Assignment 11

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Name :Heerva Bhatt

Course :M.A.(Sem.3)

Roll No. :12

Paper No.: 11(The Post Colonial Literature)

Topic : ‘The Nature of blackness is within the mind.’-Justify with the reference of Frantz Fanon’s “Black skin,White Mask.”

Batch :2017-2019

Email Id :heervabhatt96@gmail.com

Submitted To :Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of English,Bhavanagar.

                   

Introduction :

                 In “ Black skin,White Mask” by Frantz Fanon combines autobiography, case study, philosophy, and psychoanalytic theory in order to describe and analyszse the experience of Black men and women in white-controlledsocieties. He is especially interested in the experience of Black people from French-colonized ilands in the Caribbean, like himself, who have come to live in France themselves. He explores how these people are encouraged by a racist society to want to become white, but then experience serious psychological problms because they aren't able to do so.

                 In Chapter 1, Fanon explores the relationship between race, languge, and culture. For Fanon, language provides entry into a culture, so when someone speaks French, they are taking on the French culture. But when Black people speak French, they are always reminded they can never be fullly French. Moreever, they are told they do not have a civilized language of their own, unlike people from other white Europen countries like Germany or Russia. In this way, language is used to make Black people feel they are unciviliszed and without a history. As one consequance, Black people who have been told they are inferior may develop a kind of inferiority complex and want to become “superior” by becoming white.

                 This desire to become white is explored in Chapters 2 and 3, which are about interacial relationships between Black and white people. Fanon observes that Black women may take a white lover in order to get access to a white culture that has more advantages and privileges. Similarly, Black men may consider white women gatekeeepers to culture, and marrying a white woman provides a feeling of having married all the beauty, education, and wealth that whiteness stands for in racist societies. But because Black people can never leave behind the fact of their Blackness, flleeing from their race is also fleeing from themselves. This leads to a loss of a sense of self and in turn a loss of agency to act in the world.

                  In Chapters 4 and 5, Fanon develops this analysis of the inferiority complex of Black people and the impossibility of leaving behind the fact of being Black. For Fanon, it is important to realize that Black people do not naturally feel they are inferior. Rather, this feeling is created by racism, which says whites are superior to Blacks and gives whites more economic advantages. When Black people internalize their oppression as a personal failure, this is when an inferiority complex arises. It is also constantly reinforced in everyday life in racist societies, because Black people are constantly reminded they are Black first and people second. In other words, people are reduced to their race, instead of seen as unique human individuals.

                In Chapter 6, Fanon provides more specificity for what it means to be reduced to one’s race. In European societies, Fanon argues, the only cultural representations of Black people are in ways that make them seem animalistic. They are a symbol for the “biological,” which means they are primarily depicted as bodies rather than as people with minds and feelings. This also leads to be over-sexualization of Black people, because Blackness becomes associated with the biological fact of reproduction. European society is full of images of the virility and aggressiveness of Black men, for instance, from whom white women are said to need “protection.” This is one of the ways in which Blackness is depicted as an “evil Other.” Fanon says this is similar to how Jews are feared in European society. But whereas the Jew is seen as a political threat, the Black man is seen as a biological threat.

                  In the final chapters of Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon explores how people might move beyond this situation in which Black people are depicted as inferior and often develop a feeling of inferiority as well. He dismisses theories by other psychiatrists that would solve the neurosis of an individual Black man by asking him to adjust his expectations and face reality. Instead, he wants social solutions that transform the racist society that produced conditions of inequality to begin with. Black people need to be encouraged to transform society by demanding humanity from white people, asserting freedom, and building a future freed from the subjugation of the past.

Chapter 1 :-

                     In Chapter 1, “The Negro and Language,” Fanon also explores how language perpetuates this feeling of inferiority in Black people. Here, Fanon explores the experience of colonized people who migrate to the colonizer’s country. For instance, France colonized the Antilles, a group of islands in the Caribbean. In the colonial context, the French language is the language of power and culture. French comes to stand for civilization and education. In turn, the colonized people of the Antilles aspire to learn French in order to become assimilated to the culture that stands for superiority. It is in language that Black people first experience the desire to become white.

                   At the conclusion of the chapter, Fanon reiterates that this is not just a clash between nations or civilizations, but between races. In learning French, the Black person from Antilles is not just trying to be French. He is trying to be white. The more French he learns, the whiter he becomes. So, too, when Antilles culture is denigrated, it is because Blackness is denigrated and the French assume Black people can’t have a culture. But ultimately, as Fanon will explore at even more length in subsequent chapters, the Black person is sealed in their Blackness. Race cannot be transcended in a racist society.

Chapter 2 and 3 :-

                    In both chapters, Fanon focuses his analysis on novels that depict interracial romance. In Chapter 2, the primary novel is Mayotte Capécia’s Je suis Martiniquaise, a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1948, in French, with a title that translates into English as I am a Martinician Woman. Martinique is a Caribbean country colonized by France, part of the Antilles discussed in the previous chapter, and it is also where Fanon was born. Fanon observes that in the novel, Mayotte seems to be completely subservient to the white men she loves. He also notices that Mayotte wants what Fanon calls a “lactification.” This means becoming white. In dating white people, Mayotte is trying to become white herself.
Fanon explains this as a reaction to things being denied to Mayotte and other Black people as children. In a racist society in which white people have power and control education, Black people do not get to have many of the same resources or experiences as white people. This makes Black people feel inferior. They begin to think their lack of resources and negative experiences are due to their Blackness, rather than racism. As a result, they try to get rid of their Blackness in order to become “better” humans. This is what originally attracts Black women to white men, according to Fanon. It is a desire to be admitted into the white world for which the white lover is a kind of ambassador.
Chapter 4 and 5 :-
          One of the things Fanon is discussing in these chapters it the difference between perception and reality, which is related to the difference between how one identifies and how one is perceived. Often, psychological problems result from a tension between these two. A person feels French, but others feel they are not French: which version of reality is to be believed? How is one to identify when one’s sense of self is different from other’s perception of one’s self? It is in this dynamic between self and other that identity develops.

           Although the main historical conflict in these chapters is between white and Black, the main psychological conflict is therefore between individuality and collectivity. The problem is that when someone belongs to a minority in France, they are perceived less as an individual and more as a representative of the entire minority. One is not Frantz Fanon but simply “a Negro.” Part of the desire to become white, then, might actually be a desire to become an individual, to assert one’s own integrity as a person.

Chapter 6 :-
             “The Negro and Psychopathology” is probably the most widely cited chapter of Black Skin, White Masks, because it provides a clear explanation of how racism and colonialism affect the psychology of Black people. “Pathology” refers to an abnormality or disease; “psychopathology” is, thus, a disturbance or problem in a person’s psychological makeup, or how a person thinks about themselves and their world. Fanon’s argument in this chapter, drawing on his own experience as a psychoanalyst, is that many of the psychological problems faced by Black people are caused by racism.
              The major dynamic throughout this chapter concerns the relationship between Black people and cultural representations of Blackness. Fanon starts by exploring the cultural stories children are exposed to. Every society, Fanon argues, has stories about adventure. In reading these stories, children naturally identify with the hero. In racist societies, the hero is white. That means that even in the Antilles, where the majority of people are Black, all the stories about explorers are still about white people, because the culture is controlled by France. Black children, too, read these stories and naturally identify with the white explorer. But as they grow up and realize they are Black, not white, this form of identification causes a crisis. Children realize they were not a hero all along, but a savage belonging to the unexplored lands the hero is discovering. Thus, already at an early age, Black children experience a psychological disturbance that is a product of the white culture they are a part of.
Chapter 7 and 8 :-
              These last to chapters of Black Skin, White Masks are stylistically a bit of a departure from the previous book, and it is interesting to explore how and why. Chapter 7 is a much more focused and academic discussion of two thinkers, Adler and Hegel. It departs from previous chapters because it reads more like a work of philosophy than some of the more poetic parts of the book. In this way, Fanon shows the serious intellectual interventions the experience of Black people can also provide to Western philosophy as a whole. Fanon isn’t just explaining the Black experience, but also using that experience to explain and intervene in important parts of Western philosophy.

               Chapter 8 moves away from this more academic framing to a once again more poetic style in line with the Introduction. But here, Fanon is taking on more of an activist voice. He is concluding Black Skin, White Masks with a call to action. Moreover, he is addressing the Black community more explicitly than he did in the previous chapters. He is rallying people to address the racism they experience in everyday life.

                This call to action is something Fanon went on to practice himself. Shortly after the publication of Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon moved to Algeria, where he also supported the efforts of African rebels who were seeking independence from France. This is a different continental context than the one Fanon explores in the book, which has focused more on the experience of Black people from the Caribbean than those from Africa. But in both contexts, Fanon protests the treatment of Black people by white French society.

               Considering how Fanon went on to live out the conclusion of his book, it is interesting to consider how Black Skin, White Masks as a whole has been structured as a kind of autobiographical work. Earlier chapters on interracial romance seem to be informed by Fanon’s own experience as a Black person in France, just as the images explored in the chapter on cultural representations of Black people draw upon the stories he had access to as a child in the Antilles. Throughout, Fanon draws from his experience. He is trying to understand not only society, but also himself and the kinds of difficulties he has faced, economically and psychologically, because of racism.

Conclusion :-

               Another way of looking at the relation between autobiography and theory in this book is to consider individuality vs. collective. On the one hand, Fanon tells his own story, and it is important that he be seen as an individual, not just a representative of his race like in in “Look! A Negro!” On the other hand, he is trying to understand how his experience is shared by others because of his subject position. The difficult balance he is trying to achieve is showing how societies create a system in which people have similar experiences while preserving the individuality of each person within that system.