Hybridity In The White Teeth: The Post-war Immigrants' Social And Cultural Dilemmas In Britain And The Possible Solution

The thesis, with the help of post-colonial theory, makes a study of the social and cultural dilemmas, with which the old and new generations of non-white British immigrants are faced, after the Second World War as well as in the contemporary time of multiculturalism and globalization, as is fully reflected in Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth. Based on analysis of immigrants'social and cultural dilemmas, this thesis further argues that White Teeth proposes racial hybridism and multiculturalism as the solution for such dilemmas, as well as the means for the immigrants to regain their self-identity and sense of belonging.In order to solve labor shortage after World War Two, British government adopted an easy immigration policy to attract immigrants from Commonwealth countries, but colored immigrants conflicted with original white British citizens, and met various social and cultural dilemmas in the mainstream of British culture. Zadie Smith is just a descendent of the first generation of post-war immigrants and her White Teeth reflects immigrants' dilemmas in British society.After WWII, the first generation of non-white immigrants rushed into Britain. They were not completely accepted into the mainstream of British society, but put into marginalized social dilemmas. In the novel, they survive in social cracks, and cope with it in different ways. They have various causes for these social dilemmas, and react differently to them. Their varied reactions also cause respective consequences.The second generation of non-white immigrants grows up in the mainstream culture of Great Britain, but they are still caught up in the cultural dilemma between traditional culture of their own races and the modern western culture, undergoing a sense of cultural marginalization and exclusion, losing themselves in pursuit and struggle for their own cultural identity.The new generation of non-white immigrants handles such cultural dilemma in different ways. With Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridity, their various reactions are analyzed in details:one is the pursuit of total westernization in hope of melting into the white cultural society of the West; the other is the return to reality and pursuit of their own traditional culture in hope of settling this cultural dilemma. However, both ways prove to be fruitless. They are neither accepted wholly nor noticed greatly, as they are still different to the mainstream society of the West and excluded from the mainstream discourse.However, in contemporary British society, the tendency of interracial hybridism and multiculturalism has become increasingly influential. In the new era of 21st century, this trend will become inevitable with today's new immigration wave and the movement of globalization. The typical characters representing this trend in White Teeth are deeply analyzed and the tendency of racial hybrid is carefully discussed. Then, it is argued that hybridity and multiculturalism are the solution for the immigrants'dilemmas.The conclusion of the thesis is that in modern society, with the increase of immigration and globalization of economy and culture, the cultural and racial hybridity is even more inevitable with the development of multiculturalism, which gradually becomes a tendency and will probably develop into a way of settling the ethnic disputes.