White Teeth Chapters 13–15 Summary & Analysis

Chapters 13–15

Summary: Chapter 13, The Root Canals of Hortense Bowden

Clara distrusts the Chalfens and their project to educate Irie, partly because of the Bowden family history with English education. In this flashback chapter, Captain Charlie Durham, an Englishman, impregnates Ambrosia Bowden, Clara’s grandmother, when Ambrosia is an adolescent. Captain Durham also insists on educating Ambrosia. Then Durham leaves Jamaica and turns Ambrosia over to his friend Sir Edmund Flecker Glenard. Sir Edmund, offended at Ambrosia’s pregnancy, sends her on to a Christian lady, who introduces Ambrosia to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Ambrosia’s child, Hortense Bowden, is born on January 14, 1907. Ambrosia is walking down Market Street when she meets Sir Edmund Glenard. Sir Edmund takes Ambrosia into a church and starts fondling her. Just then the earth begins to shake. A statue of the Madonna falls on Sir Edmund and crushes him. Ambrosia’s water breaks, and she gives birth to Hortense.

Captain Durham returns to Jamaica and searches for Ambrosia, intending to marry her. However, the U.S. ships that are rescuing Jamaicans will not give passage to Black people. In addition, Ambrosia refuses to sail away with Captain Durham. Ambrosia stays in Jamaica because she expects that the end of the world will come soon.

Summary: Chapter 14, More English than the English

Marcus Chalfen becomes pen pals with Magid Iqbal. Magid lives in Bangladesh, where his father sent him to avoid contamination by the West. Despite his father’s efforts, Magid has become a convert to Western science, especially genetic engineering. Magid writes admiring letters to Marcus, who responds with equally gushing compliments. Marcus plans to bring Magid to England and help him get a university education so that Magid can help with Marcus’s FutureMouse project.

Meanwhile, the Chalfens continue helping Millat and Irie. Millat gets ever more confident in his ability to charm Joyce, who becomes more infatuated with Millat the more badly he behaves. Irie serves as Marcus’s part-time secretary. In that capacity, she reads the letters between Marcus and Magid. One letter from Marcus talks about Irie’s breasts and describes her limited scientific ability. Marcus cruelly suggests that Irie might become a dentist and fix her teeth. Irie is hurt, but she decides on dentistry as a career.

Before going to university, Irie wants to travel to Africa like her friend Joshua Chalfen, to experience places other than their London suburb. Irie invades her parents’ bedroom late at night to repeat her request, only to discover, to her horror, that her mother wears false teeth. In shock, and upset that her mother has kept this secret from her, Irie packs a bag and leaves the house. She takes a bus to the home of her grandmother Hortense.

Summary: Chapter 15, Chalfenism versus Bowdenism

Irie moves into Hortense’s apartment for a few weeks. She sleeps on the couch because the spare bedroom belongs to her grandmother’s companion, Ryan Topps. Ryan was Clara’s boyfriend before she married Archie. Now “Mr. Topps” is a devout Jehovah’s Witness and heavily involved in the affairs of Brooklyn Hall. The church’s current concern is to establish the correct date for the end of the world. Hortense and Ryan spend their remaining days doing the Lord’s work. Irie spends her days studying for her university entrance exams.

Irie goes to the Chalfens’ house twice a week to help Marcus with his paperwork. She has only brief conversations with Millat, who is now involved with his Islamist group. Joshua is avoiding his family. Irie spends weekends with Archie and Clara but is always glad to return to her grandmother. She looks through family photographs and learns about Ambrosia and Captain Durham, her Black and white great-grandparents. Irie daydreams about Jamaica.

One day Joshua visits Irie at Hortense’s house. He now fervently believes in the cause of animal rights and belongs to FATE, or Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation. Joshua is now in rebellion against his father because of Marcus’s FutureMouse experiments. Another visitor to Irie is Samad, who is frantic because he and Alsana have not seen Millat for three weeks. Hortense and Ryan learn that the end of the world will be New Year’s Eve, 1999.

Analysis: Chapters 13–15

The story continues to focus on Irie and her trajectory toward success while contrasting Irie with Millat and his journey toward potential disaster. Both Irie and Millat were born in England and represent their families’ hopes for assimilation, but the teenagers must still struggle with being outsiders. Both Irie and Millat are now protégés of the Chalfens, a fact that brings mixed feelings to their parents. The parents see their children becoming more British and fear that their children are growing apart from them.

The liberal, intellectual Chalfens exhibit the same patronizing racial attitudes as the British colonialists who educated Clara’s Jamaican and the Iqbals’ Bengali ancestors. Clara’s white grandfather seduced his young Black maid Ambrosia and then insisted on educating her before passing her on to another white man. Another British do-gooder, the woman who rescues the pregnant Ambrosia, introduces Ambrosia to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ambrosia passes the faith down to her daughter, Hortense, who insists that her daughter, Clara, help prepare for the end of the world. British education is thus responsible for the cult that (in Clara’s mind) ruined her adolescence.

The Chalfens take similar advantage of the Iqbal twins. When Joyce takes up Millat’s case, she showers him with loans, gifts, and attention and encourages all his worst behavior. Then Marcus takes up Magid’s case and showers Alsana’s other son with lavish compliments and attention. The mutual admiration in the letters between Magid and Marcus borders on romantic passion, suggesting that the sexual jealousy of Joyce and Millat is behind Marcus’s overtures to Magid. In any case, Marcus is soon offering to educate Magid. Like other British educators before him, Marcus expects something in return. Marcus needs a disciple. To the reader, it is obvious that both Joyce and Marcus need power.

The satirical narrator’s voice reveals the racism and sexism of Joyce’s analysis of Millat’s “issues.” Joyce speculates that Millat might have a slave mentality, a form of low self-esteem due to his skin color being darker than his mother’s. According to Joyce, this mindset accounts for Millat’s obsession with white women. The satire is also effective in describing Millat’s gradual conversion to the cause of KEVIN (Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation). Millat does not have time to read KEVIN pamphlets because he is too busy seducing white women or imagining the seduction of black-clad Muslim women. He discusses women with his father and with other members of KEVIN. All the men take patriarchal values for granted. Women are objects for men’s pleasure, not human beings to be taken seriously. Millat’s sexist contempt makes Joyce’s racist benevolence look pathetic.

Although Irie is still in love with Millat, she is more mature and well-adjusted than he is, largely because of the differences in their families. Millat’s family is torn apart, with his twin brother in Bangladesh and his mother barely speaking to his father. In contrast, Irie’s parents, Clara and Archie, concentrate on getting along, reinventing themselves, making peace, and making do. When Irie reads a letter from Marcus to Magid that contains cruel comments about Irie becoming a dentist, she is naturally hurt. Then she picks herself up and recognizes that dentistry would indeed be a good career. The narrator’s voice in describing Irie’s decisions is still satirical, but the satire is much gentler. Interestingly, Irie talks herself out of her hurt over Marcus’s betrayal but then is so upset by stepping on Clara’s false teeth that she leaves home. For Irie, her mother has kept far too much from her.

Issues of racism, assimilation, purpose, and patriarchal power all emerge during Irie’s protracted stay with her grandmother. Hortense is absurd in many ways, with her history of shifting beliefs about the end of the world, her strange folk remedies, and her sleazy sidekick Mr. Topps (aka Ryan). However, Hortense is also a person of some dignity because of her age and history of resilience. During Irie’s sojourn with Hortense, the reader discovers that Clara’s resentment over religion, more than Hortense’s prejudices over race, has kept Irie and her grandmother apart. Archie, it turns out, often secretly brought Irie to visit her grandmother during the years when Clara was taking college courses. Clara emerges as ambitious and disciplined, and Archie emerges as the family peacemaker. The most positive result of Irie’s stay with Hortense is Irie’s new sense of connection to her Jamaican roots.

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