1. In Fanon analysis of colonialism and decolonization Wretched of the Earth “On Violence”, the relationship between the phrases “possession” and “the colonist’s table” establish a sense of ownership of wealth, intellect, and independence. Obviously the colonists were the wealthy ones with a life of freedom, riches, and every possession they may owned gave them a sense of power. Sitting at the colonist’s table can have one to think they are a part of such great power and is reluctant to have a life of riches and valuable possessions, which the colonized wished they had. 2. Claudia Rankine book Citizen: An American Lyric which details out the struggles, aggression, and obstacles of black life in America. The expressive use of “so, so sorry”
In Audre Lorde’s bildungsroman essay “The Fourth of July” (1997), she recalls her family’s trip to the nation’s capital that represented the end of her childhood ignorance by being exposed to the harsh reality of racialization in the mid 1900s. Lorde explains that her parents are to blame for shaping her skewed perception of America by shamefully dismissing frequent acts of racism. Utilizing copious examples of her family being negatively affected by racism, Lorde expresses her anger towards her parents’ refusal to address the blatant, humiliating acts of discrimination in order to emphasize her confusion as to why objecting to racism is a taboo. Lorde’s use of a transformational tone of excitement to anger, and dramatic irony allows those
Sojourner creates a form of self as a victim of prejudice by revealing to us how she i...
Brown, Paul. This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine: The Tempest and the discourse of colonialism." New York: Dollimore and Sinfield, 1985.
A noble and free life is the goal of many young pilgrims; some even risked their lives to escape from the modern society. Bertrand Russell once stated “It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly.” Though having a fundamental impact, in my opinion, the preoccupations are not entirely to be blamed.
In this essay we'll examine the practice of imperialism throughout modern history. Specifically, the philosophies and doctrines that provided justification of its offenses. We'll allow the life of Cecil Rhodes to serve as an entry point for this topic. This is ideal, first because Rhode's ideas and doctrines provide an illustration of imperial doctrine as a whole. Secondly, because Rhode's life is a microcosm of historic imperialism, as we shall see.
The Angel of Assassination - Charlotte Corday Charlotte Corday was born on July 27, 1768 in the region of Normandy that is now referred to as Orne. Corday was a fifth-generation matrilinear descendant of Pierre Corneille, who is typically considered the first great seventeenth-century French dramatist. Charlotte Corday was born into this aristocratic family as Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d’Armont. Keeping wealth and power in the family was important, as such her parents, Jacques François de Corday, seigneur d’Armont, were cousins. While still a young girl, Charlotte Corday’s mother and older sister passed away.
Only recently has Ireland been included in the extensive study of postcolonial societies. Our geographical closeness to Britain, the fact that we are racially identical, the fact that we speak the same language and have the same value systems make our status as postcolonial problematic. Indeed, some would argue it is impossible to tell the difference between Irish and British. However, to mistake Irish for English to some is a grave insult. In this essay, I would like to look at Ireland’s emerging postcolonial status in relation to Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth’. By examining Fanon’s theories on the rise of cultural nationalism in colonised societies, one can see that events taking place in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century bear all the hallmarks of a colonised people’s anti-colonial struggle through the revival of a culture that attempts to assert difference to the coloniser and the insistence on self-government.
In Romanticism and Colonialism, Tim Fulford and Peter J. Kitson argue that few scholars explicate the relationship between Romantic texts, British colonialism, and imperialism. Fulford and Kitson point out that the "Romantic period is a watershed in colonial history," marking the inception of a British empire based on the political philosophy of the "white man's burden" (3). By reading Romantic texts in the historical and political context of colonialism and imperialism, Fulford and Kitson hope to return Romantic texts "to the context of material, colonial processes contemporaneous with their imagined versions of colonized people and places" (9). In other words, Fulford and Kitson read Romantic texts as reflections of historical reality and as complex, ambivalent responses to colonial and imperial discourse. With the aim of returning Romantic texts to "material, colonial processes," I will read Byron's poem "Darkness" through the lens of Julia Kristeva's conception of abjection. My abject reading of "Darkness" will then explicate the relationship between the poem and the larger process of British colonialism and imperialism. I will first read "Darkness" for instances of abjection through the lens of Julia Kristeva's 1982 essay, "Approaching Abjection." I will then conclude by addressing the question of how an abject reading of "Darkness" helps to elucidate the complex interplay between Romanticism and British colonial and imperial discourse.
Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon explores the roles of violence, class, and political organization in the process of decolonization. Within a Marxist framework, Fanon theorizes and prophesizes the successes and failures of independence movements within colonized nations. He exalts the proletariat as a revolutionary class that is first to realize the necessity of violence in the removal of colonial regimes. Yet the accomplishment and disappointments of the proletariat are at the hand of men. Fanon neglects women in terms of the proletariat’s wishes and efforts. In spite of this exclusion, Fanon nonetheless develops a theory that could apply to the proletariat as a whole, women included. For although Fanon failed to acknowledge women’s role in a post-colonial society, his theory of the revolutionary proletariat applies to Egypt’s lower class women.
Fanon depicts this interplay of ‘colonial’ and ‘native’ actors as being largely a one-sided, colonialists’ affair; not only due to the military and political power of the Europeans, but along with the contributing factor of low rates of revolt. Yet, in this reprimand of the African people for their inaction against oppressive government policies and bureaucracy, Fanon also empowers them by exposing their nascent agency to stop these unjust actions by violently rising against the government.
Have you ever wondered if literature has an effect on people that read it? Well I believe it does and violence in literature has a negative effect on the people who allow themselves to be susceptible to it. People who read violent literature, or see violent media are more likely to break laws and commit horrible deeds and may even go so far as murdering someone. There is so much violence in this world already, which is why I don’t understand why authors of books, tv shows and movies continue to write graphic, aggressive events that seem realistic. All that is doing is giving people who are emotionally unstable ideas about committing violent acts.
The native intellectual’s plan to govern society is based on ideas of individuality, which colonization destroys. Colonization forces people to conform to ideas of separations, limitations, and social “norms.” “What the intellectual demands is the right to multiply the emancipated, and the opportunity to organize a genuine class of emancipated citizens,” (60). As of now, there are many boundaries that separate the different social class. There’s the rich bourgeoisie, the working middle class, the native intellectual and the poor lumpenproletariat. The native intellectual refuses to let these boundaries continue through the transformation of a colonial world. Ins...
Lazarus, Neil. “Disavowing Decolonization: Fanon, Nationalism, and the Question of Representation in Postcolonial Theory.” Frantz Fanon: Critical perspectives. Ed. Anthony C. Alessandrini. London: Routledge, 1999. 161-94. Print.
There is no equality between men and women. Women are subconsciously treated differently, ostracized by the sexist ideologies instilled over the centuries. Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Blind Assassin, portrays the struggles that women have to overcome in the fight to obtain equality. The novel tells the story of two sisters, Iris and Laura, who were born in a time when they were oppressed by societal expectations that dictated their conduct. The novel’s female characters all struggle to have their opinions validated, because as women they were expected to be submissive. Atwood’s book showcases this inequality through the regret the characters experience as a result of not being in control of their lives. In the end, the women’s lives are ruined and full of regret, they become used products of a patriarchal society.
Colonial Mentality theory grounds this study in recognition of colonialism’s lingering impact. Colonial Mentality theory attempts to shift the dominant ways in which people perceive the world (Young, 2003). Young (2003) stated, “Colonialism claims the right of all people on this earth to the same material and cultural well-being” (p.2). Young (2003) asserted that colonialism “names a politics and a philosophy of activism” that challenges the pervasive inequality in the world. In a different way, it resumes anti-colonial struggles of the past. Historically, American powers, deemed the west, subjected many regions, the non-west, to colonial and imperial rule. American powers felt it was their duty to colonize and felt justified in doing so: Colonial