Summary Of The Wretched Of The Earth

The 1961 essay of “The Wretched of the earth” by Frank Fanon follows up his 1951 book: “Black Skin White Mask”, which explores colonialism and people’s interaction with it from both the colonized and the colonists side. However, what we were assigned to is the preface of the essay, written by famous philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Sartre’s mission with this piece is to give a detailed description to how the groups mentioned above, colonized and colonist people, differentiate from each other, how colonizers manipulated the ‘natives’ and how the revolutions came to be. The most intriguing of the themes that, in my opinion, is found in Sartre’s piece is how not only physically but mentally colonizers manipulated and shaped ‘natives’ to put them
in their control. ¿How did the colonizers tackle the natives psychologically? Said by Sartre himself: "They stuffed their mouths full of high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck in their teeth. Men were altering themselves in order to follow cultural expectation, which meant they were ultimately living as someone they weren't.” In my opinion this is the strongest appeal out of all, the colonizers stripped the natives of their culture and sold them their ideas in such a persuasive way that natives gave up on who they really were, thus making them easier to manipulate. It is not until the natives realize this, then they can carry out the revolutions to get rid of the colonizers. Even then, we still find ourselves in a pretty colonized world where people give up on who they are to pursue a “dream” that doesn’t align to what they want.