Zadie Smith’s White Teeth: The Interpellation of the Colonial Subject in Multicultural Britain
by Sercan Hamza Bağlama
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Zadie Smith’s White Teeth: The Interpellation of the Colonial Subject in Multicultural Britain
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About This Book
An academic article that analyzes Zadie Smith’s novel ‘White Teeth’ (2000) through a Marxist and postcolonial lens. The author introduces the theoretical concept of ‘double alienation’ to explain how immigrant characters experience simultaneous marginalization due to both their working-class status and their identity as colonial subjects in the British ‘colonial center.’
Key Insights
What if you woke up one day and realized that the very language you speak, the clothes you wear, and the God you pray to are all tools you are using to hide from a society that refuses to truly see you? Imagine a world where your identity is a battleground between who you are and who you are forced to become just to survive.
In *Zadie Smith’s White Teeth: The Interpellation of the Colonial Subject in Multicultural Britain*, author Sercan Hamza Bağlama argues that immigrants in Britain suffer from “double alienation”—they are trapped by both the poverty of their working-class lives and the invisible weight of being outsiders in a former colonial empire. Simply put, these characters are struggling to find a home in a country that treats them like ghosts.
Bağlama, an academic deeply invested in the intersection of postcolonial identity and Marxism, meticulously maps how characters like Samad and Millat Iqbal navigate this impossible landscape. He highlights their desperate “escape mechanisms.” At one point, the author writes, “These characters exist in a zone of nonbeing.” This matters because it captures the psychological hollow left by systemic exclusion—the feeling that one has no solid ground to stand on.
Whether it is Magid attempting to erase his heritage by mimicking the British elite, or Millat embracing religious militancy to demand the visibility he is denied, their actions are reactive. Critics might argue that these characters have agency and choose their paths freely, but Bağlama counters that their “resistance” is merely a performance—one that ultimately reinforces the very colonial hierarchies they wish to dismantle.
Is there any true escape from this cycle of self-erasure, or are these characters destined to remain shadows in their own lives? This work is a piercing look at the cost of belonging. It is a vital read for anyone wanting to understand why the immigrant experience is so often a fractured, beautiful, and heartbreaking journey toward an identity that remains just out of reach.