Black Skin White Masks By Frantz Fanon Analysis

Native Canadian writing exposes the pain of racial segregation. No writer worth his salt has ever glossed over the racial violence meted out to them by the colonizers. In poignant and poetic prose they have poured out their sufferings with dignity asking that they be treated with respect and honour. Frantz Fanon in his Black Skin, White Masks poses the question: “What does a black man want”? He gives the answer that a black man wants to be white. It is perhaps natural tendency of mimicry. Identity construction is built into the very fabric of native writing. But the reverse is also true . The white man is also influenced by the people that he colonises. Tom, Marianne’s friend was married earlier. Nevertheless, he lost his wife and children …show more content…
The story centres on Marianne. She belongs to a Native Canadian family and is a young graduate who does research in Sociology, but is innocent about the ways of the world. When the novel begins, we find Marianne trying to concentrate on her research paper on Divorce and Sociology. She finds that she cannot concentrate on writing the paper because her mother is watching the local news and is talking aloud at the same time. “Momma” , as she is called, is a formidable character who is very conscious of the rights of the Native Indians. She seems to be giving vent to her feelings of being treated as a secondary citizen in Canada. We understand that she is against the Premier for proposing to take off the welfare benefits enjoyed by the Native Canadians. Marianne’s Momma is a strong character and she raves and rants against the welfare cuts. However, Marianne is ashamed about the statistics of Indians on Welfare benefits. Marianne’s mother feels strongly though no one in her family is on welfare. Marianne cannot understand why her mother is sad about people whom she has never met. She muses: “How Momma could get upset over welfare cutbacks is beyond me (4)”. She sums up her mother …show more content…
She realizes all of a sudden that she has been kept away from many of the troubling instances in the family. She was considered as the ‘baby” of the family and was protected all along. In short, she was kept away from the reality of things. If they were discussing problems, they would stop suddenly when she entered the room. Therefore, she did not realize that the relationship between her sister, Rita and her husband Bill was not alright. Bill was a roof worker who spent his time boozing and womanizing, while Rita had to fend for her family. She had to work hard to study during her free hours to go through the University. Rita’s decision to divorce Bill comes as a shock to Marianne. However, all her early memories of Bill are of a jovial person who took her out to buy ice creams. She even suspects that that Rita may be splitting up because of her affair with a handsome native student whom Marianne meets accidently at the coffee vending machine in the hospital. Marianne ironically makes the connection between the Sociology paper on divorce titled as Sociology of Relocation and its effect on Marriage and Divorce among Khatsalano Community which was once located in False Creek and the actual fact of divorce in the family. She is unable to digest it and blames Rita. She