LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Film Highlight 2008

Thursday, 3 April: begin Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (25-86; up to "The Journal"); Ian Watt, "Robinson Crusoe, Individualism, and the Novel" (handout)

·                    film highlight: White Teeth (part 2)

presenter: Allison Coyle

White Teeth Part Two: Allison Coyle

White Teeth is a film set in the multi-cultural city of Willesden, England between the years of 1974 and 1992. As you saw in part one, this film follows the lives of two families, the Jones family which consists of a white Londoner, Archie Jones, who meets a young black Jamaican girl, Clara, on New Years Eve and they marry not long after. Then there are the Iqbals. Samad is the head of the Iqbal family who has come to Britain from Bangladesh to marry his chosen wife, Alsana. Not long after, both couples have children. The Joneses have a daughter, Irie, and the Iqbals have two twin sons, Magid and Millat.

In part one of White Teeth Samad is torn between his two children when he has to make the decision as to which son he will send back to Bangladesh to be brought up in his native Islamic culture. Unknown to his wife he plots a kidnapping scheme with his pal Archie and they send young Magid back to Bangladesh to escape the desires of the Western world, only to leave his twin brother behind to embrace the “sins” of the Western world. As fate has it, Millat (the twin who stayed behind) has discovered radical Islam within Britain, while his brother Magid has taken on the life of colonial Britain, in Bangladesh.

Scene 1: In this first scene Millat is on his way to sell some weed to one of his fathers co-workers. Instead he gets a little more than he bargained for...

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Scene 2: In this second scene Alsana and Samad have just received a video tape in the mail from their other son, Magid, whom they haven’t seen or heard from since he was sent back to Bangladesh to live the Islamic way of life. Pay close attention to Samad’s face, it’s priceless.

Often immigrants flee their homeland in hopes for a better way of life. They have big dreams of freedom, wealth, and a fresh start. The reality that soon sets in for most is that of slavery to a minimum wage job--not freedom, poverty--not wealth, and a yearning for a familiar face in a community full of strangers. All Samad ever wanted was to shield his children from the corruption of the West. Yet, did you hear what Millat said in his video...

“It is to the West we now turn for true enlightenment. A point my baby brother can appreciate since he had been able to enjoy the privilege of a British education.”

Question 1: Put yourself in Samad’s shoes. In the beginning of part two of this film there is a scene where Samad has met Irie and they are having a conversation about Millat in his car. He says

“What can I do? How do I get through to him? All I ever wanted was two good Muslim boys. Is that too much to ask for? I always meant to go back, yah know. I mean, who would want to stay? Cold, wet, and miserable. Rotten food. Awful newspapers. A place where you are never welcome, only tolerated. Then suddenly years passed and you cannot return. Your children are strangers. You belong nowhere.”

For many parents all they want is for their children to be happy and successful in whatever it is they chose to do with their lives. Then there are those like Samad, who were raised in a certain mindset that is past down from generation to generation. Do you think that if Samad, knowing what he knows now of Magid’s fate, could turn back time he would have still sent Magid to Bangladesh or just kept him in England?

Question 2: How does this common theme of “temptation” and loss of identity compare with that of Jasmine? Do you think that these feelings of “unwantedness” linger within the thoughts of U.S. immigrants?

Instructor's question:

I appreciate Allison's shifting from issues of colonialism to those of immigration.

How much may immigration issues force awareness of colonialism or postcolonialism? Or do immigration issues become so "domestic" that international issues fade?

How to coordinate colonialism and immigration?

This summer's grad course in American Immigrant Literature