I’m really not sure how to feel about Black Skin, White Masks to be honest. The first thing that struck me about this compared to other texts was its ‘readability’. It seemed quite accessible to me and not dense or dry or ugh like some other things (Hobbes, Freud). Or maybe I’m just being incredibly simpleminded and enjoying the larger size of the text.

On the other hand, I really disagree with a lot of what Fanon is saying. I’ll start with something petty that bothers me about this: I hate footnotes. Really. Truly. I wish they weren’t a thing. Sometimes I read them, but never in the place I’m supposed to, and a lot of times (especially if they’re bloody long like half the ones in here) I’ll skip them entirely because the print is lighter or smaller and at the bottom and it’s honestly too much work.

Now to actual content: Fanon says in the introduction that “Many Blacks will not recognize themselves in the following pages. Likewise many Whites.” (xvi) He follows that up by saying that just because we don’t understand something fully or experience it ourselves doesn’t mean it isn’t a reality, and that all the things he puts in his book (analysis?) he has found to be true “any number of times”. This is a nice set up but a lot of the things in the text itself feel a lot like generalizations. (Also, as a ‘White’, I don’t recognize myself in this.)

As we have talked about in seminar many (many) times, I don’t like generalizations/stereotypes/assumptions. I think that Fanon overgeneralizes based on racial and ethnic group, and he compares a lot of situations that black people experience to those experienced by the Jews. (“I was drawing closer to the Jew, my brother in misfortune. Disgraceful!” (101)) Certainly, both of these groups have been through a lot of unnecessary crap. Still, comparing their situations feels overly general to me.

Towards the middle of the book (page 86) we suddenly start talking about penises. Okay. If “The fierce black bull is not the phallus” and “The Senegalese soldier’s rifle is not a penis, but a genuine Lebel 1916 model”, then why are we bringing up genitalia at all? (There was also a brief section on pages 79-80 where Fanon talked about a patient-type scenario, analyzing dreams and the unconscious. Very reminiscent of Freud.)

I could pick on any number of quotes; I’ve written down a ton of them. I’m going to end with one that I think is particularly thought-provoking:

“Sin is black as virtue is white.” (118)

Enjoying Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks quite a bit. A couple of things make this a really good read

For one, Fanon’s unconventional style, which blends theory, poetry, and quotations, makes this text easier to approach (compare to Butler). The way Fanon remakes and re-arranges quotes from other works, especially Cesaire, is fascinating. I find this style really provocative when we keep in mind the way we process and understand information in our modern “internet age”. The way Fanon works with quotations and poetry corresponds with the way we jump around and consume massive amounts of seemingly unrelated content online. Fanon’s style is really admirable because he takes a mass of information and makes sense of it, re-arranges it into something coherent.

In regards to content, Fanon’s argument that the black social experience (as one always in relation to whiteness), is characterized by a constant re-living of history stands out most prominently for me. I cannot stress the importance of the link he makes between the past and the present in regards to race. Indeed it is easy as an outsider to wonder why somebody can’t just “get over” and “forget about” the past. When the past is constantly being re-lived, positive development and progression becomes inconceivable.

The way that Fanon utilizes media and textual analysis to help argue this is insightful, although I feel that in many respects it could be stronger. Cultural analysis (he deals with comics and cartoons most noticeably) seems sort of like an after thought to his work, although I regard it as a lot more compelling then his argument founded in the psychosexual.

When I first begun to read “Dora”, my initial knowledge of Freud was honestly very basic and I knew only of the very obvious and common ideas linked to Freud. As I continued my reading on the bus, I slowly crouched more closer to my book as to hide my book away from the people around me standing up or beside in case their eyes wandered to the pages of my book and their vision briefed over the overly sexual subject matter. I immediately acknowledged that I experienced embarrassment reading this text in public. Perhaps, it is because because sexuality is a sensitive matter.

Freud’s text exploits the sexuality of his patient, Dora, in a very blunt manner. His text or stream of consciousness it seems rarely acknowledges Dora as a person, a woman but rather as a subject to his interpretation. He doesn’t seem to exemplify any real knowledge of females and is extremely unsophisticated in saying they are just “mysterious.”  Of course, I am allowing my sensitivity again to take precedence rather than simply reading this text as Freud intended it to be a professional and scientific reading. It is difficult however to get over how presumptuous and complicated Freud’s methods and theories are, and to really understand how they in fact work. Freud creates quite a complex case… (Dora is repressed because of a regret of being sexually advanced by Herr K. at age 14, because of childhood masturbation and bedwetting, and her father’s love for Frau K… and it goes on.) I couldn’t help but think Freud a little hysterical himself to be able create such complex associations and explanations. He’s quite brilliant really.

During many sections of the text, I was in complete confusion as to what Freud is trying to say, and further more, I could not understand the reason for the case. While the obvious is that Dora suffers from “hysterical”, or physiological, symptoms need to be resolved, I am not quite convinced how her psychological thoughts and feelings can or need to necessarily be treated. From a modern perspective, Dora’s story would not be overwhelmingly inappropriate as there must be numerous cases of scandalous stories which are worse than hers. Sexuality tends to be wild subject.

(Blogging before Monday night next week is in the agenda)

Dora is a distinctive book, recognizing that the main character Dora is hopelessly trapped in her dreams. I really thought that the book was very dense and confusing. The book to me was simply Freud transcending his ideas into a plotline creating a story. After taking classes in psychology there is a sense of respect in his book but you end of just feeling bad for her. I really thought throughout the book how sad it would be to live like Dora. Dora than finds out that her father is cheating on mother, and the fact that Dora has no uplifting settings in her life. It seems like she just has troubles after troubles. Can real life be this sad? If real life is this depressing, could Freud be giving us a look at his inner psyche? If the question is true, than why would Freud not work to better himself, instead he write depressing articles and books. We could only ponder how Freud need to handle his problems in books.

Well, this was a difficult read.

While there were certain characteristics of Freud’s writing style that I appreciated (the way he speaks directly to the reader as if it’s a conversation, and his language is fairly accessible for something of this genre), overall I found this to be fairly dry and just kind of blah.

As I was reading I kept stopping and asking myself what the hell I was reading. What was it originally? ‘An analysis’ could mean a lot of things … am I just being daft and it’s clearly a _______?

Also, I can’t help but feel for Dora. The narrator (Freud, interestingly) seems to play the part of both doctor and psychologist (or counsellor), and doesn’t necessarily do either well. Some of his analyses seem a bit far-fetched to me, especially when he talks about children who perpetually suck their thumbs.

“Thus, at a time when the true sexual object, that is, the male organ, has already become known, circumstances may arise which once more increase the excitation of the oral zone, whose erotogenic character has, as we have seen, been retained.” (Freud 45)

So … kids who suck their thumbs are subconsciously simulating a blowjob? I don’t buy it. I also have to say, while I appreciate that in society it may seem weird for us to call genitalia by their actual names, it actually started to annoy me that Freud refused to just come out and say ‘penis’. Especially since he has no problem talking openly about ‘phantasies’ and masturbation. I mean, there are sexual metaphors everywhere in Dora, but he continues to skirt around the issue and doesn’t just call a spade a spade. (I know this sounds awfully crude, but I honestly can’t think of a better way to put it.)

I also want to speak briefly to the way bisexuality is addressed. On page viii of the introduction, the editor says that “[Dora's] unconscious Lesbian tendencies were allied to a painful tangle of motives that only a master of detection like Freud could have picked apart – and yet held together in their true pattern, so that the reader can see the whole of Dora’s predicament in all its irremediable complexity.” This seems to imply that there have to be motives behind her attraction to Frau K, rather than it just being seen as the natural human tendency to love.

Then there’s the second part, “Hysterical Phantasies and Their Relation to Bisexuality”. I don’t think bisexuality is something that needs to be explained, and I don’t think Freud does a very good job trying to explain/rationalize it. People are attracted to people, and it’s something that continues to mystify those who feel the need to analyze everything.

Freud is a very well known and ridiculed intellectual figure. For that I love him. He was prominent in my household as a child and apparently as a toddler I chewed on his brightly colored books. Ya ya have fun dissecting that one. I did have trouble reading Dora, though, because I couldn’t separate him from his work. The cocaine, the dingy, damp, sexual analysis of everything, the cigar jokes. It’s too much. Here’s a little catharsis, because we all need that right?

J: Why does it feel like your psychoanalysis shares similarities with  conspiracy theories?

Freud: Conspiracy theories you say? What about that painting on your wall? Tell me more about that painting you have up

J: No seriously, every denial becomes further proof of repression for you.

Freud: Ah a lizard. I see….

J: Your analysis of Dora reads like a detective novel you sadistic pig.

Freud: *footnote* the lizard is a traditional symbol for a desire to eat macaroni. As I have explained already, macaroni has been found on cave painting, stuck to the wall with cheese. This has significance to the second dream, as we shall see later *end footnote*

J: Do you find pleasure in doing this? It really seems like your getting a kick out of snooping in on Dora’s entire family and their medical history. Gotta say though, do dig your stuff about desire for self-punishment being  rooted in “penitence and remorse” (pg. 39).

Feud: So you want to kiss me and my smokey, smokey mouth?

J: Hombre, Hombre…

Freud: Tell me about your PHantasy…

J: Also why does it seem like your playing musical chairs with the direction of Dora’s desires? One minutes its for Frau K, then Herr K, then her own father, then back to Herr K.??? I should also add that these ideas seem really simplistic – isn’t there more to life then sex and guilt? What about genuine compassion? What about creative production? What about taking care of house plants? Isn’t that a non-sexual activity?

Freud: Your choice of words there cannot be accidental. Tell me more about your genitals relations with house plants.

FIN

I don’t know if it was just me, but I felt a little disturbed quite frequently while reading this book. Especially when I read this:

“I could not help smiling; for I was able to show her exactly a fortnight earlier she had read a piece of news that concerned be in the newspaper.” (112)

When I first started reading, I thought that maybe this would be a 124 page book filled with medical terminology that would be a good thing to help me fall asleep during those nights that I lie in my bed at 3am knowing that I have to wake up in 4 hours.

Then I was introduced to Dora. It was probably Dora’s story that kept my attention to the end of this book. Everything in her retelling of events seemed to make sense and I took it all in at surface level. And then somehow Freud managed to take every little aspect of her dreams and interpreted them in several ways along with the sprinkle of medical terminology which left me with an expression that looked a little like this:  O_O”

I wanted to insert a meme in pace of the type out face but then there was the whole thing about copyrights. (But here it is. http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/chloe-meme-original.jpg)

I guess you could say, I didn’t like this book. I didn’t passionately hate it, but I would probably never open it again.

One part that I did find interesting was the example of the bricklayer. For those of you who didn’t read/ haven’t finished, here is what I’m referring to:

“Let us imagine a workman, a bricklayer, let us say, who has fallen off a house and been crippled, and now earns his livelihood by begging at a street-corner. Let us then supposed that a miracle-worker comes along and promises him to make his crooked leg straight and capable of walking. It would be unwise, I think, to look forward to seeing an expression of peculiar bliss upon the man’s features. No doubt at the time of the accident he felt he was extremely unlucky, when he realized that he would never be able to do any more work and would have to starve or live upon charity. But since then the very thing in which the first instance threw him out of employment has become his source of income: he lives by his disablement. If that is taken from him he may become totally helpless. He has in the meantime forgotten his trade and lost his habits of industry; he has grown accustomed to idleness and perhaps to drink as well.” (37)

More often than not, I am very optimistic. When I read this passage in the book, I found that Freud had a knack of taking something that would sound like a good thing and find a way to twist it into something else. In this case, he took the opportunity of a miracle and made it look like a death wish.