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BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK DIVIDED INTO 8 CHAPTER :
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Name: Trivedi Hezal K.
Roll No:
39
PG Reg. No. PG15101040
M.A. – English Regular, Semester-3
Year: 2016
Paper No. 11: The
Post-Colonial Literature
Unit-1: Black Skin, White Mask: Frantz Fanon (1952)
Assignments Topic- Black
Skin, White Mask: A general view
Submitted to: S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
(Gujarat – India)
Introduction of the writer:
“Colonialism is not
satisfied merely holding a people in it’s grip and emptying the natives brains
of all from and content. By a kind of perverted logic it turns to the past of
the oppressed people and distorts disfigures and destroys it”
-
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon was born
in 20th July, 1925 at Martinique (French colonial empire). He was
Afro – Caribbean psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and the French writer whose works are influential
in the field of post – colonial studies and Marxism. Fanon is best known for
the classic on decolonization. Although Fanon wrote Black Skin, White Mask
while still in France, most of his work was written in North Africa.
HIS CONTRIBUTION IN
LITERATURE AND CRITICISM ARE,-
1) Black
skin white mask - 1952
2) A
dying colonialism - 1959
3) Wretched
of the earth - 1961
4) Towards
the African revolution – 1964
INTRODUCTION OF “BLACK SKIN
WHITE MASK”:-
The story “Black skin white
mask” is from is from Frantz Fanon’s “Black skin white mask” Fanon analysis how
the black person feel in a white world they lose the originality of their
native culture and embrace imperial culture. Marechera’s story is about the
controversy between two students who are caught between local and imperial
cultures.
ABOUT THE BOOK BLACK SKIN
WHITE MASK:
“Black Skin White Mask” is a
book about the mindset of psychology of racism. The book is his doctoral
thesis, Fanon wrote to get his degree in psychiatry. This book is worth reading
since Fanon’s understanding of White French racism in early 1950 and it can
also helps to understand White American racism in the 2010s.
Black skin white mask is a study of the
psychology of racism and dehumanization inherent to colonial domination. Fanon
describes that Black people experience in the white world. Fanon talks about,
self – perception of the Black subject who was has lost his native cultural
origin, and embraced the culture of the mother country. He also talks about the
inferiority complex in the mind of the Black subject.
The book looks at what goes
through the minds of blacks and whites under the condition of white rule and
the strange effects of that in black people. The black man trapped in his
blackness, the white man in his whiteness, both trapped into their mutual and
aggressive narcissism.
“There are too many idiots
in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it”
-
Fanon, Black skin, White masks.
PSYCHOLOGY OF RACISM:
Intended for French
psychiatrists
Main points,
·
Black woman look down on own race, wish to be
white
·
Black men wish to be white, or at least prove
themselves equal to white men
·
Always black, never human
·
White people see black people as bodies, so
they appear mindless, sexual human beings
·
We’ll be talking about the cultural and
family identity
POST- COLONIALISM IN BLACK
SKIN, WHITE MASKS:
Black skin, white mask is a
postcolonial theory. Postcolonial theory is a generalized term used to describe
the variety of events that took place in the aftermath of decolonization
through various nations. The book looks at what goes through the minds of
blacks and whites under the condition of white rule and the strange effects
that has, especially on black people. His book Black skin, white masks explore
the effects upon colonialism.
Black skin white mask, Fanon argued that
colonialism dehumanized the native. This process was through that the black man
can see himself only as the black (mirror) image of the white man. The white
man is the master, and represents an object that is to be feared and desired.
The black therefore tries to be more like the white man / master. He puts on
‘White mask’.
Thus, the reflection of post
colonialism is shown through the many points of racism. The white man portraits
as superior class and have the power of rule over the other country and the
society. On the other sides the black man or the people always live under the
rule of white man. Even he doesn’t have any power to rule over the other
people.
“ Not only must the
black man be black in relation to the White man...the Blacks have had to deal
with two systems of reference...their customs were abolished because they were
in contradiction with a new system that imposed its own.” (90)
1. The Negro and Language ;-
In the first chapter,
“The Black Man and language”, Fanon shows that how language can present colonialism, how it can show mindset
of black and white people. He says,“The
Negro will become whiter-become more human-as he masters the white man’s
language”
He
explains it with example that, in Martinique, where Fanon grew, people
communicate with dialect Creole. But people saw French better than Creole. They
started feeling shame with their dialect. It is not because of scholarly
opinion but because of being under French rule. He noticed that people came
back educated from France, they act as if they no longer knew Creole and speak
perfect French. He noticed that, it is not because they want to be white
(because French is white’s language) or they think that white people are better
or something but to prove they are equal.
As
Fanon believes that, ‘To speak a language is appropriate its world and
culture’. As language is also part of culture, they (blacks), through
learning of their language, try to become culturally whiter.
2.
The Woman of Colour and
the White Man :-
The effect of white people
also touched to the society. Black Woman also wished the White Skin which White
woman has. So they wanted to be as white as White woman Here one can find that
how desire of “WHITENESS’ is more in the Black woman. Because of that many
‘FAIRNESS CREAM’ and their industries grow faster and faster. As reader can
understand that how Whiteness is showed as something goodness and Blackness is
showed something like a dark side. Because of getting White Skin the colonized
women look down on their own. Race and deep down want to be white. Here, an
individual can give an example from literary work that how Black women wished
to have White Skin of Bluest Eye just like White people have.
“The Bluest Eye” by ‘Toni
Morrison’ ‘we find a black girl Pecola Breedlove desires to have the
blue eyes of white men and woman.
1.
The Man of Colour and the White Woman :-
The third chapter “The man of colour and
the White woman” is about black man’s psychology after being colonized by
whites. Fanon argues that, the nature of the relationship is also rooted in the
latent desire to become white.
Every black man and mulatto have only one
thought to be like white to gratify their appetite for white woman, to marry
white woman. They started denying their culture and woman and marry white girl,
less for love than satisfying their ego and inferiority.
Fanon explains this desire with example of
Jean Venuese, hero of a novel “Un home pareil aux autres” by Rene Maran. He is
black, but like other Europeans, he falls in love with white woman. He wants to
separate himself from his race and wants to marry white… Fanon, very
effectively, presents hidden desire of black man to marry white woman.
“The history of the colonial negro is the
history of this strife this longing to attain self – conscious manhood, to
merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes
neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America,
for America or Europe has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn’t
bleach his negro blood in a flood of white Europeanism, for he knows that negro
blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a
man to be both Negro and an European without being cursed and spit upon by his
fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.”
2. The So-called Dependency Complex of the colonized peoples
Here,
the writer argues against Fanon’s view that people of colour have a deep desire
for white rule, that those who oppose it to do not have a secure sense of self
that they have a chip on their shoulder. From this chapter I came to understand
that the stereotypes of Happy Darkies, Uppity Negroes and White Saviours all come
from the need of white people to feel that their power in society is good and
not racist.
3. The fact of Blackness (Fanon:
The Lived Experience of the Black Man)
“There is a fact: White men consider
themselves superior to black men. There another fact that black men want to
prove to white men, at all costs, the richness of their thought, the equal
value of their intellect.”
Fanon
proposes that “blackness" is not a self-created identity, but a construct that
is placed upon black people by the white man. Therefore the black man has no true sense of himself or
his true identity because he never had a chance to create one for himself. As
black people, there is responsibility to carry on the traditions and cultures
of the race, only for those identifiable characteristics to be ignored and
replaced by the negative connotations like, tom – toms, cannibalism, racial
defects, etc. created by the white man. Regardless of what the Black man or
woman does in regards to the advancement of society as a WHOLE, “Black or Negro”
will always be in the pretext. Despite the suffering of Jews although somewhat
similar to the suffering of Blacks,
“The Jew can
be unknown in his jewishness”
4. The Negro (The Black Man) and Psychopathology:
Here
writer ask question to reader that, Why should people fear black?
Question asked here. Part it has to do with white men’s repressed
homosexuality and their strange hang-ups about black men’s penises. More
generally, black men are viewed as a body, which makes them seem like mindless,
violent sexual, animal beings. Add to that all the bad meanings that the word
“black” had even before Europeans set foot in black Africa.
5. The Negro and Recognition:-
Fanon
describes his last point in chapter seven “The black man and recognition”.
In this chapter Fanon presents mentality of black people of putting their own
people down to feel good.
He
writes about his people of Martinique, with putting down others, they can feel
better about themselves. The reason of their mentality is an inferiority
complex. The fault is not of black people but it comes from white rule, which
forces blacks to live in a world where their human worth is questioned. Blacks
are not in a position to put down white people, so they prove their worth by
putting down each other. Like mulatto girl does not want to marry with black or
mulattoes feel superior and prove blacks inferior.
6. Way of conclusion:
The last chapter of this book “By way of conclusion” is, as the
title suggests, a conclusion. In this chapter he talks about some solution
which can try to remove this inequality and injustice between blacks and
whites.
This final chapter discusses the
escaping the prison of one’s past and one’s race
“The negro is not: Any
more than the White Man”. In Fanon’s words, his writing
“Exposes an utterly
naked declivity where an authentic upheaval can be born”
In
these eight chapters, Fanon talks about psychology of white colonizers and
black people’s desire to be like white men. He talks about issue of language,
marriage between white and black and psychology behind it. White mindset of
ruling, black’s inequality and struggle for human existence. He explains his
all the arguments of psychology with real examples of his surroundings.
To
sum up
“O
my body makes of me always a man who questions”
-
Frantz Fanon
In
this book Fanon deal with social and political problems. Fanon argue that
colonialism dehumanized the native. Fanon analyzes the black psyche in the
midst of a white dominated culture. Fanon, in the whole book, tries to be
analytical without attachment. He talks about black men’s desire to be white
with psychological reasons. He never become insulting for blacks and also
doesn’t present hatred for white people.
Works
Cited:
Nice one Hezal. This will help a lot.
ReplyDeleteThnx vaidehi di..
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