Crisis Integrity in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth

Abstract

It is the nature of human mind to go in search of fresh woods and pastures new.” (Milton, Lycidas). The word ‘diaspora’ refers to people who leave their traditional homelands either by choice or by chance. The word is of Greek origin, which means ‘scattering’. Like seeds, the people spread all over the world without bothering about their own culture and tradition. Diaspora is the dominant element in White Teeth. Zadie Smith’s first novel White Teeth has been analyzed as an example of the diverse and multicultural society of the present day city of London. This paper analyses its characters’ experiences as immigrants of different generations and various ethnic backgrounds in London, explores the conflicts that some of these immigrants undergo in search of identity, locate how the process of immigration and settlement in a First World country like Britain might offer possibilities of redefinition of selfhood which shall be contextualized by the novel White Teeth (2000) by Zadie Smith. Moreover, the paper highlights how the multicultural society in which the characters inhabit physical as well as the cultural displacement undergo due to mental trauma immigration of plural and fluid identities.