Write a critique on Frantz Fanon’s ‘Black Skin, White Masks’.

 

• Name: Malek Hinaben Ibrahimbhai

• Paper no. : 11 The postcolonial Literature

• Roll no. : 8

• Semester: MA Semester 3

• Year: 2019-21

• Enrollment no. : 2069108420200026

• Email Id: hinamalek21@gmail.com

• Submitted to: Department of English M.K. Bhavanagar University

Topic: Write a critique on Frantz Fanon’s ‘Black Skin, White Masks’.

INTRODUCTION:

 What is postcolonial literature? 

Since the 1980 humorous novelists dramatists and poets have been arketel as postcolonial writers Hut what is postcolonial literature in the broadest terms. this category includes works that have a relationship to the subjugating forces of imperialism and colonial pension, In shon postcolonial literature is that which has arisen primarily since the end of World War 2 from regions of the world underlining decolonization Works from such regions in the 20th and 2ist centuries, such as the Indian subcontinent, Nigeria. South Africa, and numerous parts of the Caribbean, for example, might be described as postcolonial.

The Rise of Postcolonial Theory 

In order to understand the rising attention to postcolonial fiction, a basic understanding of postcolonial theory is necessary, Keep in mind, this is a very short history and is by no means all-inclusive! If you're interested in postcolonial theory, you might start with some of the writers we're about to discuss before moving onto your own explorations of the topic. 

In 1961, Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth Was published in French. Arising out of the Algerian struggle for independence from France, the text examined possibilities for anti- colonial violence in the region and elsewhere. Fanon was a Martinique-bom intellectual who was also a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front, and his writings have inspired numerous people across the globe in struggles for freedom from oppression and racially motivated violence, If you're particularly interested in Fanon as a collector, you might seek cut first editions of Fanon's work. Grove Press published the first US. edition of The Wretched of the Earth in 1963, with a translated forward by Jean-Paul Sartre. 

About the  work:

Black Skin, White Masks is one of Fanon's important works. In Black, Skin, White Masks, Fanon psychoanalyzes the oppressed Black person who is perceived to have to be a lesser creature in the White world that they live in, and studies how they navigate the world through a performance of White-ness. Particularly in discussing language, he talks about how the black person's use of a colonizer's language is seen by the colonizer as predatory, and not transformative, which in turn may create insecurity in the black's consciousness. He recounts that he himself faced many admonitions as a child for using Creole French instead of "real French," or "French French," that is, "white" French. Ultimately, he concludes that mastery of language [of the white/colonizer] for the sake of recognition as white reflects a dependency that subordinates the black's humanity.

'A critique on Black skin, white masks by Frantz Fanon'

There is a neW English translation of Black Skin. White Masks since in this first book. Frantz Fanon himself believed in the fight against the psychology of racism. Fanon wrote his first book, an analysis of the psychological effects of colonial people identified as black He used psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theory to explain the feelings of dependency. He sneaks of the divided self perception of the black subject. The book looks at what goes through the minds of Blacks and the strange impacts that has, especially on the black people. 

The book started out as his doctoral thesis that he wrote to get his degree in psychiatry. So it is written for white French psychiatrists and speaks mainly about Martinique and France in the early 1950s It is well worth reading since his understanding of white French racism in the early 1950s and also helps us out to understand white American racism in the 2010s. 

We can intemperate that how this White and Black are portrayed in literature in different vavs Novel 'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens' in this novel we can find the controversy of Black and White. Here Christianity - Whiteness portrays as goodness, while Jew - Black portrayed as Evil. Here reader can find conflict between Christian v/s Jew, The novel has an idea of Christianity and Jewish. At some extent writer has described Christianity as a superior and dark side of Christianity has been presented. He portrayed Jew in a negative connotation.

Now we are analyzing the book of Fanon Black skin, White Mask', this book divided into many chapters. Each chapter has its own importance. They deal with the psychological aspect. It included the condition of Black people and their mentality. It also gives reflection of white people towards black people.

Now let's see all chapters of this book:

1. "The Black man and Language:

2. 'The woman of colour and The 'Whiteman'

3. The man of colour and the white woman

4. The so called dependency complex of the colonized peoples:

5. The fast of blackness

6. The negro and Psychology

7. The negro and Recognition: The negro and Adler, The Negro and the Hegel

8. Way to conclusion

(1)"The Black man and Language:

Language constructs the idea of Civilized or uncivilized. if you do not learn the white man's language perfectly, you are unintelligent. Yet if you do learn it perfectly, you have washed your brain in their universe of racist ideas. That if a black person does not learn the white man's language perfectly, he is unintelligent. Yet if he does term it perfectly, you have washed his brain in the world of racial Ideology.

(2) 'The woman of colour and The 'Whiteman':

In this chapter, The idea of blackness. The mindset of people is like this "I loved him because he had blue eyes, blond hair, and light skin". Then  the Mulato is a kind of a race which is not black and white. I want to be recognised not as black, but as White. The effect people also touched on society. Thus here Fanon presents a psychological study of a black woman.

(3) The man of colour and the white woman:

This is the concept of genuine negroes and Concept of decolonize of mind - " these men want to be white to or at least prove they are equal to whites". In literature we can also find an example where Black man wished to have white skin. Gwendolyn Brooke's poem 'we real cool' deals with the same theme.

(4) The so called dependency complex of the colonized peoples:

 Fanon argues against Mannoni's view that people of colour have a deep desire for white rule, that those who oppose it 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 Savíours all come from the need of white people to feel that their power in society is good and not racist. 

(5) The fast of blackness:

(Fanon. The Lived Experience of the Black Man).

 In this chapter Fanon argues about his own fact of Blackness and his struggle he endured the psychologically alimentary effects of colonialism and racism. Fanon was a Martinican psychiatrist but in the White society, "He is seen as Dr. Fanon but as Black man". In this racist society, Fanon argues, Black people ``experience being through others". 

"Dirty nigger!"" Or simply, "Look, a Negro!" 

Fanon's experience as Black man in the white society feels inferiority and says "Always Negro, never a man". And also he is described as a "real dialect between my body and world". The same idea expresses his feeling of inferiority and says, "Sin is Black Virtue is White". In the White world he himself is considered as Wretch. And this chapter also deals with the pathetic conditions of blacks. They thought that being always black is if they are never fully human. No matter how. much Education you have or how well you creature from the world.

(6) The Negro and Psychology:

In this chapter the writer asks a question to the 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.

(7) The Negro and Recognition:

Section-A "The Negro and Adler" In this section fanon applics Adler's personality theory to the Antillean Negro. IHow Antillean Negro act towards cach other, Fanon says, that The question is always whether he is less intelligent than 1st, blacker than 1st, less respectable than I". The "question of value" that plagues the neurotic Antillean Negro is historically constructed and has arisen out of colonialism. In this chapter Fanon also talks about the role colonial education. "It is because the Negro belongs to an "inferior" race that he sceks to be like the superior race". The pattern of the white man.

 Section -B "The Negro and the Hegel" In the second section Fanon applies Hegel's Master- Slave dialectic. The Hegelian dialectic' offers, Fanon argues, an explanation of what distinguishes "human reality" from "natural reality". "Man is human only to the extent to which he tries to impose his existence on another man in order to be recognized by him".

(8) Way of conclusion:

This final chapter discuses the escaping the prison of one's past and one's race."Ihe 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" Fanon throughout the book deals with the inner struggle of black when they were colony 'the black man and language' deals with language. Here we saw the ideal of blackness, notion of desire. and idea of identity, what is humanism? Others, self ego, civil rights, human rights, self desire, the idea of Negritude, idea of darkness. For him Black is attitude, attitude comes from culture.

Conclusion: 

So here is my view on Critical thinking of Black skin white Mask. Is book is remain important work to give voice to the Problem of racial discrimination to black people. It attacks the notion white superiority. Black people. Have desire to became white. Because being white is means superior.

References:

Baldwin, Joseph A "African Self-Consciousness and the Mental Health of African- Americans." Journal of Black Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, 1984, pp. 177-194. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2784007. Accessed 2 Dec. 2020.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Tr. Richard Philcox, Grove Press, 2008.

Fanon, Frantz, 1952 [2008], Peau noire, masques blancs, Seuil. Translated as Black Skin, White Masks, Richard Philcox (trans), New York: Grove Books, 2008.

Phoenix, Aisha. "Colourism and the Politics of Beauty." Feminist Review, no. 108, 2014, pp. 97-105. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24571924. Accessed 2 Dec. 2020.