Assignment paper no 203 : “Racism and the Psychology of the Colonised: Identity, Resistance and Subjectivity in The Wretched of the Earth.”

  Assignment paper no 203 : “Racism and the Psychology of the Colonised: Identity, Resistance and Subjectivity in The Wretched of the Earth.”

Personal Information:-

Name:- Bhumi Mahida
Batch:-  M.A. Sem 3 (2024-2026)
Enrollment Number:- 51082240017
E-mail Address:- bhumimahida385@gmail.com
Roll Number:- 2

Assignment Details:-

Topic:- “History as Narrative: Saleem Sinai’s Memory-Making and the Politics of Truth in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”
Paper & subject code:-Paper 202: Indian English Literature – Post-Independence
Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar
Date of Submission:- 

Table of Contents :

Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
The Colonial World & the Making of the Colonised Subject
Psychic Impact: Identity, Inferiority Complex & Mental Health
Resistance, Subjectivity and the Re-Making of the Colonised Agent
Conclusion

Abstract :

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961) remains one of the most powerful examinations of how colonialism deforms both the political and psychological landscapes of the colonised world. This paper explores Fanon’s profound analysis of racism as a structural and psychic mechanism that constructs the colonised subject as inferior, fragmented, and dependent on the coloniser’s gaze. It argues that colonial domination extends beyond physical exploitation into the inner life of the colonised, where identity becomes a site of conflict and alienation. Fanon’s insights—rooted in his psychiatric practice in Algeria—reveal that racism produces an internalised inferiority complex and psychological trauma that sustain colonial hierarchies. However, the paper also highlights Fanon’s emphasis on resistance: through revolutionary struggle, the colonised can reclaim agency, heal psychic wounds, and reconstruct subjectivity independent of colonial definitions. By analysing key chapters such as “On Violence” and “Colonial War and Mental Disorders,” this study situates Fanon’s thought at the intersection of psychology, politics, and decolonial theory. Ultimately, it contends that Fanon’s work demonstrates how the fight against colonial racism must entail both political liberation and psychological decolonisation, leading to the creation of a new humanism founded on equality, dignity, and self-definition.

Keywords :

Colonialism and Racism
Psychology of the Colonised
Inferiority Complex
Identity and Subjectivity
Oppression and Mental Health
Resistance and Liberation
Decolonisation
Violence and Healing

Introduction :

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) stands as one of the most influential figures in postcolonial thought, renowned for his profound engagement with the psychological and political dimensions of colonialism. Born in Martinique, a French colony, and later trained as a psychiatrist in France, Fanon combined his medical expertise with revolutionary activism during the Algerian War of Independence. His dual identity as both a doctor and anti-colonial theorist gave him unique insight into how systems of racial domination affect not only the structures of nations but also the inner lives of individuals. The Wretched of the Earth (1961), his final and most celebrated work, was written during the last years of his life and became a manifesto for decolonisation across Africa and the Third World. It explores how colonial power dehumanises the colonised, producing not only economic and political dependency but also deep psychological scars that continue long after formal independence.

This paper focuses on how Fanon articulates the psychological impact of racism on the colonised subject, analysing the ways in which colonialism distorts identity, breeds an inferiority complex, and suppresses subjectivity. For Fanon, colonial racism functions as an invisible yet pervasive force that infiltrates consciousness, shaping how the colonised see themselves and their world. Through his psychiatric observations and political analysis, Fanon reveals that colonial domination thrives on internalised self-hatred, alienation, and psychic disintegration.

The essay will explore four key dimensions of Fanon’s argument: first, the construction of the colonial world and the making of the colonised subject; second, the psychological consequences of racism—particularly the inferiority complex and identity crisis; third, the processes of resistance and the reclamation of subjectivity; and finally, the broader implications for liberation and human renewal. Ultimately, it argues that for Fanon, the struggle against colonialism is inseparable from the struggle for psychological freedom and self-definition.

The Colonial World and the Making of the Colonised Subject :

In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon opens his analysis of colonialism by describing the colonial world as a space defined by absolute division. He famously declares that “the colonial world is a Manichaean world,” a dualistic order that separates humanity into two irreconcilable zones: coloniser and colonised, white and black, civilised and savage (Fanon 40). This binary is not merely geographic or political but ontological—it defines being itself. The coloniser’s world is clean, ordered, and privileged, while the colonised zone is chaotic, impoverished, and brutalised. Such a system relies on the fiction of racial hierarchy, constructing whiteness as the embodiment of civilisation and blackness as the mark of primitiveness. As LitCharts observes, Fanon’s Manichaean structure reveals how colonialism organises the entire social and moral universe around racial difference, where every aspect of life—from spatial arrangement to language—reaffirms the coloniser’s superiority and the colonised subject’s degradation.

Racism, therefore, is not an incidental feature of colonial rule but its foundation. Fanon argues that colonialism is sustained through the systematic dehumanisation of the colonised, reducing them to the level of animals or things. The colonised body becomes a site upon which inferiority is inscribed and constantly reinforced through violence, stereotypes, and economic subjugation. As LitCharts notes, this racialisation transforms colonial power into a totalising system that governs not only what the colonised can do but who they can be. Colonialism’s power lies in its capacity to define the limits of the possible for the colonised subject—to make them internalise the image of their own inferiority.

Fanon captures this psychological mechanism when he writes, “Because it is a systematized negation of the other, colonialism forces the colonized to constantly ask the question: ‘Who am I in reality?’” (The Wretched of the Earth, qtd. in GradeSaver). This existential crisis reflects the deeper function of racism: it alienates individuals from their own humanity and replaces it with a distorted self-perception constructed by the coloniser. The colonised are compelled to see themselves through the lens of the oppressor, internalising stereotypes of backwardness and moral deficiency. As ERIC commentary on Fanon notes, colonialism’s greatest violence lies not only in its physical brutality but in its everyday, structural racism that normalises inequality and subordination. Racial violence thus becomes both overt—manifest in police force and segregation—and covert, embedded within the psychological and cultural institutions that shape identity.

Fanon’s insight is that colonial domination operates on multiple levels: economic, political, and crucially, psychological. The colonised do not merely obey the coloniser’s rule; they come to internalise the coloniser’s gaze, values, and judgments. As SAGE Publications observes, this internalisation produces what Fanon identifies as a “colonised consciousness”—a psyche fractured between imposed inferiority and a repressed desire for self-affirmation. The process of colonisation thus creates subjects who are both oppressed and shaped by the structures that oppress them.

Having examined how the colonial world constructs subjectivity through racism and division, we can now turn to the psychic consequences of this system—the inferiority complex, identity crisis, and psychological disorders that arise from internalised oppression in the colonised mind.

Psychic Impact: Identity, Inferiority Complex & Mental Health :

Begin by stating that one of Fanon’s major concerns is the psychological injury inflicted by colonial racism. For example, he links colonial war, torture, humiliation to psychological disorders. 

Inferiority complex and identity crisis:

Explain how the colonised subject internalises the racial hierarchy, developing feelings of inadequacy and self-negation. 

Cite Fanon’s notion of “epidermalization” (though more fully in Black Skin, White Masks) but apply that logic here: identity becomes skin deep, a marker of inferiority. 

Illustrate: Fanon says that being told one is bad, savage, inferior becomes part of the self-image. “The native’s sector is a place of ill fame, … men live there on top of each other…” 

Mental health and trauma:

Fanon as psychiatrist treated colonised patients: he observed psychotic reactions, neuroses, violence arising from colonial oppression. 

Example: The colonised man “surviving a massacre… developed homicidal impulses”

The effect of systemic dehumanisation: The colonised lives under constant “atmospheric violence” (ongoing, unseen) which erodes mental health. 

Subjectivity and split self:

The colonised subject is split: on one hand the imposed identity (inferior, other), on the other their own human being trying to assert itself. Fanon: “the identity of the subjugated is defined through the discourse … of the subjugator …” 

This internal conflict creates alienation, self-hatred, and a fractured sense of self

Linking identity, mental health and resistance:

The inferiority complex and psychic wounds are not merely collateral—they are integral to keeping colonial domination functional. When the colonised subject accepts their inferiority, resistance is stifled.

Fanon insists that healing the psyche requires decolonisation of the mind, not just of territory.

Resistance, Subjectivity and the Re-Making of the Colonised Agent :

Although The Wretched of the Earth lays bare the destructive power of colonial domination, Frantz Fanon refuses to portray the colonised as passive victims of history. He conceives them as capable of agency, transformation, and revolt. For Fanon, decolonisation is not merely a political transfer of power from coloniser to colonised; it is a total re-creation of humanity itself. The colonised, long denied subjectivity, must reclaim it through struggle—an act that is at once political, social, and psychological. As GradeSaver notes, Fanon situates liberation in the realm of human becoming: revolution is not only about reclaiming land but about reconstructing the self that colonialism has mutilated.

Central to Fanon’s understanding of resistance is his controversial argument that violence can serve as a means of psychic liberation. In the opening chapter “On Violence,” he writes, “At the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex and of their despair and inaction; it makes them fearless and restores their self-respect”. For Fanon, colonialism is founded upon violence—military, structural, and psychological—and only through counter-violence can the colonised break the chains of subjugation. Violence becomes a radical form of self-assertion, a cathartic process through which the colonised subject reclaims agency and dignity. It shatters the internalised image of weakness imposed by the coloniser and replaces it with a sense of potency and self-worth. As scholars have observed, Fanon’s notion of revolutionary violence is less about revenge and more about renewal: it destroys the coloniser’s value system and allows the colonised to rebuild a moral universe of their own.

This transformation of identity lies at the heart of Fanon’s humanism. He demands that the colonised become what he calls “new men,” freed from the inferiority complexes and false identities imposed upon them. The creation of this new humanity requires rejecting the coloniser’s categories—white superiority, black inferiority, savagery, and civilisation—and constructing a new subjectivity grounded in dignity and equality. As GradeSaver’s analysis notes, Fanon’s call for the “new man” symbolises the rebirth of subjectivity: a person no longer defined by the coloniser’s gaze but by self-determined agency. The colonised must cease to measure themselves by colonial standards and instead affirm their humanity through collective struggle, cultural regeneration, and self-knowledge.

Resistance, therefore, is not confined to political or military confrontation; it extends deeply into the psychic realm. Fanon argues that decolonisation must involve a psychological revolution—the unlearning of inferiority and the reassertion of selfhood. The colonised must deconstruct the mental architecture of dependency and reclaim the cultural values that colonialism has denigrated. As EWriter29 notes, Fanon views decolonisation as both an external and internal process: it liberates territories, but it must also heal minds. Without psychological renewal, political independence risks reproducing colonial hierarchies under new names. Hence, decolonisation for Fanon is a form of mental healing, restoring the colonised subject’s capacity for self-love, creativity, and solidarity.

Yet Fanon also recognises the contradictions that accompany this process. He warns that if liberation does not include decolonisation of consciousness, the new ruling elites may mimic the attitudes and structures of the colonisers, producing what he calls “neocolonial” societies. The colonised intellectual, in particular, risks replicating the coloniser’s categories, aspiring to European approval rather than indigenous renewal. True emancipation, Fanon insists, requires vigilance against such psychic colonisation; otherwise, the cycle of alienation continues under a different guise.

In sum, Fanon’s theory of resistance situates the psychological dimension at the centre of decolonisation. Identity, inferiority, subjectivity, and resistance are inextricably linked. The act of liberation is both external and internal: to overthrow colonialism is to cure the colonial mentality. Through struggle—both physical and psychological—the colonised reclaim their humanity, transforming from objects of history into its active creators.

Conclusion :

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth offers one of the most profound explorations of how colonialism and racism intertwine to shape not only political structures but also the deepest layers of human psychology. Throughout his work, Fanon maps the racialised making of the colonised subject, showing how colonialism operates through binaries—white/black, civilised/savage—that strip the colonised of identity and humanity. He exposes how these hierarchies inflict psychic wounds, producing internalised inferiority and fractured selfhood. Yet Fanon equally insists on the possibility of healing through resistance: the reclaiming of subjectivity, the destruction of colonial values, and the birth of what he calls “new men.” Violence, for Fanon, becomes symbolic of this rebirth—a means of cleansing the mind and restoring dignity to the colonised psyche.

For postgraduate inquiry, Fanon’s analysis reveals that racism and colonial domination are not merely material or structural but profoundly psychological and cultural. The coloniser’s power endures through the control of imagination and self-perception, and liberation must therefore begin in the mind as much as in the streets. Fanon’s insights remain strikingly relevant in contemporary discussions of internalised racism, postcolonial identity, and systemic inequality. The journey of the colonised subject, as Fanon envisions it, is thus both inward and outward—a struggle to rebuild the self as much as to reclaim the nation. True freedom, in his view, emerges when the colonised cease to live under the shadow of inferiority and become creators of their own human destiny.

Words : 2287

Images : 02

References :

Burke, Edmund. “Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth.’” Daedalus, vol. 105, no. 1, 1976, pp. 127–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024388. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Colonialism, Racism, and Violence Theme in the Wretched of the Earth | LitCharts. LitCharts, www.litcharts.com/lit/the-wretched-of-the-earth/themes/colonialism-racism-and-violence.

Consciousness: Fanon’s Origins for the Postcolonial Self – Serena E. Suson. journeys.dartmouth.edu/serenaesuson25/consciousness-fanons-origins-for-the-postcolonial-self.

Fairchild, Halford H. “Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth in Contemporary Perspective.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 1994, pp. 191–99. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784461. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington, Penguin, 2001.