THE GREY IMPRESSIONS OF IDENTITY CRISES ON SECOND GENERATION IMMIGRANTS’ SELVES: A POSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF ZADIE SMITH’S WHITE TEETH

Abstract

The present study examines diasporic identity crises experienced by second-generation immigrants in White Teeth by exploring how these crises are intergenerationally transmitted. Drawing on the Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of Third Space, the current study interprets the framework as a lived experience of the second-generation immigrant characters who are caught between the pull of their parental cultural heritage and the assimilative pressures of British society, rendering them unable to fully define the sense of self. The paper materializes the theoretical notion of liminality which Bhabha terms as Third Space through the second-generation characters Irie, Majid, and Millat. Using an interpretive qualitative approach, the study analyzes the lives of children of World War II veterans and elaborates on the struggles to negotiate identity and social acceptance from their childhood to adulthood, drawing on events and encounters that shaped their perspective towards identity. Although, the characters initially attempt to assimilate into the dominating British culture either by mimicry or adopting British social mannerism, ultimately ends up building a hybrid, liminal identity that reflects neither complete Britishness nor the pure ancestral culture. The study highlights the novel’s significance as a post-colonial literary excerpt that navigates the complexities of identity creation within the complex topography of multicultural Britain. The conclusion presents that these second-generation characters exhibit Third Space, understanding individual identities as fluid, ever evolving, always negotiable, and situated in an ongoing process of becoming instead of a stable and fixed identity.