"Oh fuck, another leaflet? You can't fucking move, pardon my French, but you can't move for leaflets in North London these days " (373). Flyers, pamphlets, letters, and other forms of publication and dissemination are recurring motifs in White Teeth (much to the annoyance of people like Abdul-Mickey), and Zadie Smith explores the humorous and touching results of her characters' communication difficulties. Smith's characters have causes, and throughout his narrative they futilely and comically attempt to impose their beliefs on others, refute the beliefs of others, and convert others to the correct way of thinking. Flyers and other forms of publications are the tools they use to proliferate their ideologies, and - as Ryan Topps declares to Marcus Chalfen, "You and I are at war. There can only be one winner" - there is only room for one interpretation correct ( 421). Not surprisingly, these attempts to proselytize backfire and are ultimately unsuccessful. In Smith's world, ideology is the culprit responsible for the most contentious differences between his characters and their most inflexible Manichaean prejudices. Smith is not implying that ideology is a bad thing, but rather that attempting to exhort one's individual beliefs onto others is a waste of energy, because everyone has a different interpretation of the truth that varies depending on their own experiences, histories, and ideals. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In White Teeth, ideological circulation is literally circular, because the vast majority of people are too stubborn to even listen to the opinions of others, much less alter their own belief systems. The inflexible and almost fanatical nature of the faith, as well as the tireless need of different factions to publicize their opinions regardless of the outcome, reveals that something in ideology resists reality, that common sense does not carry over to the world of belief. The letters also seem to be written more for the recipient than for the recipient. Horst Ibelgaufts often sends letters to Archie Jones detailing banal and casual events in his life (which Archie undoubtedly doesn't care to hear), from "I'm building a rude velodrome" (13) to "I'm taking up the harp." (14 ) to «each of my children has a vase of peonies on the windowsill» (163). Ibelgaufts repeatedly offers Archie unsolicited advice and anecdotes from his life that only he understands, and as a result, his letters seem like they were written on a brick wall. Furthermore, when Marcus and Magid write, they seem to be addressing mirror images of themselves, reflecting their shared ideas in vain. Marcus: "You think like me. You're precise. I like it." Magid: “You say it so well and express my thoughts better than I ever could.” Clearly, if Marcus and Magid did not think so alike, there could never be "such a successful fusion of two people made of ink and paper, despite the distance between them" (304). Smith's characters have an insatiable desire to communicate, but more often than not the communication fails because there is no mutual or reciprocal response. Communication is more successful, as in the case of Marcus and Magid, when it does not question anything, when it simply confirms previously held beliefs. Why, then, do people feel the need to advertise even when no one is listening? Smith writes: “[Samad] had instead the urge, the need, to speak to every man and, like the Ancient Mariner, to constantly explain, constantly wanting to reaffirm something, anything.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 Lord's daughter, Hortense's miracle child" (28), she forces Clara to "help her with door calls, administration, speech writing, and all the various affairs of the Jehovah's Witnesses church... This child's work had just begun" (29). who did not heed your warnings... will die on that day when their bodies, if lined up side by side, will stretch three hundred times around the earth and on their charred remains the true Witnesses of the Lord will walk alongside it. -The Clarion Bell, number 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 continue to persist in their dogma. When the World Doesn't End January 1, 1914, 1925 or 1975, Hortense still has faith that the Lambeth branch of Jehovah's Witnesses will correctly identify the exact date of the Apocalypse. Even when Samad breaks one Islamic tenet after another, she continues to believe that, one day he will be a good Muslim. The self-importance of Smith's characters is the fuel for the ideological fire, the impetus behind their dissemination of beliefs. If Smith's characters do not realize that they preach like broken records, Smith is fully aware of its nature tortuous 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. While it promised explanation, elucidation, and exposition, linguistically it sounded like a dog chasing its tail" (388). Dogma holds more strongly to those, like Ryan Topps, who "haven't budged an inch. But then that had always been his talent; he had monointelligence, the ability to hold on to a single idea with phenomenal tenacity, and he never found anything that suited it as well as the church of Jehovah's Witnesses" (421). In White Teeth, it seems that preaching and believing are inextricably linked: as if the more they preach, the stronger their beliefs become and the more they come to believe that their opinions are true, bombarded by leaflets from all sides, Smith's characters need to publicize their ideas so that their voices are not immersed, consumed or erased. Publishing – the act of putting an idea on paper – is an attempt at permanence, the small insurance that the idea will exist as long as the publication is in circulation. The story is not truth, but rather history “History was a different matter…taught with one eye on narrative, the other on drama, no matter how improbable or chronologically imprecise” (211). who writes “IQBAL” in blood on a bench because, as he says, “I wanted to write my name in the world. Meaning “I presumed” (418), all of Smith's characters suffer from anxiety over their own historical inconsequence. After finding his father's name, Millat scoffs at his father's small contribution, thinking, "It simply means that you are nothing... a man who had spent eighteen years in a foreign land and had left no more mark. of this" (419). Samad wholeheartedly believes that his ancestor Mangal Pande is a hero, but Archie disagrees, arguing, "Okay, then: Pande. What has he achieved? Nothing" (213)! Although every book except one describes Pande as a military traitor, Samad chooses to believe the one "bound in a tan skin and covered in light dust denoting something incredibly precious" which states that the little-known Mangal Pande "succeeded in throwing the foundations of the Independence which will be won in 1947"-in 1857 (215)..