Wretched Of The Earth By Frantz Fanon: Article Analysis

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In 1961, Frantz Fanon published, The Wretched of the Earth, an analysis of the colonized and their path to decolonization. Fanon critically analyzed the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. In The Wretched of the Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the preface to introduce Fanon’s beliefs. However, the preface provided by Sartre displays conflicting views with the ideas proposed by Fanon. The habit of reliance upon the preface to educate the reader developed confusion and conflicting views throughout the rest of the analysis about the book’s audience and true message. In the preface, Sartre fails to understand the objective of Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth due to Sartre’s differing beliefs about the …show more content…

Fanon continually discusses the necessity of violence to help achieve liberation and ultimate decolonization. Fanon even writes that decolonization must only be achieved by force, suggesting violence as essential in the process of liberation. Fanon states that, “decolonization can only succeed by resorting to every means, including, of course, violence.” Fanon’s attachment to violence for the sole purpose of decolonization leaves the colonized in the dust. While Fanon believes violence leads to decolonization, Sartre takes an alternative approach to violence by expressing through his preface that violence leads to the development of human status: “Don’t be mistaken; it is through this mad rage, this bile and venom, their constant desire to kill us, and the permanent contraction of powerful muscles, afraid to relax, that they become men.” Through the raw and energetic violence suggested by Sartre, it is proposed that the colonized subjects redevelop their human status, previously experienced before the acts of colonialism. While violence seems irrelevant in developing manhood in a colonial society, it is surprisingly the only force that will have a lasting effect upon the colonized’s manhood. Although Fanon suggests violence as a tool for purely decolonization, Sartre repurposes Fanon’s ideals to suggest that violence also helps redevelop the human nature of the

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