"Oh damn, another leaflet? Damn, you can't move - pardon my French - but you can't move for leaflets to Norf London these days” (373). Flyers, brochures, letters, and other forms of publication and circulation are recurring motifs in White Teeth (much to the chagrin of people like Abdul-Mickey), and Zadie Smith explores the humorous and poignant results of her characters' struggles to communicate. Smith's characters have causes, and throughout his narrative they vainly and comically attempt to impose their own beliefs on others, refute the beliefs of others, and convert others to the correct way of thinking . Leaflets and other forms of publication are the tools they use to proliferate their ideologies and - as Ryan Topps tells Marcus Chalfen: "Me and you are at war. There can only be one winner " - there is only room for one correct interpretation. 421). It is not surprising that these attempts at proselytization backfire and ultimately fail. In Smith's world, ideology is the cause of his characters' most contentious differences and their most inflexible Manichean prejudices. Smith is not implying that ideology is a negative thing, but rather that attempting to exhort one's individual beliefs to others is a waste of energy, because everyone has a different interpretation of the truth which varies according to their own experiences, stories and ideals. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In White Teeth, ideological circulation is literally circular, as the vast majority of people are too stubborn to even listen to the opinions of others, much less change their own belief systems. The inflexible and almost fanatical nature of the belief, as well as the relentless need of different factions to make their opinions known regardless of the outcome, reveal that something in the ideology resists reality, that common sense does not translate in the world of creed. Even the letters seem to have been composed more for the addresser than the recipient. Horst Ibelgaufts frequently sends letters to Archie Jones detailing mundane and random events in his life (which Archie probably doesn't like to hear), from "I'm building a crude velodrome" (13) to "I'm taking the harp" ( 14). ) to “each of my children has a vase of peonies on their windowsill” (163). Ibelgaufts also repeatedly offers Archie unsolicited advice and anecdotes from his own life that only he understands and, as a result, his letters sound like writing on a brick wall. Furthermore, when Marcus and Magid write, it seems as if they are addressing mirror images of themselves, vainly reflecting their shared ideas. Marcus: "You think like me. You're precise. I like that." Magid: “You said it so well and expressed my thoughts better than I ever could.” Clearly, if Marcus and Magid did not think so much alike, there could never be "such a successful fusion of two people from ink and paper despite the distance between them" (304). Smith's characters have an insatiable urge to communicate, but more often than not, communication fails because there is no mutual or reciprocal response. Communication is most effective, as in the case of Marcus and Magid, when it does not question anything, when it simply confirms previous beliefs. Why, then, do people feel the need to advertise even when no one wants to listen? Smith writes:“[Samad] rather had the desire, the need to speak to everyone and, like the ancient sailor, to constantly explain himself, to constantly want to reaffirm something, anything. Wasn’t that important” (49)? Perhaps, as Smith seems to suggest, people have a heightened sense of their own importance. Because Hortense believes that her daughter Clara is "the child of the Lord, Hortense's miracle baby" (28), she forces Clara to "help her with canvassing, administration, speech writing and all the varied affairs of the church of Jehovah's Witnesses… This child's work was only beginning” (29). For Hortense, “these neighbors, those who did not listen to your warnings… will die on that day when their bodies, if they are lined up side by side, extend three hundred times around the earth and on their charred remains the true witnesses of the Lord will walk alongside him. -The Clarion Bell, issue 245" (28). None of Smith's characters have the slightest suspicion that they might be wrong, and even in the face of contrary evidence, they persist in their dogma. When the world does not don't stop there January 1, 1914, 1925 or 1975, Hortense still believes that the Lambeth branch of Jehovah's Witnesses will correctly identify the exact date of the Apocalypse Even when Samad violates one Islamic tenet after another, he remains convinced that. one is the other. One day he will be a good Muslim The importance of Smith's characters is the fuel of the ideological fire, the impetus behind the circulation of their beliefs. Regardless of the fact that they preach like broken records, Smith is fully aware of the circuitous and ineffective nature of the gospel “The other problem with Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah, perhaps the biggest problem, was. his great affection for tautology Although he promised explanations, elucidations and expositions, linguistically he was reminiscent of a dog chasing its own tail” (388). The dogma adheres most strongly to those, like Ryan Topps, who "didn't move, not an inch." But hey, that had always been his talent; he had a mono-intelligence, an ability to cling to a single idea with phenomenal tenacity, and he never found anything that suited him as well as the Church of Jehovah's Witnesses” (421). In White Teeth, it appears that preaching and believing are inextricably linked - as if the more one preaches, the stronger their beliefs become and the more they come to believe their opinions to be true. Bombarded by leaflets from all directions, Smith's characters need to make their own ideas known so that their voices are not false. submerged, consumed or erased. Publication – the act of putting an idea on paper – is an attempt at permanence, the small assurance that the idea will exist for as long as the publication circulates. History is not the truth, but rather history. who survives. “History was a different affair...taught with one eye on the narrative, the other on the drama, however improbable or chronologically inaccurate” (211). By making their beliefs known, Smith's characters attempt to make their individual marks. the history of ideas. Like Samad, who writes "IQBAL" in blood on a bench because, as he says, "I wanted to write my name in the world." That means I presumed” (418), Smith’s characters all suffer from anxiety over their own historical inconsistency. Upon finding his father's name, Millat scoffs at his father's small contribution, thinking, "It simply meant that you are nothing... a man who had spent eighteen years in a foreign country and did not had left no more mark than this” (419). Samad wholeheartedly believes that his ancestor Mangal Pande is a hero, but Archie disagrees, arguing:.