Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Wretched of the Earth, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism, Racism, and Violence
Oppression and Mental Health
Capitalism, Socialism, and the Third World
Decolonization, Neocolonialism, and Social Class
Culture and the Emerging Nation
Summary
Analysis
This section includes cases in which the trigger is the actual war in Algeria. The first case examines two Algerian boys, one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old, who killed their European friend. The boys admit their crime, and the 13-year-old swears they were not angry with the boy. They had played with the young European on many occasions, but when they heard that Europeans wanted to kill all the Arabs, they decided to kill they boy. They can’t kill adults, the 13-year-old says, so they killed their young friend. The 14-year-old Algerian boy, who looks much older than his friend, doesn’t answer questions, but he doesn’t deny that he killed the boy. He only asks why there aren’t any Europeans in jail for killing Algerians.
The 13-year-old boy approaches the murder of his friend with complete nonchalance, which reflects how common violence and death are in the colonial situation. He is completely emotionally removed from what he has done, as if it was a necessity and therefore less traumatic. The 14-year-old boy’s question as to why no Europeans are in jail is certainly appropriate, since Algerians are killed daily by Europeans with absolutely no repercussions.
Themes
Case number two is a 22-year-old Algerian man, suffering from paranoid delusions and suicidal behavior after a “terrorist attack.” He is emaciated and confused, and since his jaw is broken in two places, he is fed by an intravenous line. After two weeks of being nearly comatose, he begins to talk. He had been involved in the Muslim scout movement many years ago but had since turned to his career in data processing, which he is passionate about. He got the feeling that his family was disappointed in him for not joining the liberation front. He grew increasingly depressed and anorexic, and he began to have auditory hallucinations of being called a coward and traitor.
Even those who try to avoid the war are negatively affected, which implies that the war cannot possibly be ignored and that the psychological effects are inescapable. Clearly, the man has been severely beaten, and the fact that Fanon puts the words “terrorist attack” in quotes suggests that this was not, in fact, an actual terrorist attack. Indeed, the man had a psychotic break and was falsely labeled as a terrorist because of the colonial situation.
Themes
One day, the Algerian man went outside without a jacket or tie. He must have looked like a “madman” because of his “beard,” he says, and he wandered into the European sector. He wasn’t arrested or harassed, but all around him other Algerians were assaulted and handcuffed by police. He grew agitated and then found himself in front of French headquarters, where he tried to grab a soldier’s machine gun, screaming: “I am an Algerian!” He was arrested and interrogated for the names of his rebel connections. Of course, he knew nothing.
This passage implies that the Algerian man looks like a “madman” simply because of his ethnicity, which is clearly lessened if he wears a jacket or tie—the clothing of Western culture. Without Western clothing, and sporting a beard (which as a Muslim is part of his religious culture), the man is assumed to be a “madman,” which again reflects the racism of the colonial situation.
Themes
Case number three is a young Frenchwoman with anxiety. He father, a civil servant, was recently killed during an ambush. She claims that her father had been on a “frenzied manhunt for Algerians,” and he constantly worked against the rebellion. He would bring Algerians home and torture them in the basement looking for information about the rebels. The young Frenchwoman was deeply affected by their screams and had difficulty looking her father in the face afterward. One day, her father was seriously injured in a raid and died shortly after. She was disgusted by his funeral, where he was hailed a hero. The French government has offered her financial support, but she has refused. She admits that if she could, she would join the Algerian resistance, too.
The young Frenchwoman is only associated with the war tangentially, yet she is still affected by it. Her father bringing Algerians home to torture them underscores the widespread use of torture during the war, as it implies that the Frenchwoman’s father simply brings Algerians home at will and tortures them whenever he feels the need or finds the opportunity. She is clearly ashamed of what her father has done and does not at all agree with the colonial situation, although there is little she can do about it.
Themes
Get the entire The Wretched of the Earth LitChart as a printable PDF.
Case number four looks at young Algerian children under 10 whose parents have been killed by the French. The children are very attached to parental images, and they are afraid of noise. They become instantly upset with even a small reprimand, and they suffer from insomnia, sleepwalking, and bedwetting. They also have “sadistic tendencies,” and they poke hole in paper, chew pencils, and bite their nails.
The “sadistic tendencies” exhibited by the children reflects the widespread violence they have been exposed to within the colonial situation. Sustained violence and war are all children under 10 would know at this time, and they accept it as a normal part of their lives.
Themes
Case number five is concerned with puerperal psychoses—mental disorders during pregnancy—in refugees. Such disorders are thought to be caused by either a disruption of the glands in the endocrine system, or a “psychological shock.” Since the French government has established a buffer zone along the borders of Tunisia and Morocco in their “scorched earth policy,” 300,000 refugees have been displaced. They live wherever they can, in poverty and substandard conditions, and psychotic disorders in pregnant women are common. The refugees live in constant stress, and the French troops reserve the constantly harass them. Symptoms range from agitation to depression, multiple suicide attempts, as well as delirium and delusions.
The “psychological shock” in this situation is obviously the colonial situation. The “scorched earth policy” is literally burning everything useful in order to make the land uninhabitable. Obviously, the people already living there were given no thought or a new place to live and were simply turned out to wander and manage, including pregnant women. The stress of such a situation—to have one’s land violently burned with the intention of rooting them out—is immense and leaves people hopeless, hence the multiple suicide attempts.
Themes
