“Black Skin, White Masks” Book by Frantz Fanon Report

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“Black Skin, White Mask”, the author reveals a psychological analysis where he condemns the racial prejudices and contrasts the blacks to the whites. The story touches upon the political issues and gender differences in terms of race and nationality. Fanon constitutes an unconditional superiority of white men over black ones. Further, he stipulates another fact: black men long to prove the independence of their mind and the richness of their thought. Thus, in the extract under analysis, Fanon’s goal is to study “the fact of juxtaposition of black and white as a massive psycho existential complex” (Fanon, 12).

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In the introduction, Fanon tries to set his own position in this research. Anyway, the goals he settles are mostly focused on the defining of the position of Afro-Americans in the white world.

In the second chapter called “The Woman of Color and the White Man”, Fanon reveals the ethical nature of love. The chapter is rather controversial since the author contrasts “a movement of love, a gift of self” to the aggression “which leads to enslavement or to conquest”. By the title of the chapter, Fanon confuses us as far as inferiority is concerned. On the one hand, he considers “to what extent authentic love will remain unattainable” if “one has purged oneself of that feeling of the inferiority” (Fanon, 42). Mayotte, a colored woman, is in love with a white man whom he considers “her lord” (Fanon, 42). She loves him “because he has blue eyes and blond hair”. But in fact, this affection is the reflection of inferiority and Mayotte’s desire to belongs to the white stratum. Moreover, she becomes a “laundress” in order to whiten herself of her blackness. Thus, in the story, there is only one goal that the black woman longs: to become white. Fanon concludes that “it must be understood once and for all that it is a question of saving the race” by which he means that the woman of color sees her salvation in the assimilation within the whites.

On the contrary, a black man, in the interaction with white world, seeks some hints of power and self-realization. He is not inclined to reduce to inferiority but to face the fight of races. The question is “whether it is possible for the black man to overcome his feeling of insignificance to rid his face of the compulsive quality that makes it so like the behavior of the phobic” (Fanon 50). His only concern, to be as powerful as a white man, explains why he is afraid of being along. The inner world, an ego, dictates the actions accomplished by the Negro and “ego-withdrawal” is the only reasonable solution. The feeling of loneliness enhances the necessity to prove the superiority of the race. In other words, he seeks the privilege of being just a man among the other men.

In conclusion, the writer managed to trace both the role of sexual and racial differences and how these factors affect the position of the Afro-Americans in the world of white men. In a whole the book is a kind of Fanon’s outlook on the black that are found themselves in the ontological crisis, considering the superior world as paradise is available in case you have “a whit ticket”. In particular, “The Woman of Color and the White Man ” reveals the black woman’s ontological resolution.

Works Cited

Fanon, Frantz Black Skin, White Masks US: Grove Press, 1967.

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IvyPanda. 2021. ""Black Skin, White Masks" Book by Frantz Fanon." November 19, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/black-skin-white-masks-book-by-frantz-fanon/.

1. IvyPanda. ""Black Skin, White Masks" Book by Frantz Fanon." November 19, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/black-skin-white-masks-book-by-frantz-fanon/.


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IvyPanda. ""Black Skin, White Masks" Book by Frantz Fanon." November 19, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/black-skin-white-masks-book-by-frantz-fanon/.

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