church every Sunday, and use birth control. Samad is resisting this Westernization of himself because he finds it necessary to retain all of his heritage for the sake of his children.
Post a Comment