PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2013 ID-34743
.
www.ccsenet.org/ells English Language and Literature Studies Vol. 2, No. 3; 2012.
.
Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (1993) have suggested, Fanon's model of intellectual development in the.
colonial context is inadequate since it cannot thoroughly and adequately account for the constitution of the.
subjectivity of these intellectuals. Williams and Chrisman therefore call for "an historical theorization of these.
intellectuals as crucial exponents of anti-colonial subjectivity, one which goes beyond Fanon's highly.
teleological and progressivist `three stages' characterization of anti-colonial intellectual development" (p.15)..
Indeed Fanon's model is highly problematic, and there is a need for the sort of theorization that Williams and.
Chrisman call for. In what follows I shall make a modest attempt in this direction, limiting myself only to a.
critique of Fanon's narrative of colonial literary and intellectual development. To delimit the scope of this article.
even further, I must state at the very outset that I do not intend to supplant Fanon's narrative by one of my own,.
for part of the point I shall raise against Fanon is the impossibility of constructing such an abstract narrative..
Another point that I should like to stress here is that this article is concerned with the theoretical problems that.
his model raises (or illuminates), rather than simply with reading a particular author or text in relation to this.
model. There have been interesting attempts at reading particular literary texts, authors or literary histories.
through Fanon. The work of Neil Lazarus and Patrick Taylor is so far the best in this regard (Taylor, 1989;.
Lazarus, 1990; Irele, 1969; Neill, 1982; Tabuteau, 1993; Patil, 1995; Fusco, 1995; Agovi, 1990; Richards, 2005)..
To study a specific literary theory means to interrogate its categories and underlying ideological assumptions..
Placing Fanon's paradigm within the totality of his work, this article will question its internal logic and how it.
relates to the rest of his work. Nevertheless, in order to profitably evaluate his literary theory and criticism, there.
will be a need to look at the history of colonial literatures and cultures to be able to gauge how far his proposed.
model can be related..
.
2. The Early Stage: in the Beginning There Were Only Mimic Men.
.
One of the problems of the paradigm Fanon proposes is the fact that it is too cryptic, with extremely little details.
of the three phases he identifies. Obviously in this schema he intends to describe the intellectual and political.
performance of the native elites. It seems to me, however, that his thinking here reflects more or less his thinking.
about native culture under colonialism in general. In order to understand the complexity of this paradigm, we.
need therefore to look at his entire work, where on many occasions he raises the question of colonial influence.
on native culture, and in turn the resistance of such culture to the dynamics and effects of colonialism. The first.
striking feature of the literature of the first phase of this paradigm, Fanon claims, is that the native writer totally.
identifies with the culture of the colonizer aesthetically and ideologically. For not only are Western literary forms.
reproduced, but even the content of such literature reflects Western colonial attitudes and cultural practices. In.
the absence of further details, we can only surmise that Fanon's characterization of this first phase reflects his.
early research and conclusions in Black Skin, White Masks and in his essay "West Indians and North Africans,".
which is reprinted in Toward the African Revolution. In "West Indians and North Africans" he remarks that.
before Aimé Césaire's "West India literature was a literature of Europeans:".
.
Until 1939 the West Indian lived, thought, dreamt, composed poems, wrote novels exactly as a white man would.
have done ...The West Indian identified himself with the white man, adopted a white man's attitude ,and "was a.
white man." (1969, p.26).
.
These remarks are adumbrated in Black Skin, White Masks. The thrust of the argument of this text is that the.
internalization of colonial culture, with its racist representation of the black other, induces a self-division in the.
black subject (1986, p.17). Fanon's colonial "Negro," as Stuart Hall (1996) puts it, "is obliged, in the scenarios.
of the colonial relation, to have a relation to self, to give a performance to self, which is scripted by the.
colonizer," producing in him the internally divided, pathological condition of self-hatred and alienation (p.18)..
The concept of "black skin, white masks" then is not only meant to explain the black subject-constitution, but.
also the attendant psychopathologies of this split identity. Fanon seems thus to imply this argument in his.
description of the early "assimilationist" period..
.
However, turning the concept of "black skins, white masks" without adjustment into a general theory of.
subject-constitution applicable to allnative intellectuals in the early phases of colonialism raises many questions.
about the validity of Fanon's claims. Surely not all colonial subjects are black, nor have all the black colonial.
subjects been subjected to the same colonial conditions as the Afro-Caribbeans. For the Afro-Caribbean social.
formations are, after all, particular cases. As Vere Knight (1994) points out, most of the islands were colonized.
by France, "which sought not merely political and economic domination, but, in the most active of fashions,.
cultural [hegemony] as well" (p.548). This colonial project "found Antilleans especially vulnerable because they.
lacked the support systems available to other colonized peoples - for example, in Africa - since they had been.
uprooted from their original homeland" and brought to the Caribbean "in a condition of slavery" (p.548). Octave.
Mannoni (1956), whose psychological study of colonialism appeared before that of Fanon, observes that.
.
122.
..
PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2013 ID-34743
.
www.ccsenet.org/ells English Language and Literature Studies Vol. 2, No. 3; 2012.
.
Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (1993) have suggested, Fanon's model of intellectual development in the.
colonial context is inadequate since it cannot thoroughly and adequately account for the constitution of the.
subjectivity of these intellectuals. Williams and Chrisman therefore call for "an historical theorization of these.
intellectuals as crucial exponents of anti-colonial subjectivity, one which goes beyond Fanon's highly.
teleological and progressivist `three stages' characterization of anti-colonial intellectual development" (p.15)..
Indeed Fanon's model is highly problematic, and there is a need for the sort of theorization that Williams and.
Chrisman call for. In what follows I shall make a modest attempt in this direction, limiting myself only to a.
critique of Fanon's narrative of colonial literary and intellectual development. To delimit the scope of this article.
even further, I must state at the very outset that I do not intend to supplant Fanon's narrative by one of my own,.
for part of the point I shall raise against Fanon is the impossibility of constructing such an abstract narrative..
Another point that I should like to stress here is that this article is concerned with the theoretical problems that.
his model raises (or illuminates), rather than simply with reading a particular author or text in relation to this.
model. There have been interesting attempts at reading particular literary texts, authors or literary histories.
through Fanon. The work of Neil Lazarus and Patrick Taylor is so far the best in this regard (Taylor, 1989;.
Lazarus, 1990; Irele, 1969; Neill, 1982; Tabuteau, 1993; Patil, 1995; Fusco, 1995; Agovi, 1990; Richards, 2005)..
To study a specific literary theory means to interrogate its categories and underlying ideological assumptions..
Placing Fanon's paradigm within the totality of his work, this article will question its internal logic and how it.
relates to the rest of his work. Nevertheless, in order to profitably evaluate his literary theory and criticism, there.
will be a need to look at the history of colonial literatures and cultures to be able to gauge how far his proposed.
model can be related..
.
2. The Early Stage: in the Beginning There Were Only Mimic Men.
.
One of the problems of the paradigm Fanon proposes is the fact that it is too cryptic, with extremely little details.
of the three phases he identifies. Obviously in this schema he intends to describe the intellectual and political.
performance of the native elites. It seems to me, however, that his thinking here reflects more or less his thinking.
about native culture under colonialism in general. In order to understand the complexity of this paradigm, we.
need therefore to look at his entire work, where on many occasions he raises the question of colonial influence.
on native culture, and in turn the resistance of such culture to the dynamics and effects of colonialism. The first.
striking feature of the literature of the first phase of this paradigm, Fanon claims, is that the native writer totally.
identifies with the culture of the colonizer aesthetically and ideologically. For not only are Western literary forms.
reproduced, but even the content of such literature reflects Western colonial attitudes and cultural practices. In.
the absence of further details, we can only surmise that Fanon's characterization of this first phase reflects his.
early research and conclusions in Black Skin, White Masks and in his essay "West Indians and North Africans,".
which is reprinted in Toward the African Revolution. In "West Indians and North Africans" he remarks that.
before Aimé Césaire's "West India literature was a literature of Europeans:".
.
Until 1939 the West Indian lived, thought, dreamt, composed poems, wrote novels exactly as a white man would.
have done ...The West Indian identified himself with the white man, adopted a white man's attitude ,and "was a.
white man." (1969, p.26).
.
These remarks are adumbrated in Black Skin, White Masks. The thrust of the argument of this text is that the.
internalization of colonial culture, with its racist representation of the black other, induces a self-division in the.
black subject (1986, p.17). Fanon's colonial "Negro," as Stuart Hall (1996) puts it, "is obliged, in the scenarios.
of the colonial relation, to have a relation to self, to give a performance to self, which is scripted by the.
colonizer," producing in him the internally divided, pathological condition of self-hatred and alienation (p.18)..
The concept of "black skin, white masks" then is not only meant to explain the black subject-constitution, but.
also the attendant psychopathologies of this split identity. Fanon seems thus to imply this argument in his.
description of the early "assimilationist" period..
.
However, turning the concept of "black skins, white masks" without adjustment into a general theory of.
subject-constitution applicable to allnative intellectuals in the early phases of colonialism raises many questions.
about the validity of Fanon's claims. Surely not all colonial subjects are black, nor have all the black colonial.
subjects been subjected to the same colonial conditions as the Afro-Caribbeans. For the Afro-Caribbean social.
formations are, after all, particular cases. As Vere Knight (1994) points out, most of the islands were colonized.
by France, "which sought not merely political and economic domination, but, in the most active of fashions,.
cultural [hegemony] as well" (p.548). This colonial project "found Antilleans especially vulnerable because they.
lacked the support systems available to other colonized peoples - for example, in Africa - since they had been.
uprooted from their original homeland" and brought to the Caribbean "in a condition of slavery" (p.548). Octave.
Mannoni (1956), whose psychological study of colonialism appeared before that of Fanon, observes that.
.
122.
..