The Quagmire of Love and Marriage in Smith's White Teeth Zadie Smith College

Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth depicts the relationship between love and marriage in a manner that contrasts from Western expectations. Set in the United Kingdom, the story primarily follows the relationship of Archibald and Clara as compared with the relationship of Samad Miah and Alsana. In many ways, these relationships would not be uncommon to Westerners, but in at least as many respects, these same relationships come to defy certain conventions that Western tradition imposes on the ideal marriage—in Britain’s case, a couple that embodies British national identity.

Archibald and Clara represent a couple that, in large part, defies Western, conventional expectations of the ideal marriage simply by being an interracial couple in the first place. Archie is a White man who marries a Jamaican woman, and for that matter, she is toothless when he meets her. In this way, they challenge conventional aesthetics that Westerners are likely to associate with the idea of marriage, which are the surface details; however, a great deal of deeper challenges remain to also serve as a commentary on the differences between their marriage and those proposed by Western perspective.

One aspect of both marriages at which Western ideology cringes...