Zadie Smith White Teeth Analysis

One of the most probing and controversial facets of humanity is the discord in belief concerning the autonomy - or lack thereof - that man has over his future. Society widely accepts that destiny hinges on a determining entity who guides people on their various paths, but dissension arises from the different theories of the identity of that determining entity. Ideologies range from a belief in a higher power who commands his or her subjects to the idea that individuals meander through life with no defined purpose to the concept of an arbitrary force that pushes and pulls people through life in a series of random, whimsical movements that may or may not lead to a greater end goal. This arbitrary force has many different names and connotations

One woman in particular, Zadie Smith, uses her novel as a sounding board for a variety of topics concerning the complexities and apparent irrationality of human behavior. In particular, she explores the idea of the idea of the ordinary. This novel contains a sequence of events that range from the mundane to the fantastical, and Smith presents them all from the same matter-of-fact viewpoint. Smith uses the men, women, and children in this novel to show a full spectrum of different behaviors and personal characteristics. The novel White Teeth boasts a wide cast of characters with questionable motives and convoluted decision making skills, but one man corners the market in terms of allowing chance and ordinariness to commandeer his life: Archie Jones, the coin tosser. Whereas a vast majority of humanity - fiction and nonfiction alike - strive for recognition and outstanding identities, Archie is content to go wherever the coin may flip him. Archie manages the feat of almost anonymous mediocrity with the ease of a man who has spent his entire adult life carefully navigating borders between skill and ineptitude, achievement and failure, and intelligence and stupidity. He does not choose his path of ordinariness through careful thought and consideration, though. Archie primarily allows chance to govern his choices, and chance is manifested through a ten-pence coin that he flips and whose guidance he follows with an almost religious conviction. But Archie retains a small sense of autonomy due to the fact that he occasionally makes decisions without consulting chance. In these cases, Archie deviates from the path of determined mediocrity and ventures into actions that are noteworthy, if not necessarily