A Critical Study of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks
- Sujoy Barman
Abstract
This research article is based on the
theme of delineation of the function of power in the field of the theory of post
colonialism with the explicit references of postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon
and his work Black Skin, White Masks.
The article explains the domination of the colonized people by the European
colonialists on the basis of the importance of language, colour of skin,
culture and race during the colonial period. The article also explains the
formation of the anti-colonial platform and the decolonization towards the end
of the European colonialism. It identifies the different issues which play the
significant role to form the nationalist or anti- colonial power to stand
against the colonial power and the different steps of decolonization and for
liberation.
Keywords: Decolonization, Domination, Mimicry,
Power, Violence.
Introduction
The title of the article suggests that
it describes the definition of colonialism, the struggle between colonial power
and anti- colonial power, the importance of the colonial language for the
colonized people in the indigenous land, cultural domination or cultural
hegemony, racism according to the colour of skin. It is an explanation of the
multiple reasons for the colonial exploitation and domination of one country by
another country. Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was a Martinique psychiatrist, a postcolonialist
and his theory is based on the context of African (especially Algeria and
Martinique) and French colonial relation. The paper describes the colonial and
imperial relation among the countries from Africa and Europe and as well as
between Europe and the rest of the world; and also the article focuses on the
reasons behind the formation of European – African power relation and European
domination over Africa and the rest of
world.
Definitions
of Power, Imperialism, Colonialism and Postcolonialism
In general, power stands for the ability
or strength that provides one to work according to wills and at the same time
it provides the capability to enforce other to act according to the wills of the
possessor of power. According to French thinker and philosopher Michel Foucault:
‘power is exercised, rather than possessed; it does not belong to anyone, nor
does it all emanate from one specific location, such as the state. Rather power
is diffused throughout social institutions, as it is exercised by innumerable,
replaceable functionaries’. Next imperialism is a strategy where a powerful
country spreads its border and aims to extend its control forcibly beyond its
own border over other countries and people. Such control is usually not found
in military but through the economic and cultural systems. And colonialism
quite resembles with imperialism. Like imperialism, colonialism talks about the
expansion of land, domination of culture, economical exploitation and military
suppression. But at the same time colonialism is the practice by which a
powerful country directly controls less powerful countries and uses their natural
resources to increase its own power and wealth. On the other hand postcolonialism
is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to the study of the European colonialism
and its impact on the society, culture, history and politics of the formerly
colonized countries in the African continent, the Caribbean, the Middle East,
South- Asia and the Pacific. It covers the terms of postcolonial studies,
postcolonial theory and postcolonial literature. It depicts the pre- colonial,
colonial and post- colonial societies. Anti- colonial thinking is also included
to the postcolonialism. Anti- colonialism is the indigenous thinking about the
colonial rule during and after the colonial period by the colonized people
against the colonial authority. Postcolonialism is the study of pre- colonial,
colonial and post- colonial periods of the formerly colonized country.
Formation
of power in European colonialism
According to the possession of power in
colonialism, all the countries across the world have been divided into two power
zones. The first power zone belongs to the colonial countries and the second power
zone belongs to the colonized countries. The first power zone possesses the
dominating power and the countries of that power zone exercise the power over
the countries of the second power zone. And the countries of the second power zone
don’t have any dominating power. They are dominated and the countries of the
first zone exercise the power over the countries of the second zone. In the
colonial history, the European countries belong to the first power zone and the
countries from Africa, East Asia, Latin America, Middle East etc belong to the
second power zone. There are some reasons behind this powerful condition of the
European countries. The first and major reason is the industrial revolution in
Europe. The industrial revolution provided the power of economy to the European
countries and the excessive industrial development automatically created the
platform for the European countries to make colonies in the rest of the world
for the raw materials for the industries and the markets for the industrial
products and goods.During the British colonial rule in India, the British East
India Company enforced the Indian farmers to cultivate tea, coffee and indigo
in order to export to England and their factories as raw materials.The European
colonial countries could utilize the natural resources of their colonies in
their factories and industries and at the same time the colonized people were
the customers for their industrial goods. Thus they have received a big
consumer society. Besides this economical profit, the European countries also
used the colonized people as their slaves. They found the slave trade was very
much profitable. They exported slaves from Africa to their native lands in
Europe to work in the farms and at the same time they also exported slaves from
Africa to America. This inhuman slave trade was much profitable to the European
trade companies. In short, these are the basic reasons behind the inauguration
of the colonialism in the world. But to establish colonies, to sustain the
authority over the colonies a colonial country must be powerful, because
without power a country can never establish a colony or sustain the authority
over a colony. Likewise for decolonization or to liberate, a colonized country
also needs power. To challenge the colonial power, a colonized country also
needs another super power and this power is the nationalist power inaugurated
with the anti colonial thinking. In order to dominate a colonized country, a
colonial country exercises the power in two ways. French Marxist philosopher
Louis Althusser has divided the power into soft power and hard power according
to the exercising systemsof power. Soft power is also known as Ideological
State Apparatus (ISA) because it is operated by means of ideology through the
institutes like school, colleges, hospitals and cultural programs etc. The hard
power is also known as the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) and it is operated
by means of violence, physical coercion. In the colonial power system, to
dominate the colonized people, the colonial government exercises both the soft
power and hard power. The colonial countries use police, military force, gun,
judicial system as the hard power domination; and the language and literature,
colour of skin, race, culture, religion as the soft power domination during the
colonial period.
Power
of colonial language and literature
During the colonial period, the colonial
government uses the colonial language and literature as the medium of domination
without using violence over the colonized people. Such colonial influences are explicitly
explained in the chapter ‘The Negro and
Language’ of the theoretical text “Black
Skin, White Masks” by Frantz Fanon who has explained the important role of
the European colonial language to sustain the colonial power over the Negroes
and black people in Africa. He witnesses the harsh reality of the French
colonialism in Algeria where he was appointed as a psychiatrist at the Psychiatric
Hospital of Blida- Joinville in 1953 and it was the time of the Algerian
revolution against the French colonial rule. The colonial language and
literature create some situations in which colonized coloured people are
ideologically and economically dominated. There are some reasons behind the powerful
condition of the colonial language and literature during the colonial period
for the native people. These reasons enforce the colonized people to adopt the
colonial language and literature and at the same time to neglect the native
language and literature. The first reason belongs to the economical background.
Because of the knowledge over colonial language and literature a colonized
person can change the life both economically and socially. It becomes a source
of income for a native and at the sametime it increases the reputation in the
society. During the colonial period, if a native wants to be a serviceman or
wants to be recruited for any governmental service, the native at first needs
to be educated with colonial language. Without knowing the colonial language the
native is never offered the service because the native plays the role as the
interlocutor between the colonial officers and his fellow natives and because
the native is the conveyor of the orders of the colonial government to his
fellow natives. So to work as a government officer and to support his family
economically, a native must have knowledge about the colonial language. This is
the economical reason for adopting the colonial language and the next reason
belongs to the reputation and rank in society. As the natives become the
conveyors of the orders of the colonial government and speak like their
colonial masters, the natives feel superior, think superior being from the
other fellow natives. Through this mimicry the natives increase the social
reputation. “In the French colonial army, and particularly in the Senegalese
regiments, the black officers serve first of all as interpreters. They are used
to convey the master’s orders to their fellows, and they too enjoy a certain
position of honor” (Black skin, White
Masks 18-19). For the dignity as an employee of the colonial government and
as a superior among the fellow natives, many colonized people prefer to the
colonial language and at the same time they also motivate their next generation
to do so, and teach and educate their children according to the colonial
educational norms or educate with the colonial education. Thus the priority of
the colonial language and literature gradually increases for the colonized
people and at the same time it also decreases the importance of the indigenous
language and literature at the indigenous people. The colonial parents teach
their children to hate their indigenous language and literature and to adopt
the colonial language. “The middle class in the Antilles never speak Creole
except to their servants. In school the children of Martinique are taught to
scorn the dialect. One avoids Creolisms. Some families completely forbid the
use of Creole, and mothers ridicule their children for speaking it” (20). Thus
colonial language and literature plays a significant role to dominate the
indigenous people without using violence.
Power
of colour of skin
Like the language and literature, the
colour of skin during the colonial period brings discrimination of power. In
the colonial studies, the European white skinned people are powerful and
superior whereas the non- European black skinned people are powerless and
inferior. And the colour of skin varies power and position. It is regarded that the white skinned people
are the sons of god and black skinned people are very close to nature, animal
like creatures and sons of beasts. In the two chapters of the theoretical text Black Skin, White Masks, entitled The Woman of Color and the White Man and
The Man of Color and the White Woman,
Frantz Fanon scrutinizes the relations between black woman- white man and black
man- white woman. In the chapter The
Woman of Color and the White Man, Frantz Fanon shows that a black woman has
the fantasy for the white man. A black woman wants to be the wife of a white
man who does not show any respect to the black woman. She considers that “I
loved him because he had blue eyes, blond hair, and a light skin” (43). In that
regard the black woman knows the importance of the colour of skin. In the
colonized society, the European white colour stands for the authority, and a
white man is the representative of this authority. That is why a black woman
selects a white man rather than a black man as her life partner. In the
fiction, Heart of Darkness, Joseph
Conrad explains this fantasy with the relation between the black lady and Mr.
Kurtz. After the marriage, the black woman has to face the humiliation in the
white world both by the white man and woman for the system of colour. In the
chapter, The Man of Color and the White
Woman, Frantz Fanon explains the system of colour through the relation of
man of colour and the white woman. But in that case the situation is quite
difference from the earlier. For a coloured man, the colour does not very any
discrimination if he proves himself as intelligent as the white man. Here Frantz Fanon exemplifies that a black man
is accepted to the white society very easily if he proves his capability over
education, science like a white man and he is offered a white sister by a white
brother. And in that sense, the black man has to deny his Negro culture. “When
the question is put directly, then, the white man agrees to give his sister to
the black- but on one condition: You have nothing in common with real Negroes.
You are not black, you are “extremely brown”
(69). But whatever Frantz Fanon explains about the coloured man in The Man of Color and the White Woman,but
in practical the situation is different. In short, according to Frantz Fanon, thus
the colour of skin for the colonized people varies two distinctive situations
according to sex and gender, and the colour stands for power.
Power
of Race and Culture
During the colonial period, a colonized
country is divided into two power zones according to the socio- economical, and
religio- cultural backgrounds. One zone belongs to the colonial culture and
race, and another zone belongs to the indigenous culture and race. These two zones are totally different from
each other and they oppose each other. The colonial cultural zone is superior,
enjoys every facility of life because it possesses power and on the other hand
the colonized indigenous cultural zone is inferior, separated from almost every
facility of life because it has no power. These two cultural zones are
separated from each other by barracks and police stations which stand like the
border line between these colonial and colonized zones. The policemen and the
soldiers are the spokesmen of the settlers and the representatives of the
colonial authority. In ‘The Wretched of
the Earth’, Frantz Fanon very skilfully explains the distinction between
the European settler’s cultural zone and the native’s cultural zone in the
chapter ‘Concerning Violence’. Here
he says: “The settler’s town is a strongly- built town, all made of stone and
steel. It is a brightly-lit town; the streets are covered with asphalt, and the
garbage- cans swallow all the leavings, unseen, unknown, and hardly thought
about. The settler’s feet are never visible, except perhaps in the sea, … The
town belonging to the colonized people, or at least the native town, the Negro
village, the medina, the reservation, is a place of ill fame, peopled by men of
evil repute” (30). Such socio- economical condition according to the cultural
differences stands for superiority and inferiority and shows the suppressed
situation of the colonized people by the settlers. The indigenous people find
that by adopting the colonial culture, they may be regarded as superior as the settlers,
and it may increase their socio- economical position and in order to be
superior in socio- economical and cultural fields, the indigenous people begin
to imitate culture of the settlers and the colonial people. Thus the colonized
people are culturally dominated by the colonial people. Such domination has
been identified as the cultural hegemony by the Italian Marxist Antonio
Gramsci. So during the colonial period, the culture of the colonial country is
the master culture and the indigenous culture is the culture for the subjects.
Like culture, race also plays the important role at the time of colonialism. People
are divided into races according to the colour of skin, white skinned race and
black skinned race. The white skinned race is superior and the black skinned race
is inferior. A white man never feels inferior or be treated as inferior being
in the colonized land. But a colour man or a black skinned man is inferior or always
treated as inferior being in his own land because his skin is coloured. That is
why a few numbers of white people can very easily dominate and rule over a huge
number of black people. At the same time, the European colonial culture is
regarded as the master culture and the indigenous culture is the culture for
subjects. As their culture is the master culture, they neglect the culture of
the indigenous people.
Power
and Psychology
Frantz Fanon in his ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ exemplifies the
effect of the colonial impact over the psychology of children through the
background of the family. In the chapter ‘The
Negro and Psychopathology’, Frantz Fanon shows how the structure of the
family in the colonial period influences the psychology both of white and black
children. A white child from the very childhood is taught to think superior,
master of the world, protector of the world and the possessor of power through teaching
and lesson from the stories of the white legends and mythical characters in
comic books, TV shows in a family. And such background makes white children
psychologically strong and they later in future intend to play the role of
master. On the other hand black children from the childhood notice the slaved
and subjective life of their parents and guardians by the European settlers. Thus
a black child finds out that the whites are the masters of the black people,
and generally in future the black child will also behave as a subject to the
white people. Thus the discrimination in the power system between the colonizer
and colonized people influences the psychology both of the black and white
children who as black think to be powerless and as white to be powerful.”In the
magazines the Wolf, the Devil, the Evil Spirit, the Bad Man, the Savage are
always symbolized by Negroes or Indians; since there is always identification
with the victor, the little Negro, quite as easily as the little white boy,
becomes an explorer, an adventurer, a missionary “who faces the danger of being
eaten by the wicked Negroes” (146).
Decolonization
Decolonization is the ending footmark of
the colonization and colonial power in the colonized countries. In the previous
chapters, the inequality of power between colonial and colonized people has
been described and this chapter contains the explanation of the two powers,
colonial and nationalist powers; and these are equally strong, and this chapter
also focuses on the formation of the nationalist power against the colonial
power and the mode of decolonization. In the chapter ‘Concerning Violence’ of The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon
defines the concept of ‘decolonization’. He says: “decolonization is quite
simply the replacing of a certain ‘species’ of men by another ‘species’ of men”
(27). Here he talks about masters of the colonized people of a country during
and after colonialism. During the colonial period, the European settlers are
the masters of the colonized people and after the decolonization when the
country gains its liberty the masters of the formerly colonized country are the
selected members among the indigenous people. A group of people has been
selected as the masters of the newly liberated country. Secondly Frantz Fanon says: “Decolonization,
which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a programme of
complete disorder” (27). It means that decolonization is a movement of violence;
it is a conflict between the colonial power and the nationalist power, a
political struggle between the settlers and the indigenous people. At the time
of the decolonization, the colonized people oppose the colonial power.And this
movement has been formed in two ways, first is in the field of ideology or the
colonized people deny the authority of the colonial government refusing the
importance of the colonial culture, colonial language and literature without
using any violence, the second way of decolonization has been formed with the
violence or the nationalist movement with arms. During the process of
decolonization, nationalist leaders use arms, weapons to uproot the settler’s
government from the indigenous land. This is known as the hard power conflict
in the field of colonialism. And on the other hand some nationalist leaders use
the indigenous literature, culture etc as the weapons against the settler’s
government. In Indian nationalist movement Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat
Singh and many other nationalists used the arms, weapons against the British
colonial government in India. And on the other hand, Ghandhiji used the
ideology like non-violence during the period of decolonization in India against
the British authority in India. In the chapter ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’ of the theoretical text ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, Frantz Fanon
explains the system by which the national consciousness has been formed among
the colonized people: “History teaches us clearly that the battle against
colonialism does not run straight away along the lines of nationalism. For a
very long time the native devotes his energies to ending certain definite
abuses: forced labour, corporal punishment, inequality of salaries, limitation
of political rights…” (119). After such minor revolutions, when the colonized
people find that the minor revolutions are not effective, they think about a
nationwide revolution as they find out that it is the settler’sgovernment who
dominates whole nation and gradually all people from different groups according
to culture, religion, race, caste across the nation, meet one place, rise voice
altogether against the settler’s government. Thus the nationalist movement
moulds against the colonial government.
Now it is right that Frantz Fanon
explains the struggle between colonial authority and the colonized authority in
the postcolonial studies from the Afro- European context and he has pointed out
the dominating, suppressing relation between blacks and whites. The white
people always make the black people as their subjects from different grounds. Frantz
Fanon’s explanation of the relation between natives and settlers has been based
on the socio- economical, religio- political and cultural backgrounds and he
attempts to find out the socio- economical, political, psychological reasons
for this slave- master relation between European white and African black people
in the African countries. Thus the colonialism contains multidimensional shapes
of power, its exercising form from the beginning of colonialism to the end of
colonialism.
Works
Cited
Buchanan, Ian. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press,
2010. Print.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markman. London: Pluto
Press, 1986. Print.
---. Peau
Noire, Masques Blancs. France: E`ditions
du Seuil, 1952. Print.
---. The
Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. UK: Penguin Books,
2001. Print.
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. Print.
Leitch B, Vincent.
The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2010. Print.
About Sujoy Barman:
Sujoy Barman is an independent researcher. He has
completed M.A in English Literature from Malda College, University of Gour
Banga. He has qualified NET (UGC) and SET (WBCSC). His most interesting areas
of study and research are postcolonial theory, gender studies, and Indian drama
in English.
