Hello Readers,
Welcome to my world. This blog is part of my academic writing. This blog is the part of a post- colonial paper. In our department every year various expert lecture arrenge by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. But this year 2020 because of the Corona pandemic, we are not able to gather at the department. But where their will there's a way. As we know that Shakespeare used it in Henry IV, “Play out the play”.
... No matter what happens, the show must go on”
Barad sir proved this sentence. We have an expert lecture on the post colonial paper on a virtual platform by Balaji Ranganathan sir. The expert lecturer is Balaji Ranganathan sir from Central University of Gujarat. It was a great opportunity for us to learn from him. It was an amazing experience with him. Sir was cleared of all the things with exact and interesting examples and sir also related the situation with present situations.
So here l am talking about the interesting text Black Skin White Masks by Frantz Fanon.
About Author :-
Frantz Omar Fanon, also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique. His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization.
When Fanon submitted the manuscript to Seuil, Jeanson invited him for an editor–author meeting; he said it did not go well as Fanon was nervous and over-sensitive. Despite Jeanson praising the manuscript, Fanon abruptly interrupted him and asked: "Not bad for a nigger, is it?" Jeanson was insulted, became angry, and dismissed Fanon from his editorial office. Later Jeanson said he learned that his response to Fanon's discourtesy earned him the writer's lifelong respect. Afterward, their working and personal relationships became much easier. Fanon agreed to Jeanson's suggested title, Black Skin, White Masks.
So here I would like to discuss my understanding of this book. And also discussed ideas and arguments mentioned by expert speaker Balaji Ranganathan sir.
Black Skin White Masks
Chapter : 1
The Black Man and Language |
The very language is not English but as we know that fanon from Algeria and that is the colony of French people. So the influencing language is French language. So there is one question raised that how language affects the colonized people ? Is it positive or negative ? How does language make a difference ? How language became an economic tool ? This type of many argumentative thoughts given by Balaji Ranganathan sir.
The importance of language as a vehicle for colonial oppression is one of the most important themes in postcolonial studies. As Fanon shows, language is not simply a neutral tool through which people express themselves: rather, language gives people a sense of their own identity.
Fanon places huge importance on language. He argues that black people exist in two modes: one when they are around other black people, and the other when they are in the company of whites |
Chapter : 2
The women of color and the W |
Here in this chapter we come to know that Frantz Fanon proposes to examine the relationship between the woman of color and the European (white) man. He does this as a means to discover the effects of the "inferiority complex" on prospects for authentic love.
Balaji sir makes an interesting point that a problem of desire,that is uncontrollable. How dezire functions between two humans.
In this context Fanon introduces a novel by Mayotte Capécia (1916–55). The novel is autobiographical work the title of the novel is I Am a Martinican Woman.
Fanon judges to be of very low quality. In the book, the protagonist wishes to marry a white man. She loves him "unconditionally" and treats him as her "lord." Her desires, however, are unfulfilled because she is herself black. She is rejected by white society. So here in this context we come to know that in this narrative whiteness stands for " beauty and virtues" . However, blackness is the "total fusion with the world or something bad" Fanon charges that Mayotte is "striving for lactification": she wishes to become white. Moreover, she would not dare to consider marrying a black man.
In this novel black women reject her blackness and that of her fellows, but they can never be accepted into white society. That through we can make a point that that is the effects of colonialism because before the French people weren't even conscious about their color. But now they were taught that White that is something superior instead of black. Why does the desire of black women change ? Why she was not attracted towards her own community. Which type of notion she has in her mind. This is how Fanon shows that black society, in this way, is directed always at the white for guidance, and this guidance is a cruel trap.
That's how Fanon reads a novel and makes critique of that. Throughout the work, Fanon is laying out these examples, one by one, building his account of the functioning and injustices of racism.
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Chaper : 3
The Man of Color and the White Woman |
" Desire can't see in the terms of gender"
" Desire is genderless " Like that we can also say that the desire of white and the desire of black man are not superior or inferior.
Here we can see how Fanon makes an interesting point that White people are desirable but black people are not. In discussing black women and white men, Fanon primarily discusses the way racism distorts desires by acting on internal conceptions of worth and desirability.
Fanon wishes to show how racism interacts with other factors to produce behaviors and neuroses. He raised questions whether his desire for a white woman is a result of love or a much darker desire for a measure of revenge on white society.
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Chapter : 4
The So-Called Dependency Complex of the Colonized |
Here in this chapter we can see how colonized people depend upon colonies without that they can do nothing.
Frantz Fanon introduces the subject of the chapter, which is a book, Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization (1956) by Octave Mannoni (1899–1989). Fanon's only praise for Mannoni is faint. He says Mannoni is "intellectually honest" and has "managed to grasp the psychological phenomena" in the colonial situation, but he has "not grasped the true coordinates." In other words, he and his book are wrong, as Fanon aims to show. Fanon occurs that this is perfectly wrong.
Here we can see that an important insight in this chapter is that psychoanalytic theory cannot just be taken "off the shelf" and applied to any situation. Fanon is frustrated that Mannoni cannot see that the roots of the traumas in the dreams he describes have much simpler explanations. The explanations are simpler than those offered by orthodox psychoanalytic theory.
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Chapter : 5
The Lived Experience of the Black Man |
This part is the most interesting part. Here we come to know Fanon's own experience as a black person. Frantz Fanon switches to a narration of his own lived experiences as a way to get at the "lived experience of the black man." Here the only difference is that those who are colonized are constantly made aware of where they stand in relation to the colonizer and the racial hierarchy. Fanon narrates what this experience feels like. How he face internal storms of thoughts. He was also notes how "whereas I was prepared to forget, to forgive, and to love," he was prevented from doing any of these things by the white world which is the "only decent one." As the white world demands a man "behave like a man," it also demands Fanon and other black men "behave like a Negro." Fanon refuses. He wishes instead to assert himself as a "black man". No matter how much education you have or how well you act. But they were recognize as a black man.
After that Fanon states that "without a black past, without a black future, it was impossible for me to live my blackness." This manifests in a feeling not of inferiority, but of not existing at all. He is a "toy in the hands of the white man." Despite all this, Fanon refuses to simply accept this condition.
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Chapter : 6
The Black Man and Psychopathology |
Here in this essay we find that, it begins with a discussion of the basis of psychoanalytic theory in the analysis of the family unit.
Fanon proposes to test how the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Alfred Adler (1870–1937) can be used to explain the "black man's vision of the world," that is, the black experience. He points out, however, that psychoanalysis seeks the roots of behaviors within the family structure. This is a problem because mainstream psychoanalysis is based on the traditional European family. The family structure in Europe is projected onto the wider social structure. The problem is that the malady of the black person is not caused by the black family, necessarily
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Chapter : 7
Part A : The Black Man and Recognition (The Black Man and Adler)
Here Fanon talks about Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was an Austrian psychologist. Fanon talking about his conception of the inferiority complex. Fanon does this because it had been noted that black people had an "inferiority complex" concerning white people. Fanon wants to situate mental disorders in specific social contexts. He charges that it is all of Antillean society that is neurotic. If this is the case, then a diagnostic method derived from studying individuals needs modification, at least. This is another example of Fanon adapting the methods of psychology and psychiatry to analyze society.
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Part B : The Black Man and Recognition (The Black Man and Hegel) Frantz Fanon begins with a quotation from Hegel stating that self-consciousness exists insofar as it is acknowledged or recognized. Fanon expands on this by noting that a man is only "human" when he is able to impose himself on another man "in order to be recognized." Frantz Fanon engages in a dialogue with the work of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). Some of Hegel's core concepts are of interest to Fanon here. The "master-slave dialectic," an interdependent relationship that brought a modified idea into being, was used by Hegel to explain the path of human beings through history.
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Chapter : 8
By Way of Conclusion |
Fanon begins his conclusion with a quotation from the theorist and revolutionary Karl Marx. For the revolution of the 19th century to succeed, Marx called for the "dead" to "bury the dead." It was time for revolutionaries to make their own path to the future. Fanon is likewise focused on the future.
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References :
♣ Cherki, Alice (2006). Frantz Fanon: A Portrait. Cornell University Press. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-8014-7308-1.
♣ Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Tr. Richard Philcox, Grove Press, 2008.
♣ Macey, David (2012-11-13). Frantz Fanon: A Biography. Verso Books. pp. 316, 355, 385. ISBN 9781844678488.
Thank you…….
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