Psychological Study of 'Black Skin, White Masks'

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Psychological Study of 'Black Skin, White Masks'

Introduction:

“I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos -- and the white man, however intelligent he may be, is incapable of understanding Louis Armstrong or songs from the Congo. I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth.”

― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Chandler, 2007)

          Brief about Fanon’s life:

Frantz Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique on July 20, 1925. , Fanon left the colony in 1943, at the age of 18, to fight with the Free French forces in the waning days of World War II. After the war, he stayed in France to study psychiatry and medicine at university in Lyons. The theory which he gave this book is his own experience as a psychiatrist. He was a scholar psychiatrist, but being a black he was always known as a black thinker or Negro intelligent. He himself felt this kind of insult. “Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.”  (Chandler, 2007)  
So he records everything in this book, his experiences as a psychiatrist and his own experiences. It was his research work, later on published as a book form.

       His idea in this book:

He gave several ideas in this book and at length he talks about the mentality of the black people. His basic idea is to understand the color of the skin and the race. “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.”  (Chandler, 2007) This quotation is taken from his book. We can understand that if the people around you create an identity of yours then it will be very difficult for us to break it. And even if we try to break it with the new evidences then they will not allow us to come out from that. If we try to look at this idea with the racism then we can say that ‘Black’ is the identity created by the white. And though the black people tries to come out from this they will be not able to come out from this CONSTRUCTED identity, or rather we can say that they are not allow to do so.

“What does a man want?”

“What does the black man want?”

“The white man is sealed in his whiteness, the black man in his blackness.”
 If we tries to look at this ‘Blackness’ and ‘Whiteness’ as a concept then we come to know that there is always a men’s wish to be a white. If tries to see it from the psychological point of view that it is called as a ‘Desire’. Desire to be white and desire means you do not have that, it is lacking in you. When a black sees him he feels ‘State of Being’. State of being means when a Negro see, Negro sees the white face not the way they are. Means they try to find out the whiteness in them. Now this blackness or whiteness belongs to their skin color and they wish to change it they can’t.

Here I would like to give example of Michael Jackson. He goes on performing plastic surgery upon his body and turned himself from black to white. Though he was very much popular among the people but still we can say that he was obsessed by his skin color. Black people think that their being is with their skin color. So, these were some ideas, Fanon talks about the ideas in detail.

                Psychological study of black men:

Fanon in his book also talks about the mentality of the Black people. How because of their skin color they are marginalized from the society, and the black people’s wish to become white. He says that the black men always remain in dilemma, turn white or disappear. Here also we can apply the ‘State of Being’. He furthermore talks about the black men’s mentality that how it changes when they goes into the white world. In the white world they behave like a white man. In a sense they adopt everything from the white world from their behavior to their mother tongue. Once they master it they feel superior. When again they come back to their own community they feel superior or upper hand from the other black men. Their behavior totally changes. In their own community they feel like a white man.

Lacan says that language constructs our unconscious. So, here also language plays a vital role behind one’s mentality. Through language we constructs ourselves, our identity or rather we can say that our cultural identity.  “To speak pidgin to a Negro makes him angry, because he himself is a pidgin-nigger-talker. But, I will be told, there is no wish, no intention to anger him. I grant this; but it is just this absence of wish, this lack of interest, this indifference, this automatic manner of classifying him, imprisoning him, primitivizing him, DE civilizing him, that makes him angry.
If a man who speaks pidgin to a man of color or an Arab does not see anything wrong or evil in such behavior, it is because he has never stopped to think.”  (Chandler, 2007) We can say that how language operates in the society and especially conditioning one’s mind.  

                Psychological study of white people:

When a white person looks at a black person, how he will look at him? Surly he will try to differ himself from him. He will think that he has the power and he is superior to the fellow. Now this it becomes the narcissistic approach. We can say that they are so much obsessed by their color that they can’t see other things. Suddenly they start thinking that they are the most civilized people in the world. They are the educated people. From this ‘The White Men’s burden’ came those they are from those intellectual people who have burden to civilize the society. Knowingly or unknowingly they do harm to the other people’s culture and their identity. They never respect a black man rather they feel hatred towards them. The white people always try to protect the white women from the black people. They think that the black men are always hungry for the white women’s body. They always portray animalistic characteristic of the black men.

Here I would like to give the example of the play ‘The Tempest’ by Shakespeare. In this play Prospero tries to save her daughter Miranda from Caliban who is a black slave. Prospero thinks that Caliban is hungry for his daughter and Miranda herself was also so much afraid by Caliban because of his look and color.

                Psychological study of black women:

Fanon as a psychiatrist studied a black woman’s case named Mayotte. He says that it was her wish to marry a white man. She was aware about the truth that she as a black woman can’t marry to a white man. They are not much respected in eyes of the white man. And even if she marries to a white man the society will never accept them.

Civilization is based on two ideas: 1) Incest Taboos and 2) Kinship Rituals. Here I would to talk about only Incest Taboos. Incest Taboos are created to avoid some situations, situation like mingling of the race, or blood. We can stop or avoid this kind of situations by law but we can’t stop thinking or someone’s desire. Here if a black woman desires to marry a white man then she is breaking Incest Taboos made by the society to stay pure by blood. So, we can say that desire is an abstract idea which can’t be fulfilled. Here I would like to give the example of ‘The Bluest Eye’ by Toni Morison. How eagerly Pecola Breedlove the protagonist of the novel was waiting that some a white man come and will marry with her and her every problems will be solve.

                Psychological study of Black skin White masks:

Here I also would like to mention Mulatto also known as Creole. They are the child of mixed race. Fanon studies their mindset also. How they are humiliated and abused in the society. He says that their condition is worse than the black people. They feel superior to the black people but they are also afraid again being black. As I above said that when a black man visits the white world, the black man’s world changes totally. Here Fanon says that a black man has two dimensions one with his fellows, the other with the white man. When the black master the white men’s language he behaves differently with another black person. In the white men’s world he tries to be a white means black skin, white mask. He tries to put the white mask on his black skin.

Conclusion:

Fanon resists many questions but he also tries to give answers to those questions also. He says that black skin or white skin is something which if the fellow wants to change then also he can’t change. And that is why Fanon says that, know your lack, face your limitation and be happy with your being. He says that it is social problem that is why white people can’t be happy with whiteness and black people with blackness. Rather becoming upset with whiteness or blackness celebrates yourself as you are. “Everything begins with you and ends with yourself.”

Works Cited

Chandler, O. (2007, january). goodreads. Retrieved october 2, 2015, from goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/949036-peau-noire-masques-blancs

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Selected Literary Terms

S. B. Gardi DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

M.K.BHAVNAGAR University

Written by: Gohil. Devikaba. J

Roll no.: 05

Course No.:07

Course Name: Literary Theory & Criticism

Enrollment No. : Pg14101015

Selected Literary Terms

Modernism:

M. H. Abrams in his book ‘A Glossary of Literary Terms’ writes that modernism is a term wildly used to find out new feature, new style of writing, new form of literature, new concepts and subjects of the contemporary time especially after world war-I time. The word itself suggests that it is related with the current phenomena and especially in the late 19^th century covering the early 20^th century. It covers the western society and its culture. The reasons behind Modernism are the development of modern industrial growth of cities, rapid growth of cities and the horror of world war-I. We can say that Modernism is one kind of revolt against the traditional forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, philosophy, social organization, activities of daily life, and even the sciences, were becoming ill-fitted to their tasks and outdated in the new economic, social, and political environment of an emerging fully industrialized world. We can see that chronologically modernism comes after the Victorian age. So, we can see some effect of Victorian age upon literature of modern time. During this time people were unhappy with the time because they think that now there is no God means there is no more any hope. In other words we can say that this was the time of self-consciousness. Many people say that this was the time of rethinking, relearning, and reshaping. 

Self-consciousness, self-reference was the characteristics of Modernism. Apart from literature many other disciplines like music, painting has also started modernism.

Post-modernism:

In the very simple words post-modernism is anti-modernism. It gives antithesis of modernism. Its main focus is on the time after world war-II. It is a late 20^th century movement in the arts, architecture, and criticism that was a departure from modernism. This term is also related with deconstruction and post-structuralism. Post-modernism is an approach which includes different kind of interpretations from different aspects like culture, literature, art, philosophy, history, economy, architecture, fiction and literary criticism. Because it is the opposite of modernism we can many things totally different from modernism. And because of this movement many other genres also exist. Like absurd, antihero, anti-novel, Beat writers, concrete poetry, metaftction. We can say that during this time people celebrate the world without the God. Here we will not find a kind of hope which was present during modernism time.

New criticism:

New criticism is a new branch of studying the text. The movement derived in considerable part from elements in I. A. Richards' ‘Principles of Literary Criticism (1924)’ and ‘Practical Criticism (1929)’ and from the critical essays of T. S. Eliot. According to Mathew Arnold’s touchstone method is a comparative method of criticism. According to this method, in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry. Even a single line or selected quotation will serve the purpose. If the other work moves us in the same way as these lines and expressions do, then it is really a great work, otherwise not. It opposed the prevailing interest of scholars, critics, and teachers of that era in the biographies of authors, the social context of literature, and literary history by insisting that the proper concern of literary criticism is not with the external circumstances or effects or historical position of a work, but with a detailed consideration of the work itself as an independent entity. In very simple words we can say that it tries to read the given words only without any outer help, without knowing the name of the author, the background of the author and even without the title of the particular work of art. It is very easy to apply new criticism in a short form of creative art like short stories, poems etc. but it little bit difficult to apply new criticism on the novel form of creative art.

Diaspora:

Diaspora is word come out with the feelings that something is missing. Diaspora is basically a Greek word which means “Scattered Dispersion”. This word also refers to the minority group in the society. This word is used for those people who were forced to leave their homeland and they have to settle down in the other land. The term diaspora carries a sense of displacement for those people who were cut-down from their roots and they still hope that one day they will be in their homeland. Mainly this word was used for the people who were non-Americans and after living in America they feel that they are rootless now. “Most discussions of diaspora were firmly rooted in a conceptual ‘homeland’; they were concerned with a paradigmatic case, or a small number of core cases. The paradigmatic case was, of course, the Jewish diaspora; some dictionary definitions of diaspora, until recently, did not simply illustrate but defined the word with reference to that case.” These are some lines noted by Rogers Brubaker for the word diaspora. He noted that most of the diaspora books were from the Jewish writers. Here we can say that there are many type of diaspora. With the developing time the critics found many kind of diaspora.         

Post-colonial:

With the word ‘post-colonialism’ the relationship between colonizer and colonized comes. In a way it is the indication of inequality in the society. Post-colonial angle is the way of looking towards the earth with the racial imbalance, inequality. Post-colonial study has opened many other studies also. Post-colonial study is the study of superiority and inferiority. So, my superiority depends upon other’s inferiority so I have to invent inferiority. If there is no one like inferior then I have to create superiority. The two examples of post colonialism are the Bollywood movies are ‘Laggan’ and ‘Rang de Basanti’. If we observe these movies then we come to know about this movie that in these movies it is depicted that the hero needs a white person to know about the other culture and especially their culture or our in their way. Critical theory of post colonialism presents, explains, and illustrates the ideology and the praxis of neocolonialism, with examples drawn from the humanities-history and political science, philosophy, and Marxist theory, sociology, anthropology, and human geography; the cinema, religion, and theology: feminism, linguistics, and post-colonial literature, of which the anti-conquest narrative genre presents the stories of colonial subjugation of the subaltern man and woman.

Feminist Criticism:

Feminist criticism is the study of female in the male dominated society. The feminist study starts with the third wave authors. They challenged the role of female in the society and the inequality of gender in the society. Its history has been broad and varied, from classic works of nineteenth century women authors such as George Eliot and Margaret Fuller. The best example of the gender inequality is the name of George Eliot’s name itself. She was forced to carry the name of male, because during those time women were not allowed to write or even read the books. It was the time during which the role of women was within the four walls. Among many feminist writers the one of the notable name is Elaine Showalter’s name. She has given the theory of gyno-criticism. She gave the theory in which she says that as a woman her body of writing is important not the body of the writer. She also talks about the female’ psyche and her mental condition as a reader and writer also. 1979.) A much more radical critical mode was launched in France by Simone de Beauvoir's ‘The Second Sex’ (1949), a wide-ranging critique of the cultural identification of women as merely the negative object, or "Other," to man as the dominating "Subject" who is assumed to represent humanity in general; the book dealt also with "the great collective myths" of women in the works of many male writers.

Psychoanalytical Criticism:

This approach emerged in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Basically in this approach the critics say that the author’s mental condition and his/her background is reflects in the work of art. M. H. Abrams in his book ‘A Glossary of Literary Terms’ give some common elements to understand the work of art through this view point. (1) Reference to the author's personality in order to explain and interpret a literary work; (2) reference to literary works in order to establish, biographically, the personality of the author; and (3) the mode of reading a literary work specifically in order to experience the distinctive subjectivity, or consciousness, of its author. Psychoanalytical approach is connected with the Freudian theory. It is true that this is a scientific approach to see towards the different kind of people, but this theory we can also apply in literature also. In other words, the objects of psychoanalytic literary criticism, at its very simplest, can be the psychoanalysis of the author or of a particularly interesting character in a given work. Critics may view the fictional characters such as a psychological case study, attempting to identify such Freudian concepts as Oedipus complex, Freudian slips Id, ego and superego and so on and demonstrate how they influenced the thoughts and behaviors of fictional characters.

New Historicism:

New historicism is a different view point to look towards the creative work of art. There is slight difference between the old historicism and new historicism. New historicism goes to deeper meaning of the time. They again and again revisit the work of art with the different references, different viewpoints and different ideas. What is most distinctive in the new mode of historical study is mainly the result of concepts and practices of literary analysis and interpretation that have been assimilated from various recent post structural theorists. Michel Foucault's view that the discourse of an era, instead of reflecting preexisting entities and orders, brings into being the concepts, oppositions, and hierarchies of which it speaks; that these elements are both products and propagators of "power," or social forces; and that as a result, the particular discursive formations of an era determine what is at the time accounted "knowledge" and "truth," as well as what is considered to be humanly normal as against what is considered to be criminal, or insane, or sexually deviant. Through this approach the critics tried to say that every human action is actually the effect of a network of material practices. And the other argument is that a critical method and a language adequate to describe culture under capitalism participate in the economy they describe.

Eco-criticism:

Eco criticism is the study of literature and environment from the different point of view through which the critics tried to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction through different point of view. Another early Eco-critical text, Joseph Meeker’s ‘The Comedy of Survival’ (1974), proposed a version of an argument that was later to dominate eco-criticism and environmental philosophy that environmental crisis is caused primarily by a cultural tradition in the West of separation of culture from nature, and elevation of the former to moral predominance. In the mid-1980s scholars began to work collectively to establish eco-criticism as a genre, primarily through the work of the Western Literature Association in which the revaluation of the nature writing as a non-fictional literary genre could function. In short, Eco-criticism is the genre through which the critics tried to study the nature as well as the nature of the work of art also. Simon Estok noted in 2001 that “eco-criticism has distinguished itself, debates notwithstanding, firstly by the ethical stand it takes, its commitment to the natural world as an important thing rather than simply as an object of thematic study, and, secondly, by its commitment to making connections.”  

Queer theory:

Queer theory is the theory is the study of LGBT people in the society. Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women’s studies. Queer Theory is often used to designate the combined area of gay and lesbian studies and criticism, as well as theoretical and critical writings concerning all modes of variance. The term "queer" was originally derogatory, used to stigmatize male and female same-sex love as deviant and unnatural; since the early 1990s, however, it has been increasingly adopted by gays and lesbians themselves as a non-invidious term to identify a way of life and an area for scholarly inquiry.

Both lesbian studies and gay studies began as "liberation movements"— in parallel with the movements for African-American and feminist liberation—during the anti-Vietnam War, anti-establishment, and counter-cultural ferment of the late 1960s and 1970s. It was the demand of the time that lesbian and gay people have to raise their voice and that is why this point of view comes out as an import theory.

Structuralism:

Structuralism is the theory of studying the structure of the novels or any creative work of art. As summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn Structuralism is “the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture.” In the very simple words structuralism is the arrangements of the incidents of the story. We can arrange the different kinds of story with different point of view. And through this we can also reaches to the different viewpoints. The term appeared in the works of French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss and gave rise in France to the “structuralist movement”. The origins of structuralism connect with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics along with the linguistics of the Prague and Moscow schools. In brief, de Saussure’s structural linguistics propounded three related concepts.

Alamkara School:

The earliest and most sustained school, it studies literary language and assumes that the locus of literariness is in the figures of speech, in the mode of figurative expression, in the grammatical accuracy and pleasantness of sound. It doesn’t mean that the word doesn’t carry the meaning of that sentence but in fact structural taxonomies of different figures of speech are models of how meaning is cognized and how it is to be extracting from the text. Bhamaha (Kavyalamkara) talks of the pleasure of multiplicity of meaning inherent in certain alamkaras such as arthantara nyasa (2.71), vibhavana (2.77), and samasokti (2.79). Bhamaha was the first alamkarika poetician and in his book in chapter no 2 and 3 he describes 35 figures of speech. Many other critics also continue this tradition and they were Dandin, Udbhata, Rudrata and Vamana. And the final critic came who mingled the different theories and he was Anandavardhana; alamkara was sought to be integrated with dhvani and rasa. They all were the Sanskrit critics. Alamkara is used for beautifying the language. Many critics said that we can use figure of speech (Alamkara) but it must be used in limited way otherwise it may happen that the work of art will lose its charm.       

Riti School:

Riti is the theory of language of literature. The word Riti was first used by Bharata’s ‘Natyasastra’ itself under the republic of vrtti. But it was Vamana who first developed it into a theory of ‘Visista Padaracana riti’. In the very simple words formation of or arrangement of marked inflected constructions is riti. Two other words are used for riti are Marga and Vrtti. Later, around ninth century AD Anandavardhana distinguished this styles on the basis of the use of particular kinds of compounds. The Gunas have their potential being in this permanent source which Vamana regarded as the Atman of the Kavya and called it ‘Riti.’ Hence the thesis “Riti is the Soul of a Kavya.” ‘Riti roatmaa Kaavyasya Sareerasyeva’. Riti is to the Kavya what Atman is to the Sarira. It is necessary here to study the etymology of the terms Atman and Riti in order to realise the significance of Vamana’s conception of the Soul of a Kavya. The word Atman is believed to have been derived from the root ‘At’ meaning to move constantly or from the root ‘An’ meaning to live, or perhaps from both. The term Riti is derived from the root ‘Ri’ meaning to move. The identity of Riti with Atman becomes complete when we take Dandin’s metaphor of Gunas as Pranas. Just as the Atman is the Karana Sarira of a person, Riti is the Karana Sarira of a Kavya. The natural beauty or Sobha of a Kavya depends on the Gunas of its Soul which is Riti.

Vakrokti School:

In the whole range of Sanskrit poetics, the term vakrokti took altogether a new significance and the highest position as the all-pervading poetic concept in Kuntaka's Vakroktijivita. Presenting the major schools of Sanskrit poetics, the book gives general definition of vakrokti and its multi-dimensional implications. Vakrokti means the hidden meaning of the work of art. The writer outs the message in the hidden way that at the first glance we will not be able to find the meaning of the poem or the sentence or any creative work of art.it is also a theory of language of literature. It claims that the characteristic property of literary language is its ‘markedness’. Kuntaka made Vakrokti a full-fledged theory of literariness.Vakrokti literally means deviant or marked expression. kuntaka's theory of vakrokti and makes its critical analysis in relation to various literary concepts-alankara, svabhavokti, rasavadalankara, marga and rasa. Finally, it deals with the striking similarities between dhvani and vakrokti, and brings out the fundamental aspects of practical criticism as showed by kuntaka.

Dhavani School:

Next only to the rasa theory in importance, the dhavani theory of anandavardhana considers suggestion, the indirectly evoked meaning as the characteristic property of literary discourse, the determinant that separates it from other rational discourses. Dhavani becomes an embracing principle that explains the structure and function of the other major elements of literature- the aesthetic effect (rasa), the figural mode and devices (alamkara), the stylistic values (riti) and excellences and defects (guna-dosa). In ‘Dhvayyaloka’, Anandavardhana has presented a structural analysis of indirect literary meaning. He has classified different kinds of suggestion and defined them by identifying the nature of suggestion in each. According to V. S. Seturamn Dhavani means “That kind of poetry, where in the meaning renders itself secondary or the word renders its meaning secondary and suggests the implied meaning is designated by the learned as ‘Dhavani’ or ‘suggestive poetry’.”  

Auchitya School:

We can say that Kshemendra is the founder of Auchitya School. The other nearest meaning of this word is ‘Perfect’ or we can also say that ‘Complete’. It is true that the nature functions itself but only we human beings tried to make perfect or tried to add perfection in all most all the things. In literature, Auchitya plays a vital role. If Auchitya is missing in the work of art then that work of art will not be able to create that much effect. And for that it is compulsory that the meaning or we can say that the words used by the author must be conventional. The theory of property or appropriateness claims that in all aspect of literary composition. There is the possibility of a perfect, the, most appropriate choice of subject, of ideas, of words, of devices as such, it has affinities with Longinus’s theory of the sublime.