Dependency complex, inferiority complex and superiority complex

Assignment Paper 11

Post-colonial literature

Ajit A. Kaliya

M.A. Sem. 3

Roll No.1

Enrollment No. 2069108420170013

Batch: 2016-18

Email- kaliyaajitbhai@gmail.com
Department Of English, MKBU

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Introduction

Frantz Fanon is one of the major figures in post colonial literature. His book black skin white mask is famous among post colonial literary critics and provides many important theories and position of black people in white world, their mentality, their behavior etc. In 4th chapter he talks about dependency complex, inferiority complex and superiority complex.

Mannoni, a French psychoanalyst, wanted to understand the mind of the native and the white colonial based on his experience and study of Madagascar under French rule in the 1930s and 1940s. Himself a white colonial, he wrote a book about it, “The Psychology of Colonization” (1950). Frantz Fanon, himself a native spends this chapter tearing it to pieces.  (abagond)

Dependency complex

Most natives are content to put whites above them and be dependent on them because it fulfills a deep need in their hearts, one that was there long before whites showed up. Mannoni calls this dependency complex.  (abagond)

So it is about black people's dependence upon white people. White people rule the world because black people are dependent on white people. Even today also white countries rule the world. Eastern countries are very much dependent
on them. Weapons, nuclear bombs, most of the products are controlled by Western world. Any country cannot make nuclear weapons without Western countries permission. So in many ways black people are dependent on white people. Even after freedom all countries are dependent upon Western world. It is mentality of black people that they cannot do anything without white people. In Robinson Crusoe Friday himself accepts Crusoe as his master.

What becomes of the exceptional cases of which M. Mannoni tells us? Quite simply, they are the instances in which the educated Negro suddenly discovers that he is rejected by a civilization which he has none the less assimilated. So that the conclusion would come to this: To the extent to which M. Mannoni’s real typical Malagasy takes on “dependent behavior,” all is for the best; if, however, he forgets his place, if he takes it into his head to be the equal of the European, then the said European is indignant and casts out the upstart—who, in such circumstance, in this “exceptional case,” pays for his own rejection of dependence with an inferiority complex. Earlier, we uncovered in certain of M. Mannoni’s statements a mistake that is at the very least dangerous. In effect, he leaves  the Malagasy no choice saves between inferiority and dependence. These two solutions excepted, there is no salvation. “When he  [the Malagasy] has succeeded in forming such relations [of dependence] with his superiors, his inferiority no longer troubles him: everything is all right. When he fails to establish them, when his feeling of insecurity is not assuaged in this way, he suffers a crisis.” The primary concern of M. Mannon was to criticize the methods hitherto employed by the various ethnographers who had turned their attention to primitive peoples. But we see the criticism that must be made of his own work. After having sealed the Malagasy into his own customs, after  having evolved a unilateral analysis of his view of the world, after having described the Malagasy within a closed circle, after having noted that the Malagasy has a dependency relation toward his ancestors—a strong tribal characteristic—M. Mannoni, in defiance of all objectivity, applies his conclusions to a bilateral totality—deliberately ignoring the fact that, since Galliéni,18 the Malagasy has ceased to exist.  (Fanon)

Inferiority complex

Inferiority complex is the feeling of consider yourself less important than others. Mannoni says that native black people suffer from inferiority complex. They are unhappy because of they have not as much importance as white people and so they want to be equal to white.

There are reasons behind this complex of black people. In chapter black man and language Fanon says that who speak perfect French they are considered good while who sidewall Creole they do not. White people feel ashamed of their children speak it. Fanon found out first-hand: in France white people talk down to you if you are black. Either they speak in fake pidgin French – “Why you left big savanna?” – Or they would act too familiar, calling you old fellow and so on. French doctors, for example, would talk to their white patients with impersonal respect but to blacks and Arabs like they were their old friend or something.  (abagond)

This is an example of how even language is the factor for inferiority complex of black people. In India we see in history that his untouchability was there. There is inferiority complex in lower caste people. They do not get education, they do not get good job, they do not get reputation in society, they insulted in many ways. Same ways in ruling white countries black people are insulted and white people see them differently. These all factors are reason behind feeling of inferiority. Only because of their skin color they become inferior. And it become their mentality that they are inferior to white and the way of white live, eat, wear behave that becomes right way and other start to imitate them.

Do inferiority complex is major issue even today also. Eastern people imitate Western people and consider those countries better.

Prospero complex (superiority complex)

As black people suffer from inferiority complex, white people suffer from Prospero complex. Just like the Prospero in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, they want to lord it over the natives. The colonies draw those whites who cannot accept others as they are, who do not want to have to take other men seriously but instead want to lord it over them.  (abagond)

White people believe themselves superior and believe their way is better. Rudyard Kipling's sentence it is white man's burden to civilize the world is the best example of superiority complex.

Shakespeare's theme is the drama of the renunciation of power and domination, which are symbolized by magic, a borrowed power which must be rendered up. Man must learn to accept himself as he is and to accept others as they are, even if they happen to be called Caliban. This is the only wise course, but the path towards wisdom is long and infinitely painful for Prospero. There is no doubting the nature of Prospero's magical power, for at his side we find his obedient daughter -- and magic is the child's image of paternal omnipotence. Whenever his absolute authority is threatened, and however slights the threat, Prospero -- our aspirant to wisdom -- always becomes impatient and almost neurotically touchy. The essence of the problem is revealed at the outset; Prospero lays down his magic garment and prepares to tell Miranda the story of his life. In other words, he tries to treat Miranda as an equal; but he fails. He begins with 'Obey and be attentive,' and the recital is punctuated with other orders of the same kind, all absurd and quite unwarranted; later in the play he even goes so far as to threaten Miranda with his hatred. It is the same with Ariel; Prospero has promised him his liberty, but fails to give it to him . . . This again means that Prospero has the absolute authority of the father. Caliban is the unruly and incorrigible son who is disowned. Prospero says he was 'got by the devil himself.' At the same time he is the useful slave who is ruthlessly exploited. But Caliban does not complain of begin exploited; he complains rather of being betrayed . . . . Caliban has fallen prey to the resentment which succeeds the breakdown of dependence. Prospero seeks to justify himself: did Caliban not attempt to violate the honor of his child? After such an offense, what hope is there? There is no logic in this argument. Prospero could have removed Caliban to a safe distance or he could have continued to civilize and correct him. But the argument: you tried to violate Miranda, therefore you shall chop wood, belongs to a non-rational mode of thinking. In spite of the various forms this attitude may take (it includes, for instance, working for the father-in-law, a common practice in patriarchal communities), it is primarily a justification of hatred on grounds of sexual guilt, and it is at the root of colonial racialism.

What the colonial in common with Prospero lacks, is an awareness of the world of others, a world in which others have to be respected. . . . Rejection of that world is combined with an urge to dominate, an urge which is infantile in origin and which social adaptation has failed to discipline. The reason the colonial himself gives for his flight -- whether he says it was the desire to travel, or the desire to escape from the cradle or from the 'ancient parapets', or whether he says that he simply wanted a freer life -- is of no consequence, for whatever the variant offered, the real reason is still what I have called very loosely the colonial vocation. It is always a question of compromising with the desire for a world without men. As for the man who chooses a colonial career by chance and without specific vocation, there is nevertheless every possibility that he too has a 'Prospero complex', more fully repressed, but still ready to emerge to view in favorable condition. (The Prosper Complex)

So by example of Prospero Mannaoni talks about superiority complex of white people. Like Prospero they want to make others their slave and want to rule the land.

Conclusion

So these theories of Mannon are important to study racism and mindset of black people and white people. Fanon psychologically analyses that and gives further information. This type of complexes does not only feel between white people and black people but poor-each, and between castes also those complexes are there.

Works Cited

abagond. Fanon: The So-Called Dependency Complex of the Colonized. 26 February 2010. 26 October 2017 <https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/fanon-the-so-called-dependency-complex-of-the-colonized/>.

Fanon, Frantz. Black skin, white masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. United Kingdom: Pluto Press, 1986.

The Prosper Complex. 26 October 2017 <https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/engl2080/208.scholia12.html>.

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