"Politically correct" themes in nice work and white teeth

Political correctness is a very contradictory notion. Sometimes it seems like the smoke of a fire as its boundaries are blurred and one can’t be sure if it exists or not. British linguist Geoffrey Hughes writes:

There even developed a side debate as to whether political correctness really existed or was the invention of its opponents. There are those who claim that political correctness was a chimera or imaginary monster created by some on the Right of the political spectrum to discredit those who wished to change the status quo [Hughes 2010: 61].

Still despite such opinions PC not only exists but manifests itself in ideology, social life, behaviour, politics, linguistic usages, culture of modern western societies. Being a complex and disputable thing political correctness is defined differently by various sources. Generalizing various definitions the following could be given. Political correctness is a multifaceted phenomenon which can reveal itself as a cultural concept, social ideology, code of behaviour, linguistic category aimed at avoiding discrimination and fighting with discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, health (diseases and disability), social position (class), profession, appearance, culture, religion, addiction, criminal behaviour, species (protection of animal rights and environment). It should be mentioned that the movement of political correctness appeared in the western world in the 1970s and 1980s as one more way of dealing with the key social and cultural problems of the western world. But the attitude of society towards PC hasn’t been stable during the period from the 1980s up to nowadays. At the beginning PC was regarded rather positively, but in the course of time it has discredited itself with sometimes silly, humourless and unnecessarily rigid regulations of language use and behaviour. That is why the term “politically correct” is often used in a mocking way, though the questions which PC was called to solve are still treated very seriously.

These problems are urgent for the western world. And Britain is not an exception. Since literature reflects the reality in which authors live (“Literature provides a valuable and variable lens on society, since the creativity of literary artists operates in a continuum between realism and fantasy, between the conventional and the subversive” [Hughes 2010: 296]), then works by contemporary British authors inevitably will reflect these themes or maybe it would be more correct to say these themes will be reflected in contemporary British literature. This article aims to look at how they are represented in the novels Nice Work (by David Lodge) and White Teeth (by Zadie Smith). The alteration of society’s attitude towards political correctness and the changes with the questions touched by this phenomenon should be regarded while analyzing the novels. Nice Work was created at the end of the 1980s and though White Teeth was written in 2000 the events with which it deals take place over several decades and some date back to the 1980s, too. In the 1980s the issues to which ‘political correctness’ was a response were very topical and the problems of the rights of women and black minorities were very urgent. Nowadays the fight for their rights has already achieved some success.

In Nice Work and White Teeth questions of race and colour, women’s rights, redefinition of the perception of God as a male being, etc have a twofold representation which may be a result of the change of attitude towards political correctness in society. On the one hand, sometimes humorous, ironic and even satirical attitude to the topics which were regarded as politically correct is realized in the plot of the novels, on the other hand, these subjects are represented so seriously that they become inseparable from the main idea of the work interweaving deeply in the structure of the plot becoming hard for recognizing. For instance, White Teeth which Will May called ‘the multi-cultural novel’ [May 2010: 18] is a literary work about the problem in race relations which political correctness was called to solve.

In Nice Work themes of women’s rights and rights of minorities are revealed first of all in the image of university lecturer, staunch feminist, representative of intellectual elite Robyn Penrose who lives and works in the fictional city of Rummidge. Her correctness is more brightly highlighted when it collides with the incorrect (really incorrect or in Robyn’s understanding incorrect) attitude of the surrounding people. In fact Robyn is a person who is for tolerance towards discriminated people - that is what ‘politically correct’ people were active in promoting at the beginning of its functioning. First of all, Robyn Penrose is an advocate of women’s rights. The theme of the protection of women’s rights is shown from two different angles (serious and ironic) in the novel. The narration is rather serious when it is told about Robyn’s life as a ‘thoroughly liberated ... woman’ [Lodge 1989: 155], who is rather relaxed in questions of sex, who doesn’t want her students to help her carry heavy books, who participates in Women’s Group at Cambridge. Through the description of Robyn’s field of scientific interests that include “women's writing, the representation of women in literature, feminist critical theory” [Lodge 1989: 114] the reference to real situations in the world of discourse is made so as to make readers understand that these spheres of investigation are in demand in British society. Very touching is the tone of the narration when Robyn speaks to her student Marion Russell who is going to model in underwear to earn fee for education. It makes readers share Robyn’s thoughts and sympathise with this girl.

The comic effect is achieved usually at the moments when

Robyn’s beliefs collide with the worldview of other characters who don’t share her opinions. For instance, one can feel the irony of the dialogue between Robyn and Moris Zapp:

‘Morris,’ he said, ‘this is Robyn Penrose, the girl I was telling you about”

‘Girl, Philip? Girl? Men have been castrated for less at Euphoric State. You mean woman. Or lady. Which do you prefer?’ he said to Robyn, as he shook her hand.

‘Person would be fine,’ said Robyn.

‘Person, right. Are you going to get this person a drink, Philip?’ [Lodge 1989: 323]

Communication between Robyn and Everthorpe in Vic Wilcox’s office when Robyn tries to explain to her interlocutor that it is sexual discrimination, “the exploitation of women’s bodies” to advertise products of the company with the photos of naked women which degrades women also makes readers at least smile if not laugh:

‘Do I understand that you're proposing to advertise your products with a calendar that degrades women?’

‘It won't degrade them, my dear, it will ...’ Everthorpe groped for a word.

‘Celebrate them?’ Robyn helped him out.

‘Exactly.’

‘Yes, I've heard that one before. But you are proposing to use pictures of naked women, or one naked woman - like the pin-ups that are plastered all over the factory?’

‘Well, yes, but classier. Good taste, you know. None of your Penthouse-style crotch shots. Just tit and bum.’ ‘What about a bit of prick and bum, too?’ said Robyn. Everthorpe looked satisfyingly taken aback. ‘Eh?’ he said. ‘Well, statistically, at least ten per cent of your customers must be gay. Aren't they entitled to a little porn too?’ ‘Ha, ha,’ Everthorpe laughed uneasily. ‘Not many queers in our line of business, are there, Vic?’ Wilcox, who was following this conversation with amused interest, said nothing.

‘Or what about the women who work in the offices where these calendars are stuck up?’ Robyn continued. ‘Why should they have to look at naked women all the time? Couldn't you dedicate a few months of the year to naked men? Perhaps you'd like to pose yourself, along with Tracey?’

Vic Wilcox guffawed.

Tm afraid you’ve got it wrong, darling,’ said Everthorpe, struggling to retain his poise. ‘Women aren't like that. They're not interested in pictures of naked men.’

T am,’ said Robyn. I like them with hairy chests and ten-inch pricks.’ Everthorpe gaped at her. ‘You're shocked, aren’t you? But you think it's perfectly all right to talk about women’s tits and bums and stick pictures of them up all over the place. Well, it isn’t all right. It degrades the women who pose for them, it degrades the men who look at them, it degrades sex’ [Lodge 1989: 141].

The theme of women’s rights and liberation overlaps with the reference to the attempts of modern redefinition of God which is revealed in the plot of the novel through Robyn’s perception of ‘Higher Power’ which for her, in my opinion, is a kind of semantic phenomenon:

‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘Not the patriarchal God of the bible. There are some rather interesting feminist theologians in America who are redefining God as female, but they can’t really get rid of all the metaphysical baggage of Christianity. Basically I suppose I think God is the ultimate floating signifier’ [Lodge 1989: 243].

The theme of tolerant attitudes towards the race question is also approached from different sides. Surely, Robyn is ‘sensitive to racial minorities’ [Lodge 1989: 101] and tries to protect their rights. For example, she does it while communicating with Vic Wilcox about the position of Asian and Caribbean workers at Pringle’s. She defines the fact that these people are bound to do the hardest and the dirtiest jobs at the factory without the hope of promotion as a racist one. But not all characters show the same attitude towards the problems of class and race. There are several revealing episodes in the novel showing the relations between black people and white people in Rummidge. One of them is when Vic Wilcox’s wife Marjorie and their daughter Sandra are sitting in a cafe and see three black young people standing in front of the cafe window. Looking at them Marjorie is drinking her cappuccino and remembers that there were again troubles in the district of Angleside, “the black ghetto of Rummidge, where youth unemployment is eighty per cent and rioting endemic”. But Sandra doesn’t pay attention to the black youths at all she is overwhelmed with shopping questions: ‘“Or maybe oyster’ says Sandra dreamily. ‘To go with my pink trousers’” [Lodge 1989: 75]. The windowpane in this episode is a metaphor of a border between the two worlds. The worlds that cannot overlap. The same is shown in the final part of the book when Robyn sees the episode with the gardener and students who ‘physically contiguous,... inhabit separate worlds’ and thinks that ‘it seems a very British way of handling differences of class and race’. [Lodge 1989: 384] But it is important that the novel ends with Robyn’s optimistic thoughts revealing her desire somehow to make the border vanish, maybe to open the window, to make the worlds penetrable from both sides. The last sentences

Remembering her Utopian vision of the campus invaded by the Pringle's workforce, Robyn smiles ruefully to herself. There is a long way to go. ‘All right,’ she says, turning back to Philip Swallow. Til stay on.’ [Lodge 1989: 384]

leave us optimistic and hopeful for the better future and maybe more just and nondiscriminatory world around us.

The same themes of race, women’s rights are touched upon in White Teeth but in this novel the topics of sexual orientation, culture, animal rights are added. And again we can trace the mockery towards the phenomenon of PC and serious attitude towards the problems it was called to solve. This makes the representation of the themes dual. The author clearly tries to make readers laugh representing the debate between Katie Miniver and Samad Iqbal about the usage of ‘Ms’ which is the politically correct form of address to divorced women whose ‘marital status shouldn’t be an issue’ [Smith 2001: 128-129]. The author continues being ironic speaking about the Harvest Festival which is the personification of the recognition of “a great variety of religious and secular events: amongst them, Christmas, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, the birthday of Haile Selassie, and the death of Martin Luther King”. [Smith 2001: 128-129] Such school activities are intended to develop children’s respect towards the culture of other nations, the representatives of racial minorities, to teach pupils how to be tolerant but those who organize this education of tolerance are themselves intolerant to Samad. The episodes of overt discrimination and hypocrisy are connected with Archie Jones’ colleagues. His boss says that he has ‘never considered himself a racialist’ [Smith 2001: 70] and then refuses to allow Archie to attend corporate parties because Archie’s wife is black. This episode describes the state of affairs in the 80s in the British society. Since then the perception of black minority became widespread and such cases with black people don’t commonly happen. As for the attitude towards Asian Muslims, the perception of this racial minority by the majority of population is relived in Millat’s thoughts about his position in the country where he lives:

He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he smelt of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people's jobs; or had no job and bummed off the state; or gave all the jobs to his relatives; that he could be a dentist or a shop-owner or a curry-shifter, but not a footballer or a film-maker; that he should go back to his own country; or stay here and earn his bloody keep; that he worshipped elephants and wore turbans; that no one who looked like Millat, or spoke like Millat, or felt like

Millat, was ever on the news unless they had recently been murdered. In short, he knew he had no face in this country, no voice in the country, until the week before last when suddenly people like Millat were on every channel and every radio and every newspaper and they were angry, and Millat recognized the anger, thought it recognized him, and grabbed it with both hands [Smith 2001:234].

It should be said that prejudice on the colour grounds is a characteristic of almost all personages of the novel despite their race or nationality. Being Jamaican Hortense was against the marriage of her daughter on an Englishman Archibald Jones ‘on grounds of colour rather than of age\[ Smith 2001: 47] Pakistani woman Alsana disliked ‘every minority’ though she ‘liked to single out one specimen for spiritual forgiveness’ [Smith 2001: 65]. The representation of a truly tolerant attitude can be found in the images of Poppy Burt Jones who not only pretends but really means it that it isn’t ‘nice to make fun of somebody else's culture’ [Smith 2001: 155] and Archie Jones who according to the words of his other colleague Maureen had a strange way ... about him, always talking to Pakistanis and Caribbeans like he didn't even notice and now he'd gone and married one and hadn't even thought it worth mentioning what colour she was until the office dinner when she turned up black as anything and Maureen almost choked on her prawn cocktail [Smith 2001: 69].

It seems that irony in White Teeth emerges when the author shows the double standards as with Joyce Chaifen in her attitude towards gay people as her attitude isn’t equal to gay men whom she likes and makes friends with and gay women whom she doesn’t understand and accept. Or Joely and Crispin, founders of FATE (‘Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation’) who had tried all radical far-left organisations and decided to start helping ‘mute animal friends’ not because of pity towards the fate of “animal companions”

and “free roaming animals” but because in the radical organisations people whose interests they protect “will so often organize a coup, bitch behind your back, choose another representative and throw it all back in your face” [Smith 2001: 478-479]. The description of Marcus Chaifen’s perception of such people is humorous:

On the flip side of the coin, the simplest biological facts, the structure of animal cells for instance were a mystery to all but fourteen-year-old children and scientists like himself; the former spending their time drawing them in class, the latter injecting them with foreign DNA. In between, or so it appeared to Marcus, flowed a great ocean of idiots, conspiracists, religious lunatics, presumptuous novelists, animal-rights activists, students of politics, and all the other breeds of fundamentalists who professed strange objections to his life’s work. In the past few months, since his FutureMouse© had gained some public attention, he had been forced to believe in these people, believe they actually existed en masse, and this was as hard for him as being taken to the bottom of the garden and told that here lived fairies [Smith 2001: 418].

The questions of race relations, equality of sexes, acceptance of alternative sexual orientation, recognition of the whole variety of cultures of multiple nationalities, protection of the environment and good treatment to animals are really very important topics and urgent problems of every civilised society. PC appeared as a new means to fight against these abuses through changing language. However, often this means has discredited itself with rigid policies in language use and behaviour. These core problems play a very serious role in modern mixed, multicultural societies nowadays, in ‘the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white’, ‘the century of the great immigrant experiment’ [Smith 2001: 326-327]. Solving these problems, defining social attitude to them is vital for the survival of humanity. Being sincerely, truly tolerant towards somebody who is different from you is only one tool, one suggestion of solving these problems, these tensions. When tolerance is only a mask in a society where one is watched to be politically correct, then we can speak about double standards. Showing such manifestations of PC the authors of Nice Work and White Teeth try to mock them out. The humorous representation of these problems may also have another function. As Will May writes in his article On the Multi-Cultural Novel, Zadie Smith, and Literary Origin “...humour diffuses or deflects many of the tensions of immigrant London...” [May 2010: 21]. Humour in the novels concerning the topics falling in the sphere of interests of political correctness may also be another tool of coping with the seriousness and pressing tension of these questions.