MAJOR SEMINAR

An Introduction to The Wretched of the Earth

by Franz Fanon

Submitted by,

Irfan Ahammed

UPRN 221201124

Supervisor: Ms. Vismaya Vijay

Semester 4

2022-2024

Modern European Fiction

 The Wretched of the Earth

Franz Fanon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frantz Omar Fanon was a revolutionary political philosopher from the French colony

of Martinique. His many works are highly influential and acclaimed in the disciplines of

Post-Colonial Studies, Critical Theory and Marxism. Fanon was an extraordinary

thinker and a true intellectual. He was an outstanding and dedicated physician as well

as a philosopher and political activist. Fanon has made many enormous contributions to

civilization.

ABOUT THE WORK

The Wretched of the Earth is Fanon’s seminal 1961 book, originally published in

French, about the effects of colonization on the minds of the colonized, and the efforts

by the colonized to overthrow the colonizers. It draws from Fanon’s own experience as

a Black man living in Algeria and witnessing the brutal war for independence from

France in the 1950s. The book both narrates these experiences and theories them in a

larger context of racial and national oppression. The book was very much of its time. In

a wave of decolonization following World War II, a number of public intellectuals were

discussing how colonized people would create new nations after independence. At the

same time, the horrors of colonization were still coming to light, and it was important to

discuss how the inherent violence of colonialism impacted the psychological makeup of
the colonized. Fanon contributed to all these lines of thought. As a Black man, as a

witness of war, and as a psychiatrist, he weaved together philosophy, journalism, and

psychoanalysis to describe the colonial and postcolonial situation. It is probably the

most widely read book to emerge from the Third World upheaval of the Post War

period. The Wretched of the Earth is a founding text of modern postcolonial studies and

has been translated to sixteen languages.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE WORK

The work is a seminal discussion of decolonization in Africa, especially Algeria. Over

the course of five chapters, Fanon covers a wide range of topics, including patterns in

how the colonized overthrow the colonist, how newly independent countries form

national and cultural consciousness, and the overall effect of colonialism on the

psychology of men and women in colonized countries. Fanon’s discussion is both

theoretical and journalistic. That is, he both reports on events in the recent history of

decolonization, and theorizes what these events mean or could mean philosophically.

Written at the height of the Algerian War of Independence, Wretched of the Earth

presents an analytical exploration of the inner workings and various stages of the

decolonization process, as well as an impassioned apology for the need for violence in

the anticolonial struggle. The book also marks a turn in Fanon’s thinking from his

earlier preoccupation with the problems of Blackness and Black oppression to a wider,

global take on the struggle between Western countries and their colonies. Inspired by

Marxist and Leninist ideas, Fanon adapts the notions of class struggle and social justice

to the racialized colonial context. His analysis of the problems facing colonized societies

culminates in the total rejection of European values through a cathartic violent struggle
against the oppressors. The text comprises five main sections, a Conclusion, and a

Preface by Jean-Paul Sartre that outlines why Fanon’s book is a seminal work and why

it should be read by European, especially French, audiences. Additionally, Sartre uses

The Wretched of the Earth to highlight his own support for national self-determination

and dissatisfaction with the French Left, which he considers ineffective and

hypocritical.

CHAPTER TWO

The second part, “Spontaneity: Its Strength and Weakness,” presents a well-rounded

description of the various segments of colonial society and how they interact.

Additionally, Fanon contrasts the situation in a place, such as Algeria, to the one

described by Friedrich Engels in 19th-century England. Unlike the Western proletariat,

which is the most organized and politically aware social class, urban wage workers in

colonial countries are in a relatively privileged position. In contrast, it is the peasants

who are the most dispossessed and dream of taking back their land from the settlers.

However, Fanon points out that in many places, traditional clan leaders, oracles, and

medicine men who want to safeguard their influence in the community prefer to work

with the colonial powers rather than local city dwellers who bring to the village such

progressive ideas as atheism, modern medicine, and universal education. As a result, the

author appeals to nationalist parties to actively educate and include the peasant

population in the liberation struggle rather than ignore and distrust farmers, as is

usually the case.

THEMES

1. Cycles of Violence

Violence is a frequent theme in The Wretched of the Earth, and Fanon is particularly

interested in showing how different forms of violence repeat in colonial and post-

colonial history. Colonialism first maintains the authority of the colonist through

violence, eliciting submission from the colonized through the police and soldiers. But

this means that the colonized can only free themselves by reversing the dynamic and

themselves exercising violence against the colonist. The colonized learn violence from

the colonist, and then use it against them. At the same time, after independence, the

most powerful within the new nation may, like the old colonists, once against use

violence to elicit the submission of the rural masses. Thus, the cycle begins again.

2. Manichaeism

Manichaeism was a dualistic religious system in early Christianity that split the world

into good and evil, light and dark. Fanon uses Manichaeism to refer to the colonist's

simplistic, dualistic worldview in which the world is divided into good and evil, white

and black, colonist and colonized. But, just like colonial violence, the dichotomy can be

reversed. Under decolonization, the colonized begin to think of the colonist as evil in the

same way that the colonist used to think of the colonized. Thus, a dualistic worldview is

a theme through colonialism and decolonization alike.

3. Race vs. Tribe

Under Manichaeism, which sets up white vs. black as the primary difference in the

world, a number of other differences get erased. To the colonist, all Blacks, no matter

their tribe or religion, are the same, because it is race that is the primary marker of

worth and humanity. Race subsumes tribe. But this can also be a resource for the

colonized who are fighting back against colonization, because it allows people to form

coalitions against a common enemy: the colonist. Multiple tribes can come together to

fight the colonist. In turn, the colonist may try to have a different strategy, once

decolonization begins, of breaking up a nation into tribes, pitting one tribe against the

other, in order to weaken the opposition. In all cases, the relation between race and

tribe is of central importance in The Wretched of the Earth.

4. Nation vs. Culture

Another important theme throughout The Wretched of the Earth is the relation

between culture and nation, especially the decolonized nation after independence. The

colonized intellectual at first tries to assert an African culture to counter the hegemony

or self-proclaimed superiority of European culture. To do this, the intellectual might try

to excavate cultural materials from African history. In this view, finding culture is a

way of finding legitimacy for the new nation. But Fanon argues that, in the end, culture

actually arises from the process of nation-building itself. It is when men are fighting for

their freedom that culture is produced and comes into being. Cultural production—and

the intellectual—must then be an integral part of the work of achieving political

freedom.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE

The book’s title is taken from Eugène Pottier’s 1871 “Internationale,” the song

considered the anthem of left-wing parties worldwide and used as the official national

anthem of the Soviet Union until 1944. The full phrase in English goes “Arise ye

wretched of the earth / For justice thunders condemnation / A better world’s in birth!”