White Teeth
Zadie Smith (2000)
“A riotously funny, heartbreaking novel about two families, three generations, and the question of whether any of us can ever escape where we came from.”
Character Analysis
The novel's most underestimated character. Archie is passive, uneducated, and guided by coin flip — and he is also the most morally functional person in the book. He doesn't impose his will on history; he responds to what's in front of him. His randomness is not stupidity but a refusal to believe his preferences should govern reality. His instinct to throw himself in front of a bullet is not heroism but habit — the same habit that maybe saved Perret's life in 1945. Smith loves Archie more than she loves anyone else in the book.
Minimal, declarative, ending in coin flips. Archie doesn't explain himself because he doesn't have a theory of himself.