Simona Hevešiová
Abstract:
The article discusses postcolonial literature in terms of its development throughout the twentieth century and points to its most frequent subject matters and problems. Through the analysis of Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, the author tries to foreshadow the future tendencies in the literary development that would abandon the one-sided optics of earlier postcolonial books. While Smith does not reject the colonial past and its impact on her characters, she also portrays a second generation of immigrants who try to acknowledge their hybridity in the multicultural context of their everyday reality. In other words, she tries to answer the question if it is possible to view hybridity as a non-issue and what would happen in that case.
Key words:
post-postcolonial, hybridity, multiculturalism, integration, history, colonial and postcolonial literature
The process of decolonisation in the second half of the 20th century induced a massive wave of literary response accompanied by an impressive counter-discourse which has brought about a dramatic shift of rhetoric. Inevitably, the formerly colonized people were talking back, addressing their former oppressors, forcing the colonizers to reconceptualize their identities. By interrogating the literary practices of colonial writers who had, in fact, justified colonialism as such, and by exposing the limitations of the representations of the colonized people in these works, postcolonial writers succeeded in their attempt to point not only at the dehumanization of the colonized but at the whole complex of solemn consequences of the colonial era.
In her essay Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse Helen Tiffin states that the project of postcolonial writing has been “to interrogate European discourses and discursive strategies from a privileged position within (and between) two worlds; to investigate the means by which Europe imposed and maintained its codes in the colonial domination of so much of the rest of the world” (1995, p. 95). This resulted in the rereading and revaluing of the European so called great works of art (or canonical literature) and in providing different perspectives and insights into their worth and importance.
In fact, one has come to the conclusion that the majority of these books has produced portrayals of the native citizens of the colonized territories which are distorted and deliberately perverted. In his incensed critique of Conrad’s so admired and discussed novel, and by the same token an ultimate colonial book, The Heart of Darkness, Chinua Achebe provides a list of Conrad’s unflattering and even insulting references to African people. To mention just few of them, they included expressions like “prehistoric man”, “ugly”, “inhuman”, “savage” or “rudimentary souls” (1977, pp. 325-326). His essay implies how these references enforced upon the native Africans could have influenced and shaped their own self-esteem and self-awareness. Moreover, by labeling the book as “offensive and totally deplorable” (ibid., p. 330), Achebe calls into question the very value of colonial literature and points to its unpalatable and unfathomable consequences.
Naturally, the affected population could not remain silent and not to react to these contemptible implications. The literary fertility of postcolonial writers only exemplifies the urgent need to give distinctive voices to those who were for a long period of time unable to speak for themselves or who were denied the right to speak. These remarkable narratives enabled them to record stories which were unwritten, unspoken and thus had the tendency to become forgotten. Being permeated with fascinating and invigorating stories recapturing and restoring the experiences of the colonized people, these narratives have also necessitated the quest for resonant voices that would put a definite end to the long-lasting silence.
Furthermore, we have to mention another function of postcolonial literature and that is the providing of a different perspective of the reality in comparison with the standardized versions of colonial works. In words of Bronwyn T. Williams, postcolonial literature “endeavors to reconfigure these relations of dominance and resistance, to reposition both the dominant and the marginalized on the stage of cultural discourse, and to challenge the static borders of national and cultural identity” (http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v3i3/ willia.htm, 12.5. 2006). By writing down these alternative stories, the formerly colonized people strengthened their voices and implicitly the voices of other oppressed sojourners so that they will not be soft or nonexistent any longer.
Because of the impossibility to respond to or affect the historical events and because of the impact the colonial past has had on the colonized people, history and the reconciliation with it reflected in the process of reconstruction of one’s own identity belong to the most frequent subject matters of postcolonial literary works. Some of the books breed angry voices unable to acquiesce the unacceptable past, some of them are melancholic or despondent but almost all of them are serious in their tone. They do herald the trauma and the sense of alienation, disruption, fragmentation and hybridity mirrored in their remarkable characters.
However, despite the fact that postcolonial literature enunciated and promoted an alternative record of the colonial past, one has to admit (no matter how oddly it sounds) that it bears certain parallels with colonial literature. The most obvious one being their one-sidedness. Similarly to the colonial works which offered no significant space nor dignified voices for the colonized people, early postcolonial literature does not seem to provide this opportunity for the colonizers either. Event though there are certain hints at initiating a dialogue with the (former) oppressors (e.g. in Achebe’s Things fall apart), the books do not seem to overcome certain stereotypes in their portrayals and so their only function in the novel is to show the negative impact of colonialism. Indeed, the white characters are only rarely given a distinctive position within the narrative and they are almost never given the chance to develop fully. As a consequence, they remain flat throughout the story and act only in accordance to the postcolonial ‘ideology’.
Nor does the earlier postcolonial literature seem to acknowledge and accept the multicultural and multiracial settings of present-day societies. It rather responds, talks back, questions and criticizes in a, more or less, authoritative undertone. The characters in the books, living in mixed cultures, often keep themselves isolated in their own communities, trying to avoid the ‘other’ citizens and rather look back instead of concentrating on the future.
However, the inadequate development of white characters and the following accusations may be simply caused by the fact that the majority of earlier postcolonial works are set in former colonies and its citizens, i.e. the authors as their spokespersons are reacting predominantly to those elements of Western culture to which they had been exposed through colonialism. Therefore, one has to make a distinction between early postcolonial fiction and more recent works which differ immensely since the postcolonial community does not fail to react to the changing conditions. Due to the globalisation and the growing number of immigrants, both in the United States and Europe, multicultural contacts have become parts of our everyday lives (yet they are not always smooth). And precisely these failures manifest that the mutual communication is still inevitable in order to come to terms with the history and thus with the present as well.
Undoubtedly, there are numerous artistic voices in the current literary tradition calling for a dialogue to be established. Since the setting of most of the recent postcolonial works shifted from former colonies to Europe or America, white characters‘ position within the narratives has become much more significant. It would be almost impossible to portray the existence of the multicultural and multiethnic communities in most of the European countries without pointing at their mutual, quotidian contact. Therefore, it is quite comprehensible that second or third generation immigrants develop closer relations with the Western population who are thus integrated in the narratives as their inextricable parts. The Caribbean-British writer Caryl Phillips, for instance, gives a powerful voice not only to his black characters (usually slaves or their descendants) but also to the white characters who have a decent place in his narratives and an opportunity to take an active part in the events described. Thus, they become the protagonists of his novels and due to the interaction and communication with the postcolonial community, these characters are provided with an equal opportunity to develop.
Similarly, Hanif Kureishi’s novel The Buddha of Suburbia presents a portrait of multicultural Britain in the 1970s although with a harsh critique of former race relations. It touches on the subject of an interracial and intercultural marriage / relationship perceived through the eyes of the young and rebellious narrator Karim Amir who characterizes himself as “a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories“ (Kureishi, 1990, p. 3). Although the mixed marriage of Karim’s parents does not work and the couple separates, his father, an India-born immigrant, starts a new relationship (however not without certain prejudices and objections from his relatives) with an extravagant Englishwoman Eva, under whose influence he rediscovers his “Oriental“ roots. Karim, on the other hand, strives for a certain balance between his Indianness and his British identity which seems to dominate in his life for a certain period of time. In the end, it is precisely due to the somewhat promiscuous and experimetal contacts with members of both communities that he seems to be able to accept both of them as an inseparable part of his personality.
Indeed, there is a visible effort in contemporary postcolonial fiction to initiate a mutual dialogue instead of depriving one of the parties of its right to speak. A new generation of writers has appeared in the last decades who, instead of generating multicultural trepidations, attempt to acknowledge the hybridity and multiculturalism as practices of everyday life rather than some awkward consequences of colonialism. According to Laura Moss, that might be because “the current state of globalisation, diasporic migration, and contemporary cosmopolitanism has brought about a ‘normalisation’ of hybridity in contemporary postcolonial communities” (2003, p.12) The question then is: “What happens when the centre has been moved, at least partially, and the mind has at least begun to be decolonised?” (ibid., p. 12) Can hybridity and multiculturalism become a non-issue?
These are the milestones which are waiting for the new-generation writers. And in the process of their mapping, one must inevitably mention the young and talented British writer Zadie Smith who has, with her debut novel White Teeth, succeeded in displaying the sketches of what may be entitled as a post-postcolonial era. Smith’s novel not only captures all the struggles of first generation immigrants in modern multi-Britain, it also provides a glimpse into the future by embracing the destinies of their children as well. White Teeth may be viewed as a form of family and at the same time cultural saga, depicting “three cultures and three families over three generations” (back cover, 2000). Smith brings together Bangladeshi immigrants fixated on their homeland, culture and religion with British liberal intellectuals, devout Jehovah’s Witnesses inextricably linked with Islamic fundamentalists and Animal Rights activists and creates a multiracial, multicultural and multireligious orchestra.
Smith, brought up and still living in the multicultural London, seems to belong to these new literary voices who do not see ethnicity or hybridity as a problem but rather as a part of one’s everyday reality. In one of the interviews, when asked how she tried to approach multiracial London, Smith answers: “I was just trying to approach London. I don’t think of it as a theme, or even a significant thing about the city. This is what modern life is like. If I were to write a book about London in which there were only white people, I think that would be kind of bizarre.” (www.pbs.org/wgbh/ masterpiece/teeth/ei_smith_int.html, 11.9. 2006)
Nonetheless, one cannot assert that White Teeth is completely devoid of the traditional postcolonial agenda. Far from it. Nor does it represent an ultimate post-postcolonial literary work which would abandon the black-and-white optics. In fact, White Teeth may be viewed as a hybrid text that combines both these tendencies which are embodied in the novel’s main protagonists, i.e. first and second generation immigrants and their British counterparts. Being composed of several parallel stories, Zadie Smith outlines the tenuous transformation that may take place in the course of few generations but which is anything else but smooth and uncomplicated.
The book is centered around the lifelong bond between Samad Iqbal, a first generation Bangladeshi immigrant, and Archie Jones, a simple and unworldly Englishman who has, after a failed suicide attempt, married a black Jamaican-English woman. This unusual and precious friendship together with Archie’ s interracial marriage provide a unique opportunity to exhibit the testimony that diversity and difference can live together side by side. Smith, of course, does not delineate an ideal image of the society since both Archie and Samad have to face and come into terms with a deep seated racism (and their life-long friendship is not devoid of some ups and downs either). This illustrates Smith’s literary maturity since she does not erase it from her book nor does she exaggerate or foreground its impact on the characters. The novel simply captures the quotidian postcolonial reality.
As it was already mentioned, the novel moves between the traditional postcolonial framework and the new, post-postcolonial horizon. The division line can be, in fact, detected quite easily. It has sublimated into Archie’s and Samad’s children and the clash between these two different generations. As Marcus Chalfen, the middle-class scientist and Magid’s (Samad’s son) patron, implies “first generation are all loony tunes, but the second generation have got heads just about straight on their shoulders” (Smith, 2000, p. 349). Samad’s identity stems predominantly from his pride in and devotion to his roots (impersonated by his ‘famous’ great-grandfather Mangal Pande whom he believes to be a hero of the Indian Mutiny) and he is not willing to accept his children’s integration, that is to say, assimilation in the host culture. He and his wife Alsana represent the vulnerability and the in-betweenness of their generation who hold everything that is English or Western in contempt.
On the contrary, Samad’s twins Magid and Millat, and Archie’s daughter Irie in particular desire to merge with the non-hyphenated and shake off the historical burden from their shoulders. Each of them, however, tries to come into terms with his or her roots differently. Laying hopes on a tough decision, Samad sends Magid, the brainy one, back to Bangladesh in order to get a rigorous and proper Bengalese education in his motherland. What a surprise it must have been to Samad when eight years later Magid returns home and istead of being a devout and proud Bengali Muslim, he is “more English than the English”. The trouble-maker Millat, on the other hand, who remained in London drifts into a group of Islamic fundamentalists and proves to be another disappointment for his disillusioned father. Despite the fact that none of his sons had fulfilled Samad’s expectations, they both grow up and seem to live a life according to their beliefs; both of them being integrated into the British culture.
In her passionate outbursts, Irie often communicates her vision of the near (post-postcolonial?) future “...when roots won’t matter any more because they can’t because they mustn’t because they’re too long and they’re too tortuous and they’re just buried too damn deep” (ibid., p. 527). Moreover, Irie’s desire to interdigitate with the Western population results not only in the disastrous straightening of her unbending hair but it also causes the alienation from her own family when she seeks refuge by the Chalfens. “She wanted it; she wanted to merge with the Chalfens, to be of one flesh; separated from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused with another. A unique animal. A new breed.” (ibid., p. 342).
Actually, Smith plays an intricate game with her readers who, in fact, have the chance to observe the genesis of a “unique animal”, the FutureMouse that is a product of genetic mutation. Paradoxically, this concept crossing the borders both of genetics and ethics is a part of a courageous but publicly condemned cancer project of Marcus Chalfen. The mouse, similarly to Irie, Samad, his sons and basically everyone with ethnic roots, presents a hybrid. The fact that it is artificially engineered may serve as a clear parallel to the aforementioned individuals whose identity happens to be “culturally engineered” (Head, 2003, p. 117).
In order to persuade the public that this experiment is harmless and after all beneficial for everyone of us (how symbolical), Marcus decides to put the mouse in a cage and ostentatiously display its otherness in public so that everyone can watch its evolution. However, during the final apocalyptic scene, mingling “lust-filled Animal Rights lobbyists, stoned Muslim militants, octogenarian Jehovah’s Witnesses, self-aggrandising war vets, media-savy scientists, and dysfunctional family members” (Moss, 2003, p. 15), the mouse sets itself free and runs away to the (hopefully) promising future where no one will ever doubt its significance and worth.
Last but not least, when analyzing White Teeth one must definitely mention its unique serio-comic tone which pervades the whole narrative and which also demonstrates Smith’s liberation from the nostalgic, melancholic and serious literary predecessors. The author has argued that “there has been an incredible rash of solemn fiction in the late eighties and nineties” (www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/teeth/ei_smith_int.html, 11.9. 2006) and that she wanted to write something that would make her readers laugh. Indeed, it seems to be extremely difficult to shake the right portion of humour, satire and esteem in order to produce a literary cocktail that would both celebrate the diversity but also point at the bitter, sometimes even bizarre situations that spring from the weighty part of our history.
In conclusion, White Teeth may be added to the vast number of postcolonial books which seek to address the perplexing reality of the multicultural society. The text proliferates with examples of confusion, sense of exile and alienation which manifest Smith’s lingering awareness of the perturbation of the postcolonial community. Nevertheless, the novel also displays the germination of a new era, the first contours of what might become the near future. It is thus based on the dichotomy between the past and the future by presenting the question whether the colonial past and its consequences can and should be thrown overboard. Because after all it may happen that they “will race towards the future only to find they more and more eloquently express their past, that place where they have just been. Because this is the other thing about immigrants (‘fugees, émigrés, travellers): they cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow” (Smith, 2000, p. 466).
Bibliography:
Achebe, Ch., 1977. An Image of Africa. In: Richter, D.H. (ed.), 2000. Falling into theory. Conflicting views on reading literature. Boston / New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. pp. 323-333
Head, D., 2003. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth: Multiculturalism for the Millenium. In: Lane, R.J. (ed.), 2003. Contemporary British Fiction. Cambridge: Polity. pp. 106-119
Kureishi, H., 1990. The Buddha of Suburbia. London: Faber and Faber.
Moss, L., 2003. The Politics of Everyday Hybridity. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. In: Wasafiri. Vol. 39, Issue 6. pp. 11-17. http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/muana/zadiehybridity. pdf, 11.9.2006. Available on Internet.
Smith, Z., 2000. White Teeth. London: Penguin Books.
Tiffin, H., 1995. Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse. In: Ashcroft, B., G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin (eds.). 1995. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge. pp. 95-98
Williams, B.T. “A State of Perpetual Wandering”: Diaspora and Black British Writers. htttp://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v3i3/willia.htm, 12.5. 2006. Available on Internet.
An interview with Zadie Smith. www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ teeth/ei_smith_int.html, 11.9. 2006. Available on Internet.
