To speak means being able to use a certain syntax and possessing the morphology of such and such a language, but it means above all assuming a culture and bearing the weight of a civilization. This question is terribly present in our lives. How can we possibly not hear that voice again tumbling down the steps of History: “It’s no longer a question of knowing the world, but of transforming it.” These are objective facts that state reality.īut once we have taken note of the situation, once we have understood it, we consider the job done. Nobody dreams of challenging the fact that its principal inspiration is nurtured by the core of theories which represent the black man as the missing link in the slow evolution from ape to man. There is no doubt whatsoever that this fissiparousness is a direct consequence of the colonial undertaking. A black man behaves differently with a white man than he does with another black man. The black man possesses two dimensions: one with his fellow Blacks, the other with the Whites. France’s occupation by the fascist Vichy regime brought the issues of racism and colonialism into the spotlight, and in 1946, Martinique was officially made a “department” of France rather than a colony, giving Martinique a more independent status while still maintaining a significant level of economic and political dependence on France.We attach a fundamental importance to the phenomenon of language and consequently consider the study of language essential for providing us with one element in understanding the black man’s dimension of being-for-others, it being understood that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other. These wars were also significant in weakening the European empires that had for so long been tyrannizing the world through the practice of colonialism. The immense suffering they caused, combined with developments in science, led many people to lose their religious faith and turn to systems like psychoanalysis to explain human behavior instead. As a backdrop to all of this, of course, the first and second World Wars had caused global upheaval. Pioneering psychoanalytic theorists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung encouraged people to think differently about issues such as sex, the family, morality, and what constitutes “normal” behavior, paving the way for writers like Fanon to use psychoanalytic theory to examine broader social phenomena. This social shift is closely related to the advent of psychoanalysis, which began in the 19th century and soared in popularity during the early 20th century. In the West at the beginning of the 20th century, Victorian social norms had given way to more progressive and experimental modes of behavior. His most well-known book, The Wretched of the Earth, was published just before his death from leukemia in 1961 at the age of 36.įanon wrote Black Skin, White Masks during a time of dramatic change in world history. Fanon married a white French woman named Josie and had two children, one from a previous relationship. This experience had a profound impact on Fanon, and he gradually began to focus more on supporting the Algerian liberation efforts, eventually resigning from the French hospital, and shortly afterwards he was expelled from Algeria by the French government. Fanon then moved to Algeria, where he worked in a psychiatric hospital, treating both the French soldiers who had been traumatized by torturing Algerians as well as the Algerian torture victims. While completing his residency in psychiatry in Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole, he wrote his first book, Black Skin, White Masks, which was published in 1952. He then traveled to Lyon to finish his education, qualifying as a psychiatrist in 1951. Fanon returned to Martinique and supported Césaire’s run for office on the communist party ticket. He was awarded the Croix de guerre, a French military honor. During the Second World War, Fanon traveled to Dominica to join the Free French Forces and fight the fascist Vichy regime. He attended the most competitive secondary school in Martinique, where he was taught by the Martinican anti-imperialist scholar, poet, and politician Aimé Césaire. Frantz Fanon was born to a middle-class family in Fort-de-France, Martinique, in 1925.
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