Assignment
Name- Hareshwari Y. Kapdi
Roll no. 7
Entertainment no-2009108420200020
Paper name - The postcolonial literature
Topic-
MA Sem-3
Submitted to- S.B. Gardi department of English MKBU
# Introduction :
Post-colonialism means time after colonialism. Post-colonialism is study of culture after the physical and political withdrawal of an oppressive power. Post colonialism rejects the dominance of western culture. It challenges Western Knowledge system about East.
# BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK DIVIDED INTO 8 CHAPTER :
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.
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? Other,
self ego, civil rights, human rights, self desire, the idea of Negritude, idea of darkness. For him Black is attitude, attitude comes from culture.
Black Skin, White Masks is certainly an amazing engagement with the fate of the black individual in society. The book deals with various questions and dilemmas faced by all humans. Its power lies in the fact that it remains surprisingly optimistic in spite of its serious subject matter. Fanon recognizes the problems faced by the former colonised and is quite aware of the psychologically draining position that he/she occupies. Yet, he focuses his attention on the debunking of whiteness as the epitome of being. He seeks to “work out new concepts” (Fanon, 1961, 255) and remains optimistic that this can indeed be done.
Conclusion :-
Thus, black skin and white Mask is remain Important work to give voice to the problems 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. So they have desire to became white. And even Mulatto, mixed race people finds problem in matching with either white or black people. They feel superior among black and inferior among white people. So it gives voice to such issues of society.
Works Cited:
1.http://hiteshparmar1234.blogspot.in/2014/10/paper-no-11-critique-on-black-skin.html .
2.http://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/frantz-fanon-black-skin-white-masks/.
