1. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
The Negro and Language
1952
Frantz Fanon1
March 23, 2011
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
2. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
About Frantz Fanon
1 Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a
French psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and author
who supported the Algerian struggle for independence and
joined the Algerian National Liberation Front.
2 His work remains influential in the fields of post-colonial
studies and critical theory.
3 As well as being a Marxist, Fanon is known as a radical
humanist thinker on the issue of decolonization and the
psychopathology of colonization.
4 His works have incited and inspired anti-colonial liberation
movements for more than four decades.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
3. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
Biography: Martinique and World War II
1 Frantz Fanon was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique,
which was then a French colony and is now a French
d´partment.
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2 After France fell to the Nazis in 1940, Vichy French naval
troops were blockaded on Martinique. Forced to remain on
the island, French soldiers became ”authentic racists.”
3 The abuse of the Martiniquan people by the French Army
influenced Fanon, reinforcing his feelings of alienation and his
disgust with colonial racism.
4 At the age of eighteen, Fanon fled the island as a ”dissident”
(the coined word for French West Indians joining Gaullist
forces) and traveled to British-controlled Dominica to join the
Free French Forces.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
4. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued..
1 After qualifying as a psychiatrist in 1951, Fanon did a
residency in psychiatry at Saint-Alban under the radical
Catalan psychiatrist Francois Tosquelles, who invigorated
Fanon’s thinking by emphasizing the role of culture in
psychopathology.
2 His service in France’s army (and his experiences in
Martinique) influenced Black Skin, White Masks.
3 On his return to Tunis, after his exhausting trip across the
Sahara to open a Third Front, Fanon was diagnosed with
leukemia.He died in Bethesda, Maryland, on December 6,
1961 under the name of Ibrahim Fanon.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
5. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
About: The book “ Black Skin, White Masks ”
1 While in France, Fanon then wrote his first book in 1952,
Black Skin, White Masks, an analysis of the psychological
effects of colonial subjugation on people identified as black.
2 This book was originally his doctoral thesis submitted at Lyon
and entitled, ”The Disalienation of the Black Man”.
3 Fanon uses psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical theory to
explain the feelings of dependency and inadequacy that Black
people experience in a White world.
4 Fanon’s works are directly influenced by the N´gritude
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movement, Fanon reformulated the theory of C´saire and
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L´opold Senghor by positing a new theory of consciousness.
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5 He speaks of the divided self-perception of the Black Subject
who has lost his native cultural originality and embraced the
culture of the mother country.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
6. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued...
1 As a result of the inferiority complex engendered in the mind
of the Black Subject, he will try to appropriate and imitate
the cultural code of the colonizer.
2 The behaviour, Fanon argues, is even more evident in
upwardly mobile and educated Black people who can afford to
acquire the trappings of White culture.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
7. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
A brief overview of the contents of essay
1 Discourse: It generally refers to “written or spoken
communication or debate”.
The following are three more specific definitions:
(1) In semantics and discourse analysis: A generalization of
the concept of conversation to all modalities and contexts.
(2) “The totality of codified linguistic usages attached to a
given type of social practice. (E.g.: legal discourse, medical
discourse, religious discourse.)”
(3) In the work of Michel Foucault, and social theorists
inspired by him:“an entity of sequences of signs in that they
are enouncements (enonc´s)” (Foucault 1969: 141).
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Enouncements are often translated as statements.
Note:Discourse can be observed in multimodal/multimedia
forms of communication including the use of spoken, written
and signed language in contexts spanning from oral history to
instant message conversations to textbooks.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
8. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued..
1 Double consciousness : It deals with the nature of the
colonized subject, and the way in which they must
simultaneously embrace two different cultural identities. It
also means a “sense of always looking at one’s self through
the eyes of others”
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
9. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
Connection between Discourse and Fanon’s Idea in Black
skin white mask
Fanon states, “The black man has 2 dimensions. One with his
fellows other with white man. A Negro behaves differently
with Negro and white man. He holds colonial subjugation to
be solely responsible for the self-division among the black man.
Struggle between master and slave or the struggle between
colonizer and colonized is the struggle for power. Power over
the resources, existence of self-identity, recognition.
Fanon advocates for the complete freedom where no desire is
obstacled.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
10. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued..
What do we think might be the reason behind Dis-alienation,
self-divison among black men (Negro)
No one would dream of doubting that its major artery is fed from
the heart of those various theories that have tried to prove that the
Negro is a stage in the slow evolution of monkey into man.This is
an objective evidence that expresses reality.
Worst Part
But one has taken into account of the above situation, when
understands it, one considers the job completed.
Worst part: One then becomes deaf to that voice rolling down the
stages of the history:“ What matters is not to know the world but
to change it”.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
11. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued..
Language bears the weight of whole civilization
Different signs, words, sentences their context has a rich
cultural history. Embracing any langugage implies embracing
the whole culture that comes along with the langugage. This
justifies the reason why we feel that white culture is superior.
The struggle between colonizer and colonized for the power,
recognition would imply being superior.
Superiority in all aspect: culturally, linguistically, religiously
etc.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
12. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued..
Use of metaphor: White for Human being-civilized, Black for
Animal-uncivilized
The Negro of the Antilles will become proportiontely whiter, if
he has mastery over the French language. In this way he will
come closer to being a real human being.
This is man’s attitude face to face with Being.
Mastery of language affords remarkable power.
A man who has a language possesses the world expressed and
implied by that language.
In French colonial Army, the black officers serve first of all
as interpreters. They used to convey masters orders to their
fellows, and they too enjoy certain position of honor.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
13. Introduction: The Negro and the Language(1952)
continued..
Colonized people have a jungle status.
In order to get accepted by the civilizing nations, the
colonized people embraces the culture of the mother country.
This sense of acceptance induces the feeling of inferiority
complex, that has been created by the death and burial of his
local cultural originality.
The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion
to his adoption of the mother’s country cultural standards.
Sharique Arshi The Negro and Language
