Jayati Rudreshkumar ThakarRoll. No. 30Batch 2015-2017M.A. Semester: 3Email Id: jjayti.thakar94@gmail.com

Paper No.11 Post-Colonial Literature

Critical Appreciation of ‘Blake Skin, White Masks’

By- Frantz Fanon

Author’s Introduction

• Frantz Omar Fanon born in July 20, 1925 and in December 6, 1961.

• He was West Indian Psycho Analyst and Social Philosopher known for his theory.

• He was a part of ‘Negritude Movement’ too.

His major works

• Black Skin, White Masks (1952)• A Dying Colonialism• The Wretched of the Earth• Towards the African Revolution

About The Book-‘Black Skin, White Masks’

• Is a significant work by Fanon• His doctoral thesis for getting degree in

psychiatry.• Left its tremendous effects upon post- colonial

minds• It speaks about mindset or psychology of

racism and racists

• This book looks at what goes through the minds of blacks and whites under the condition of white rule and the strange effects especially on black people.

• White men’s belief

• “We are the chosen people- look at the color of our skins, the others are black or yellow: that is because of their sins.”

New Testament

The Idea of ‘Language’

• ‘The Black Man and The Language’ suggests that if you do not learn 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 idea.

• “You speak such a perfect French!”

Example from ‘A Tempest’

• Caliban: Uhuru!• Prospero: What did you say?• Caliban: I said, Uhuru! (in Swahili it refers to

‘Freedom’)• Prospero: Mumbling your native language

again! I have already told you, I don’t like it. You could be polite, at least; a simple “hello” wouldn’t kill you.

• “ To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. The Antilles Negro who wants to be white will be the whiter as he gains greater mastery of the culture tool that language is…”

- Fanon

Caliban as a ‘rival voice’

• Prospero: Since you’re so fond of invective, you could at least thank me for having taught you to speak at all. You, a savage …..a dumb animal, a beast I educated, trained, dragged up from the bestiality that still clings to you” (superiority complex)

• Caliban: In the first place, that’s not true. You didn’t teach me a thing! Except to jabber In your language so that I could understand your orders: chop the wood, wash the dishes, fish for food, plant vegetables, all because you’re too lazy to it yourself. And as far your learning, did you impart any of that to me? No, you took care no to. All your science you keep for yourself alone, shut up in those big books.”

- Cesaire’s ‘A Tempest’.

Craving for having a white tone Skin

• ‘The Woman of colour and the White Man’ present the psyche of black woman to marry a white man. Black woman wants white man not because of love but they want them for their own hang-ups about race. It is her secret desire to be white and marrying white is fulfillment of her desire.

• Exp, Pauline Breedlove- ‘The Bluest Eye’- Tony Morrison

• “All I know is that he had blue eyes, blond hair, and light skin and that I loved him.” –Fanon

• Pecola Breedlove- ‘The Bluest Eye’- Tony Morrison

Both The Complexes

• “The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behaves in accordance with a neurotic orientation.” – Fanon

• Superiority complex in Whites• Inferiority complex in Blacks • Results- ‘Dependency Complex of the

Colonized’= Identity Crisis = ‘Nothingness of the Personality’

‘The Black Man and Psychopathology’

• Why white people are so afraid of black men?– Black men are seen as being way less moral.– White men fear they will take white woman from

them.

Hidden Psyche of ‘Whites’

• “Blacks are good in Bed.”• They are having bigger penises and once their

women (white women) will sleeps with them she will never want a white man again.

Why White Women too afraid of a Black men?

• Fanon see it for himself when he fought in Europe in the Second World War.

• White women shrink back in fear if he asked them for a dance

• Fear of being harmed by them• Their physical appearance and capacity• “Black men are seen as little better than

animals.”

For basic understandingWhite men’s racial mindsets

• Whiteman can have relation with Brown, Mulatto• Blackman cannot have relation with Mulatto or

White• White woman cannot have relation with Mulatto

or Black or Brown• Brown or Black woman cannot have relations

with Mulatto or Whiteman

Continuing…

• Mulatto woman cannot have relation with Black or Brown man, Excepting Whiteman or Mulatto man

• Mulatto man cannot have relation with Black or Brown woman, Excepting White woman or Mulatto woman

(Lectures by Balaji Rangnathan Sir)

Summing up…

• At last he concludes by saying that he wants to be a black man, he wants to be a man , plain and simple man.

• He says further that the problem with blacks and whites is that both have become prisoners of their pasts: both have to move away from the inhuman voices of their respective ancestors so that a genuine communication can be born.

Few Quotes• “The white man is sealed in his whiteness, The

black man in his blackness.”• “I should have liked to be married, but to a

white man. But, a woman of color is never altogether respectable in a white man’s eyes, even when he loves her. I knew that!”

• “One is white as one is rich, as one is beautiful, as one is intelligent.”

Few Contemporary Examples “Hoe ‘Racism’ conducts minds in U.S.A”

• “In my Florida hometown, there is a train track that splits the town into two colors.”

-Chris Arnade

• It is discovered that potential employers were more likely to hire a white man with a criminal background than a black man with a clean record, given the same level of education. Racism is just so ingrained in many people's minds.

• The best example is Milwaukee, a city where black women are 9.6% of the population, but 30% of those evicted.

• Since New York City implemented stop and frisk policies in 2002, over 53% of all those searched were black and around 30% were Latino. Only around 10% were white.

• sometimes, they face stricter punishments for lighter crimes, as can be seen from these two headlines. According to the Supreme Court's Sentencing Commission's findings, black men receive 20% longer prison sentences than white men for committing the same crime.

• Media presentation • Stereotype- beautiful white lady and angry black

woman• The same can be seen like black woman portrayed

as thug while a white woman portrayed as a murderous and ‘mentally unstable’

References

• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/america-racism-subtle-dangerous-new-york

• http://www.rantpolitical.com/2015/08/17/11-examples-of-casual-everyday-racism-in-our-society/#

• Class-notes

Thank You for

your time

Submitted to:Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English,Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University,Bhavnagar, Gujarat,India.