Frantz Omar Fanon was born on 20th July 1925 at Martinique, and he was died in 6th December 1961- Mary-land (U.S). He was an Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist, philosopher, and the French writer, his works are prominent in the study of post-colonial studies and Marxism. In this book Black skin, white mask is a "sociological study of the psychology of racism and dehumanization inherent to colonial domination." Fanon describes that the black people experience in the white world, and in partly he also mentions his personal experiences of life in French Caribbean. Fanon explored in his book about the nature of colonialism and racism, and the psychological damage they caused in colonial peoples and in the colonizer.
I will present this essay in the same manner in which Fanon presents his book, linking my personal experience to Fanon’s and some other important historical and cultural figures’ views. Fanon’s writing relates the experiences of a black man from the Antilles and his relationship with white man, more specifically the coloniser. In his first chapter, we witness the changes which the black man goes through when he has spent a certain amount of time in France. He becomes conscious of who he is and changes the aspects of him which would distance him from the white man’s culture. The black man who has been lived among the white man has to do everything in his power to maintain this proximity.
In the play, Loomis is a central figure that has many complex sides to his character. The idea of the enslavement of Loomis is central to the plays theme. Loomis characcter in general refers to the idea of having no air to survive in society. Nevertheless, the post slavery freedom of Loomis refers to many African Americans feeling of being lost in a society that has left them behind. Loomis was torn from his family like countless of African Americans during slavery and is in search of his wife, Martha.
In this book Black skin, white mask is a sociological study of psychology of racism and dehumanization inherent to colonial domination. Fanon describes that the black people experience in the white world, and in partly he also mentions his personal experiences of life in French Caribbean. Fanon explored in his book about the nature of colonialism and racism, and the psychological damage they caused in colonial peoples and in the colonizer. Fanon begin Black skin, White Masks with the basic factor in language for black people is that speaking is absolutely to exist for other. The language of colonizer is superior that the language of the colonized people.
Homer Plessy correlates with Christmas, because he was an “octoroon”, meaning he was one-eighth black by descent (Wittenberg 148). Christmas struggled with his racial identity throughout the novel. Faulkner highlights his appearance as both black and white: “He watched his body grow white out of the darkness like a Kodak print emerging from the liquid.” (Faulkner 46) This allows the reader to empathize with Christmas with his continuous struggle to interpret how he identifies himself. Along with the internal conflict, Christmas also faced an external conflict with Jefferson’s townspeople. Since he was a child, he experienced racial slurs and discrimination, which demonstrated the emotional abuse he experienced.
While Hughes’ work covered the range of African American social experience, one of his primary focuses was on exploring the how African American inspired and motivated themselves to carry on despite a mainstream culture, politics, and belief system that saw them as inferior, and worked in practice to continuously keep them oppressed (Gates et al.). “Mother to Son” one of Hughes’ most well-known illustrations of these themes of inspiration and motivation that, as the title suggests, an African American mother gives to her son on how to
The John Griffin Experience In the 1950’s, racism was at its peak in the US. In the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, he puts himself into a black man’s shoes to experience an everyday life of what it is like being of darker color. He takes it upon himself to seek medical treatment to change the pigmentation of his skin from white to black. After undergoing this treatment, he sets out to New Orleans to begin his life in darker skin. Black Like Me gave me more insight on racism, taught more about the importance of identity, and the arrogance of hypocrisy.
Morrison grew up in an American family that possessed an intense love and appreciation for black culture and people. From her parents Morrison learned how to face racism. She uses her novel to describe and show the suffrage of the black people. Morrison's novel highlights and shows the result of the migration from the rural south to the urban north from 1930s to 1950s. The migrants lost their sense of community and identity.
W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian and civil rights activists who lived during the period of ‘reconstruction’ following the end of slavery in the US. He was an important figure in the fight for racial justice and a theorist of race and racism as a social formation. He was particularly interested in the devastating effects that living in segregation has on the souls and consciousness of black people. In his work ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ (1903), Du Bois coined the term ‘double consciousness’ (1903).
Thesis: My thesis will revolve around two critics; Chinua Achebe and Caryl Phillips and their critical reception of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The focus will be on the two postcolonial writers regarding their history; a history of suffering because of their skin color and their experience of being confronted to a new society and the impact of it. In fact, the Nigerian writer experienced colonialism under the British rule and its consequences. The Kittitian writer, on the other hand, belongs to the second generation of immigrants in Britain and experienced the feeling of being an outsider and understood the fragility of identity. This may explain why the two men have different opinions and differ in their interpretation of Conrad’s novella.