Frankenstein Through the Lens of Cultural Studies: From Revolutionary Births to Popular Culture

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is often remembered as a story about a scientist who creates a living being. However, when we read the novel through the lens of Cultural Studies, it becomes much more than a Gothic tale of science and horror. Frankenstein reflects the political, social, philosophical, and scientific anxieties of Shelley’s age, while its ideas continue to appear in contemporary culture.

Dilip Barad’s discussion of Cultural Studies in relation to Frankenstein shows how the novel can be connected with revolutionary politics, class struggle, race and empire, scientific advancement, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and popular culture. The novel has therefore remained culturally relevant because every generation can reinterpret its central questions according to its own fears and experiences.

Part I: Revolutionary Births

The Creature as a Proletarian

One important Cultural Studies reading of Frankenstein is to understand the Creature in relation to the oppressed and marginalized classes. Mary Shelley lived during a period of enormous political and social change. The French Revolution had challenged traditional systems of power, while revolutionary thinkers questioned inequality and oppression.

The Creature can be seen as a figure who is created without having any control over the circumstances of his birth. He begins his life with a desire for companionship, acceptance, and affection. However, society immediately rejects him because of his appearance. Instead of being accepted as an individual, he is treated as a monster.

This makes the Creature’s story similar to the experience of marginalized people in society. His transformation from an innocent and sympathetic being into a violent and revengeful figure raises an important question: Is the Creature naturally evil, or does society help create the “monster” it fears?

His suffering demonstrates how social exclusion can produce anger and resistance. In this sense, the Creature can represent the oppressed person or the marginalized class demanding recognition from a society that refuses to accept them.

At the same time, the Creature is a paradoxical figure. He is capable of kindness and sympathy, but he also commits acts of violence. Shelley therefore does not present revolution or rebellion as completely simple. The suffering of the oppressed may produce both sympathy and fear. The Creature becomes both a victim of social rejection and a source of terror to society.

A “Race of Devils”: Otherness, Race and Empire

The Creature can also be examined through the Cultural Studies concepts of Otherness, race, and imperialism. He is repeatedly judged according to his physical appearance. His body makes him different from what society considers normal or acceptable.

The idea of the “Other” is important here. Societies often define themselves by creating a distinction between “us” and “them.” Those who appear different because of their race, appearance, culture, class, or identity may be excluded from the dominant social group.

The Creature experiences this exclusion directly. He is not given an opportunity to define himself; other people define him as a monster before knowing his character.

The novel can therefore encourage modern readers to think about contemporary forms of prejudice and privilege. Questions of race, colonialism, migration, and social inequality continue to involve the division between those who are considered part of the dominant community and those who are treated as outsiders.

Victor Frankenstein can also be connected with ideas of power and domination. He creates life but refuses to accept responsibility for what he has created. His relationship with the Creature raises questions about the responsibilities of those who possess greater knowledge, technological power, or social privilege.

From Natural Philosophy to Cyborg

Another major issue in Frankenstein is the relationship between scientific knowledge and ethical responsibility. Victor Frankenstein is fascinated by the possibility of discovering the secret of life. His ambition leads him to cross boundaries that he does not fully understand.

Shelley was writing during a period when scientific discoveries were changing people's understanding of nature and human life. Her novel asks an important question: Just because human beings can do something, does that mean they should do it?

This question has become even more relevant in the modern world. Today, scientific developments in genetic engineering, cloning, biotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence raise similar ethical concerns.

Modern technology can create possibilities that were once unimaginable. However, technological power also creates responsibility. Frankenstein reminds us that the creator cannot simply abandon the consequences of creation.

The Creature can therefore be understood as an early cultural representation of the modern technological “creation”—something produced through human knowledge but difficult to control once it enters the world.

The novel does not simply say that science is evil. Rather, it questions unchecked ambition without responsibility. Victor's greatest failure is not necessarily his desire for knowledge, but his refusal to take responsibility for what his knowledge produces.

Part II: The Frankenpheme in Popular Culture

What is a “Frankenpheme”?

The influence of Frankenstein does not end with Mary Shelley's novel. The story has been repeatedly reproduced in films, television, theatre, literature, advertisements, political discussions, and debates about modern technology.

Timothy Morton uses the term “Frankenphemes” for cultural elements derived from Frankenstein that continue to circulate in different forms. The idea is useful because it shows how a literary work can become part of popular culture.

Today, even people who have never read Shelley's novel may recognize the image of Frankenstein's monster. The character has become a cultural symbol associated with uncontrolled creation, dangerous experiments, artificial life, and technological fear.

Frankenstein on Film and Stage

One reason for the lasting influence of Frankenstein is its adaptability. The story has been retold through films, plays, television programmes, cartoons, parodies, and other forms of popular entertainment.

The famous early twentieth-century film adaptations helped establish a visual image of the Creature that became different from Shelley's original description. Popular culture gradually transformed the complex Creature into the familiar figure of the monster with bolts in his neck and an imposing physical appearance.

This demonstrates how adaptation can change the meaning of a literary text. A novel may begin with one set of ideas, but every new medium can reinterpret those ideas according to the concerns of a different period.

The Creature in one adaptation may represent horror, while in another he may represent loneliness, discrimination, artificial intelligence, or technological danger. Therefore, adaptations do not simply copy the original story. They reshape it for new audiences.

Frankenstein and Modern Technology

The “Frankenstein” idea is frequently used when society becomes anxious about new technology. When people discuss genetic engineering, cloning, artificial intelligence, or other forms of scientific experimentation, Frankenstein can become a cultural reference point.

The basic pattern is familiar:

Human beings create something → the creation develops consequences → humans struggle to control those consequences.

This pattern explains why Frankenstein continues to appear in discussions of modern technology.

For example, debates about artificial intelligence sometimes raise questions similar to those found in Shelley's novel: Who is responsible for what we create? What happens when a creation behaves in unexpected ways? Should technological development have ethical limits? Who benefits from technological progress, and who bears its risks?

These questions show that Frankenstein remains culturally productive because its central concerns can be transferred to new historical situations.

Why Does Frankenstein Continue to Matter?

The continuing popularity of Frankenstein demonstrates the relationship between literature and culture. Shelley’s novel was produced in a particular historical moment, but its themes have not remained limited to that period.

Its continuing relevance comes from several interconnected issues:

- the relationship between creators and their creations;

- social exclusion and the treatment of outsiders;

- class and inequality;

- race, empire, and Otherness;

- scientific ambition and ethical responsibility;

- technological change;

- fear of the unknown;

- and the representation of these concerns in popular culture.

From a Cultural Studies perspective, the important question is therefore not simply “What does Frankenstein mean?” but also “How and why does Frankenstein continue to acquire new meanings?”

The answer lies in its ability to adapt. Different societies use the Frankenstein story to express their own anxieties. What represented scientific ambition in the nineteenth century can become a metaphor for biotechnology or artificial intelligence in the twenty-first century.

Conclusion

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is much more than a Gothic horror story. Through a Cultural Studies approach, it can be understood as a text deeply connected with questions of power, class, Otherness, social exclusion, scientific progress, and cultural change.

The Creature represents the consequences of rejection as well as the fears of a society confronted by something it considers different. Victor Frankenstein represents the possibilities and dangers of knowledge when creation is separated from responsibility. Together, they create a story that continues to raise questions about human ambition and its consequences.

The idea of the “Frankenpheme” further explains why the novel remains alive in popular culture. Films, television, theatre, literature, and contemporary discussions of technology continually recreate Frankenstein for new audiences.

Ultimately, the greatest strength of Frankenstein is its adaptability. Mary Shelley’s creation has itself become a cultural creation—one that has been repeatedly reconstructed by different generations. The story survives because every age finds a new version of its own fears, hopes, and ethical questions in Frankenstein.

Frankenstein is therefore not only a story about creating life; it is also a story about how society creates meanings, fears, identities, and cultural symbols.

Reference:

Barad, Dilip. “Cultural Studies in Practice: Frankenstein: Thinking Activity: A Cultural Studies Approach to Frankenstein.” ResearchGate.

Literary Theory as a Method of Reading: Four Critical Lenses and Wide Sargasso Sea

Introduction

Literary theory becomes useful when it changes the questions we ask of a literary text. A theory is not simply a definition to memorize. A literary critic uses theoretical concepts as a method: the critic selects textual details, connects them to a larger social or cultural structure, and develops an interpretation.

Dilip Barad's discussion of Marxist, Feminist, Ecocritical, and Queer Criticism emphasizes precisely this movement from theory to practice. Marxist criticism examines socioeconomic forces, class, ideology, and hegemony; Feminist criticism investigates gender inequality, patriarchy, and the social construction of gender; Ecocriticism examines relationships between literature, nature, and environmental ethics; and Queer Criticism questions heteronormativity, rigid gender roles, and supposedly fixed sexual or gender identities. [Barad source]

Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea is particularly suitable for this exercise because the novel connects class, colonial history, gender, property, landscape, identity, marriage, and cultural difference. The same scene can therefore produce different interpretations depending on the critical lens being used.

Part I: What Do the Four Critics Actually DO?

1. Marxist Criticism

A. What does the critic look for?

A Marxist critic looks for class relations, economic power, property, labour, wealth, social hierarchy, ideology, and conflicts between dominant and subordinate groups.

The critic asks how economic structures influence characters' lives and how a literary text may reproduce or challenge the dominant ideology of its society.

Barad explains that Marxist criticism connects literature with socioeconomic structures and examines class struggle and ideology. His fuller discussion also describes the distinction between the visible or “overt” content of a work and its hidden or “covert” social meanings. [Barad source]

B. What does the critic DO with the text?

The critic does not simply identify a rich character and a poor character.

Instead, the critic asks:

- Who owns property?

- Who controls money?

- Who performs labour?

- Who benefits from an economic system?

- How does wealth affect relationships?

- How are people treated as economic or social commodities?

- What ideology makes an unequal system appear natural?

- Does the literary form itself reproduce or challenge social hierarchy?

Thus, Marxist criticism moves from “What happens?” to “What economic and ideological structure makes this possible?”

C. One concrete illustration

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette's family has been economically damaged after the abolition of slavery. Coulibri is no longer the prosperous plantation estate it once was. The decline of the estate is therefore connected to the transformation of the colonial economic system.

Later, Antoinette's marriage to Rochester is also connected with property and money. Her economic position changes dramatically through marriage, and she states:

«“I am not rich now, I have no money of my own at all, everything I had belongs to him.”»

This makes marriage visible not merely as a romantic relationship but also as an economic relationship involving control over property.

A Marxist critic therefore notices something that a purely romantic reading might overlook: money and property help structure personal relationships and power.

A scholarly Marxist reading of the novel similarly argues that major relationships in the novel are deeply connected with capital, property, and class conflict.

D. One question the critic would ask

How do property, wealth, class position, and the economic consequences of colonialism determine the relationships between the characters?

2. Feminist/Gender Criticism

A. What does the critic look for?

A Feminist/Gender critic looks for patriarchy, gender inequality, women's representation, women's agency, gender roles, marriage, sexuality, voice, and the social construction of gender.

The critic does not simply ask, “Are women treated badly?”

The deeper question is:

What social system defines what a woman is supposed to be, and who has the authority to define her?

Barad specifically connects feminist criticism with gender inequality, patriarchal structures, women's marginalization, the representation of women as “Other,” and the social construction of gender. [Barad source]

B. What does the critic DO with the text?

A Feminist/Gender critic examines:

- who speaks and who is silenced;

- whose perspective controls the story;

- what behaviour is considered “proper” for women;

- how marriage distributes power;

- whether women possess economic independence;

- how women's bodies and sexuality are controlled;

- how madness may be represented or socially produced;

- whether female characters resist or reproduce patriarchal expectations.

The critic therefore treats gender as a structure of power, not simply as a topic about women.

C. One concrete illustration

Rochester repeatedly refuses Antoinette's identity by calling her “Bertha.” Antoinette explicitly protests:

«“My name is not Bertha; why do you call me Bertha?”»

Rochester nevertheless insists that he thinks of her as Bertha.

A feminist critic can read this as an act of patriarchal control over female identity. The husband assumes the authority to define his wife, while the woman's own declaration of identity is rejected.

The issue therefore extends beyond a name. It concerns who possesses the authority to define a woman.

The novel's feminist significance is also connected with its decision to give the supposedly “mad” woman from Jane Eyre a voice, history, childhood, and interior perspective. Scholarly feminist readings emphasize Rhys's challenge to the traditional representation of the marginalized woman.

D. One question the critic would ask

How does patriarchy determine what Antoinette is allowed to be, and what happens when she refuses the identity imposed upon her?

3. Ecocriticism

A. What does the critic look for?

An Ecocritic looks for the relationship between human beings and the physical environment.

Important concerns include:

- landscape;

- animals;

- plants;

- climate;

- land ownership;

- environmental exploitation;

- place and belonging;

- the distinction between nature and culture;

- anthropocentrism—the tendency to treat human interests as the central measure of value.

Barad describes Ecocriticism as an approach concerned with literature's representation of nature and human relationships with the environment. He also emphasizes the critique of anthropocentric exploitation and the nature/culture binary. [Barad source]

B. What does the critic DO with the text?

An Ecocritic does not merely collect beautiful descriptions of scenery.

The critic asks:

- What does the landscape mean to different characters?

- Who regards nature as home, resource, threat, or possession?

- Does the text give the nonhuman world an active presence?

- How are colonial and economic systems connected with land?

- How does movement from one place to another affect identity?

- Does the text challenge the division between “civilized culture” and “wild nature”?

The critic therefore interprets landscape as part of the novel's social and ideological structure.

C. One concrete illustration

Antoinette describes the garden at Coulibri as both beautiful and uncontrolled:

«“Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible—the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild.”»

The garden contains both life and decay. Antoinette's environment is not merely decorative background; it contributes to her sense of home, memory, fear, and belonging.

Rochester experiences the Caribbean environment very differently. He describes it as excessive:

«“Too much blue, too much purple, too much green.”»

An Ecocritical reading therefore compares different human relationships with the same environment. Antoinette experiences the Caribbean landscape as a place of belonging, whereas Rochester frequently experiences it as unfamiliar, excessive, and threatening.

Scholarly ecocritical readings similarly emphasize the importance of landscape and place in constructing Antoinette's consciousness and in expressing colonial and cultural tensions.

D. One question the critic would ask

How does the novel use the Caribbean landscape to challenge the idea that nature is merely a passive background to human history?

4. Queer Criticism

A. What does the critic look for?

A Queer critic examines heteronormativity, rigid gender categories, sexual norms, gender identity, gender fluidity, and the cultural processes through which identities are made to appear natural or fixed.

Importantly, queer criticism does not require a novel to contain openly queer characters or same-sex relationships.

Barad explicitly says that Queer Criticism challenges heteronormative ideologies, questions rigid gender roles and boundaries, and examines gender as performative rather than simply inherent. [Barad source]

B. What does the critic DO with the text?

A queer critic asks how the text constructs “normal” identities.

For example:

- What counts as a normal man?

- What counts as a normal woman?

- What behaviour is expected from a husband or wife?

- How is heterosexual marriage presented?

- What happens to characters who fail to perform expected gender roles?

- Are identities stable, or do they change according to social circumstances?

- Who has the power to declare someone “normal” or “abnormal”?

This means that queer criticism can examine gender performance even when the text does not depict queer sexuality.

C. One concrete illustration

Rochester's treatment of Antoinette demonstrates an attempt to force her into a recognizable social identity: the English husband's wife, defined according to his expectations.

The renaming of Antoinette as “Bertha” is especially important. Antoinette's statement,

«“My name is not Bertha”»

shows a conflict between self-identification and an identity imposed by another person.

A queer reading can interpret this as evidence that identity is not always naturally fixed or independently possessed. It can be produced through social acts such as naming, marriage, clothing, language, and expectations about appropriate femininity.

The key point, however, is methodological: this is not evidence that Antoinette is queer. The novel does not establish her as a queer character. Rather, queer criticism uses the conflict over identity to question the assumption that gendered identity is naturally stable.

The connection with Butler's idea of gender performativity is consistent with Barad's explanation of Queer Criticism. [Barad source]

D. One question the critic would ask

How does the novel expose the social rules that determine what counts as a “proper” woman, wife, and heterosexual relationship?

Part II: Knowing a Theory vs Using Theory as Literary Criticism

Knowing a literary theory means understanding its vocabulary, concepts, major thinkers, and basic arguments. For example, a student may know that Marxism concerns class and ideology, Feminism concerns patriarchy and gender, Ecocriticism concerns human–nature relations, and Queer Theory questions heteronormativity. But using theory as literary criticism requires another step. The critic must return to the actual text, select specific evidence, connect that evidence to a theoretical concept, and develop an interpretation. In other words, theory supplies a set of questions; criticism uses those questions to produce a reading. A Marxist critic does not simply write “this novel is about class.” A feminist critic does not simply say “women are oppressed.” An ecocritic does not merely describe trees and landscapes. A queer critic does not automatically label characters queer. Each critic asks what the textual details reveal when examined through a particular conceptual framework.

Directly supported by Barad: the emphasis on socioeconomic forces, class and ideology; patriarchy, gender construction and women's marginalization; human–nature relations and anthropocentrism; and heteronormativity, rigid gender roles and gender performativity. [Barad source]

AI synthesis/additional explanation: the formulation that “theory supplies questions while criticism uses those questions to produce a reading,” and the specific step-by-step method of moving from textual evidence to concept to interpretation. These are pedagogical syntheses designed to make Barad's ideas easier to apply.

Part III: Applying the Four Lenses to Wide Sargasso Sea

1. The Marxist Critic Reading Wide Sargasso Sea

What might this critic notice?

A Marxist critic would notice that the novel's personal relationships are repeatedly connected with property, inheritance, economic decline, class position, colonial wealth, and the aftermath of slavery.

A conventional reading may focus primarily on Antoinette's psychological suffering, her marriage, or her cultural displacement. A Marxist reading asks what material conditions make those experiences possible.

Textual Evidence

At the beginning of the novel, Coulibri Estate is shown in decline after the abolition of slavery. Antoinette observes:

«“All Coulibri Estate had gone wild like the garden, gone to bush. No more slavery why should anybody work?”»

This is significant because the estate's physical decline is connected to the transformation of the economic system.

Later, Antoinette's financial position changes through marriage. She says:

«“I am not rich now, I have no money of my own at all, everything I had belongs to him.”»

The marriage therefore has a clear economic dimension.

Critical Concept

The relevant Marxist concepts are class, material conditions, property, economic power, ideology, and commodification.

The novel's colonial society was structured through plantation wealth and slavery. When slavery ends, the old economic structure becomes unstable. Antoinette's family consequently occupies an unstable social position: they are white Creoles associated with the former planter class, but their economic security has deteriorated.

Interpretation

The Marxist reading changes the interpretation of Antoinette's marriage.

It can be understood not simply as a failed romance but as a relationship shaped by economic structures. Rochester's marriage to Antoinette is connected to her inheritance, while Antoinette's economic independence becomes restricted after marriage.

This also complicates a simple “oppressor versus victim” model. Antoinette herself belongs to a historically privileged white Creole class connected to plantation society, even though she experiences economic decline and racial/cultural marginalization. The Marxist critic therefore examines contradictory class positions rather than reducing every character to either rich or poor.

A published Marxist study of the novel specifically argues that its major relationships can be read through capital, class conflict, and commodification.

What becomes newly visible?

The novel's emotional conflicts become connected with the history of material production and property. Love, marriage, inheritance, and colonial wealth cannot be completely separated.

---

2. The Feminist/Gender Critic Reading Wide Sargasso Sea

What might this critic notice?

A Feminist/Gender critic would focus particularly on patriarchal authority, women's economic dependence, marriage, naming, female agency, silencing, and the definition of acceptable femininity.

But this reading must also recognize that gender intersects with race, colonial status, and class.

Textual Evidence

Rochester changes Antoinette's name:

«“My name is not Bertha; why do you call me Bertha?”»

He answers that Bertha is a name he is particularly fond of and says he thinks of her as Bertha.

The naming becomes a struggle over identity and authority.

Another important detail is Antoinette's loss of economic independence:

«“I have no money of my own at all, everything I had belongs to him.”»

The two details—naming and money—work together. Rochester gains greater control over both her social identity and her material circumstances.

Critical Concept

The central concepts are patriarchy, gender construction, women's agency, representation, and the social construction of femininity.

Patriarchy does not mean simply “men are bad.” It refers to a social structure in which male authority is institutionally and culturally privileged.

Interpretation

The feminist critic sees marriage as a power structure as well as a personal relationship.

Antoinette is expected to occupy the role of wife, but Rochester increasingly determines how she should be understood. Her own name, cultural background, behaviour, and interpretation of events are repeatedly challenged.

The novel's form itself is important. Rhys gives Antoinette a first-person voice and therefore allows the woman who was largely silenced in Jane Eyre to narrate her own history.

This changes the reader's relationship to the character. Instead of beginning with the established category “madwoman,” the reader encounters a child, daughter, young woman, wife, and finally the imprisoned woman who remembers and questions her identity.

Scholarly feminist studies likewise emphasize Rhys's rewriting of the marginalized woman and the relationship between patriarchy, gender, colonialism, and female subjectivity.

What becomes newly visible?

“Madness” can no longer be read only as an individual psychological condition. The feminist critic asks how gendered power, confinement, economic dependence, naming, and silencing contribute to the construction of the “madwoman.”

That is an interpretation rather than a statement explicitly made by the narrator, and therefore it should remain open to critical debate.

3. The Ecocritic Reading Wide Sargasso Sea

What might this critic notice?

An Ecocritic would notice that the Caribbean landscape is deeply involved in the characters' identities and conflicts.

Nature is everywhere in the novel: gardens, mountains, sea, rain, flowers, forests, animals, heat, and changing landscapes.

The important point is that nature is not simply scenery.

Textual Evidence

Antoinette remembers the Coulibri garden:

«“Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible—the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild.”»

The garden combines beauty, growth, decay, and disorder.

Rochester, however, experiences the Caribbean environment very differently:

«“Too much blue, too much purple, too much green. The flowers too red, the mountains too high, the hills too near.”»

The landscape becomes excessive and threatening from his perspective.

Critical Concept

The relevant concepts are human–nature relations, place, nature/culture, anthropocentrism, and ecological consciousness.

The ecocritic asks whether nature is treated as an independent material reality or merely as something humans interpret, control, own, or fear.

Interpretation

Antoinette's relationship with the Caribbean landscape is connected to her sense of belonging.

Rochester, by contrast, arrives as an outsider. His difficulty with the landscape parallels his difficulty with Antoinette and with Caribbean culture.

This does not mean that the landscape “causes” the characters' psychological problems. That would oversimplify the novel. Rather, the environment becomes part of the novel's network of relationships between place, colonial identity, memory, culture, and power.

The garden's transformation after the decline of the estate is also significant. Human economic history and environmental change appear together.

Ecocritical scholarship on the novel similarly emphasizes landscape, place, colonial exploitation, and the connection between environmental and social marginalization.

What becomes newly visible?

The question of “Where do I belong?” bec

Three Talks, One Conviction: Story, Gender and Truth in the Voice of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A reflection on three talks by the Nigerian novelist, as listed on Dilip Barad's teacher blog

Introduction

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah, is as influential a speaker as she is a novelist. The blog post assigned to us gathers three of her talks: on the importance of story and literature, on feminism, and on truth in a "post-truth" era. They seem to address three different subjects, but I think they are one argument told three ways. Each asks who gets to tell the story, whose version becomes "the truth", and what it costs when a single, comfortable version is allowed to stand unchallenged.

A note on sources: I could not open the YouTube pages directly, so the first two sections draw on these well-known talks as I know them, and the third was matched to its video through published coverage. Please check the points below against the videos and your class notes, and add anything your sir emphasised.

Talk 1: "The Danger of a Single Story" (Importance of Story and Literature)

Adichie opens with her childhood in Nigeria, where she read British and American children's books and wrote stories in which characters were white, played in snow and drank ginger beer, though she had never seen snow and Nigerians drank mango juice. The books had taught her that literature was about people who were not like her. Only when she discovered African writers such as Chinua Achebe did she realise that people like her could exist in literature too.

Her central point is that a single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are always untrue but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. She gives examples from both sides: as a child she saw the family of her house help, Fide, only as poor, until she visited his village and saw their beautifully woven basket. Her American college roommate, in turn, expected her to be unfamiliar with modern life and to listen to "tribal music", because her idea of Africa was one of catastrophe. Adichie also confesses that she once held a single story of Mexicans, shaped by American media, until she saw the ordinary humanity of people she met.

She links this to power. Stories, she says, depend on the principle of nkali, an Igbo word meaning "to be greater than another": how they are told, who tells them, when and how many are told all depend on power. Power is the ability not only to tell the story of another person but to make it the definitive story. Her closing message is hopeful: stories can dispossess and malign, but they can also empower and humanise, and when we reject the single story we recover "a kind of paradise".

My reading: This is a lesson in Cultural Studies, since it shows how representation shapes reality. It also connects to postcolonial literature: the colonial gaze tells one story about Africa, and the writer's task is to add the missing ones.

Talk 2: "We Should All Be Feminists"

In this talk (given at TEDxEuston), Adichie begins with her childhood friend Okoloma, who called her a feminist when she was about fourteen, as an insult. She did not know the word, but she decided to embrace it. Over time she noticed how loaded the word had become: people said feminists were unhappy, angry, un-African, or hated men. She responded by choosing to call herself a "Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men and Who Likes Lip Gloss and High Heels for Herself and Not for Men".

Her examples make the argument concrete. In Lagos, a waiter greets her male companion and ignores her. A parking attendant thanks a man when a woman has paid. Women are told to shrink themselves and to aim for success but not too much success, so as not to threaten a man. Girls are raised to see marriage as an achievement, while boys are not raised to see it that way. She stresses that gender matters everywhere, and that we teach boys to be afraid of fear and weakness, which hurts men too.

She also insists on the point that culture does not make people, people make culture. If a culture does not recognise the full humanity of women, we can and must change it. Her simple definition of a feminist is a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.

My reading: The talk works because it uses everyday scenes rather than theory. It also links to the first talk: "feminist" itself became a single story, a stereotype of an angry, man-hating woman, and Adichie retells it by adding the missing stories.

Talk 3: On Truth in a Post-Truth Era (Harvard Class Day, 2018)

The third video, per the published coverage, is her address to Harvard's graduating class of 2018, whose message can be summed up in the line "above all else, do not lie". She said that at no time had it felt as urgent as now to protect and value the truth, at a moment when truth seemed up for grabs and journalists debated whether to call a lie a lie. 

Harvard Gazette

Several ideas stand out from the reports of the speech:

Context and intent matter. She stressed that intent and context matter when we judge words and actions, and that mistakes should not be confused with malice. Outrage is right for malicious behaviour, but not every error is malice. 

The Singju Post

Truth is personal as well as political. She said it is hard to tell ourselves the truth about our failures, fragilities and uncertainties. She also observed that ignorance acknowledged is an opportunity, while ignorance denied is a closed door.

Truth is not always rewarded. She explained that she is not asking people to tell the truth because it will always work out, but because they will sleep well at night, and she urged them to keep a good "bullshit detector". The anecdote she used was of pretending to admire a famous writer's work and being caught out. 

Know the other side. She told graduates that even if there is no value in the other side, there is value in knowing what its position is. 

Use privilege for change. She urged graduates to challenge the status quo, use their power and privilege to change cultural institutions and champion new storytellers. 

My reading: In a period of fake news and manufactured "alternative facts", she treats honesty as a civic duty and a personal discipline. The concern for truth links back to the first talk, since a single story is often a half-truth presented as the whole truth.

Connecting the Three Talks

Talk What is being challenged Adichie's remedy

Danger of a Single Story Stereotypes about Africa and other groups Tell and read many stories

We Should All Be Feminists Gender roles and the stigma around "feminist" Change culture, since people make it

Truth in a Post-Truth Era Lies, half-truths and comfortable ignorance Honesty, courage and a good detector for falsehood

The pattern is the same. In each case a simplified, powerful version of reality is treated as natural, and she responds by insisting on complexity, humanity and honesty. She is also consistent in tone: she does not shout, she tells stories, uses humour and appeals to ordinary experience.

Conclusion

Adichie's views come together in one idea: the way we tell stories shapes the world we live in. A single story about a continent, a gender or a political moment narrows our understanding, and it takes deliberate effort, in reading, in speaking and in telling the truth, to widen it. As students of literature, these talks remind me that reading is not only pleasure but a form of ethical practice, because each new story we read is a challenge to a single story we may not know we hold.

Before you post: Add anything from your class discussion (the context your sir explained), embed or link the three videos, and put key points in your own words. Tell me if you want it shorter, in a different tone, or with a specific word limit.

The Sponge and the Squeeze: Marginalization, Power and Disposable Lives from Hamlet to the Modern Workplace

Part 1: Questions for Reflection and Analysis

Question 1: Marginalization in Hamlet

Describe how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern represent marginal figures in Hamlet. How does Hamlet's reference to Rosencrantz as a "sponge" reflect their expendability in the power dynamics of the play?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor courtiers whose whole function is to serve someone else's plot. Claudius and Gertrude summon them to spy on Hamlet, and the two are so interchangeable that the royal couple thank them by swapping their names. They have no backstory, no private motives and no lines that distinguish one from the other.

In Act 4, Scene 2, Hamlet calls Rosencrantz a sponge that soaks up the king's favour, rewards and authority. Once the king needs what the sponge has absorbed, he simply squeezes it dry. A sponge has no will of its own and is valued only for what it can be made to give up. It is a compact image of expendability: they are useful until they are not, and then they can be discarded.

Their end confirms this. Hamlet rewrites the sealed letter so that they are executed in England, and he shows little guilt afterwards. Their deaths are reported in a single line at the end.

Question 2: Modern Parallels to Corporate Power

The passage compares Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to modern workers impacted by corporate downsizing and globalization. How does their fate in Hamlet mirror the displacement experienced by workers when multinational companies relocate or downsize?

Both cases involve people whose value is defined entirely by their usefulness to the powerful. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern carry a sealed letter without knowing it orders their own deaths. Employees in a restructuring are often the last to know a decision has already been made about them, and the announcement is framed in the abstract language of "realignment" and being "future-ready". Nobody asks the individual whether the plan should proceed.

The parallel is closest in the way the decision is impersonal. Hamlet does not hate them, and Claudius does not consult them. When a multinational relocates a plant or trims headcount, the worker is likewise not being judged on merit. They are a line item in someone else's strategy. The people who bear the cost are rarely the people who benefit from the decision.

Question 3: Existential Questions in Stoppard's Re-interpretation

In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard deepens their marginalization by questioning their existence and purpose. Why might Stoppard emphasize their search for meaning in a world indifferent to them? How does this mirror the feeling of powerlessness in today's corporate environments?

Stoppard takes the two characters who are barely present in Shakespeare and puts them at the centre. He makes their marginality the subject rather than a background fact. They do not remember their past, they are unsure which of them is which, and they wait for instructions they do not understand. A coin lands on heads ninety-two times in a row, which suggests that the rules of their world have stopped making sense.

Stoppard stresses their search for meaning because a world that is indifferent to them is the truth of their situation. They are surrounded by events that matter (a court, a murder, a prince's madness) but cannot find where they fit. That is a familiar feeling in corporate life: hitting targets and following procedures without understanding the larger purpose, and sensing that decisions about your future are being made in a room you cannot enter. Their inability to say when things went wrong, or whether they ever had a choice, echoes the modern worker asking how a career ended without any moment of decision.

Question 4: Cultural and Economic Power Structures

Compare Shakespeare's treatment of power in Hamlet to Stoppard's reimagining. How does each work critique systems that marginalize "little people"? How might Stoppard's existential take resonate with contemporary issues of job insecurity and corporate control?

In Hamlet, power is dynastic. The story is about who rules Denmark, and everyone else is either a piece on the board or a casualty. Shakespeare does not obviously critique the marginalization of the "little people", but the play shows it clearly. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die without ceremony, and the tragic weight falls on the royal family. The audience is invited to mourn Hamlet, not them.

Stoppard, writing in the 1960s, reverses the focus. He gives the minor figures the stage and lets the audience feel what it is like to be an afterthought in someone else's story. His critique is quieter and more philosophical than political: these men are not oppressed by a particular villain, but by a structure that gives them no way to understand or change their fate.

This resonates with job insecurity today. Contemporary workers often face precisely that absence of a visible villain. Layoffs are attributed to markets, technology or global strategy, and no single person appears responsible. The powerlessness comes from the system, and Stoppard's absurdist tone captures it well.

Question 5: Personal Reflection

How does the marginalization of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet relate to the modern experience of being seen as a dispensable "asset"? Reflect on how these parallels shape your understanding of Cultural Studies and power dynamics.

Being treated as a dispensable "asset" means being valued for output rather than as a person. Reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern this way shows me what Cultural Studies does well: it asks who is centred in a story, who is pushed to the edges, and why that arrangement feels natural. Seeing that the two men are only "minor" because the play is told from the prince's side made me realise that marginality is often a matter of perspective, not of worth. It also shows that power operates through narrative as much as through force. Whoever tells the story decides whose loss counts.

Part 2: Creative Engagement

Option 1: Comparative Analysis

In Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exist to be used. Claudius employs them to spy, Gertrude blesses the errand, and Hamlet turns them into instruments of his own strategy. Their names are nearly interchangeable, and Shakespeare gives them no interior life. Hamlet's image of Rosencrantz as a sponge that absorbs the king's favour, only to be squeezed dry when the king needs it back, sums up how power treats them. They are conduits, not people. When Hamlet swaps the sealed letter and sends them to their deaths in England, the play barely pauses. Their execution is reported in a line, and Hamlet's conscience stays largely untroubled.

Shakespeare's tragedy belongs to those who hold or contest the throne. Its moral centre is Hamlet's struggle with revenge, mortality and duty. The small figures around him are collateral. This is not necessarily a flaw in the play, but it does reveal a hierarchy: some lives are the subject of tragedy, and others are its cost.

Stoppard's 1966 play takes that hierarchy and makes it visible by inverting it. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern now stand at the centre, and the royal drama drifts in and out at the edges like a play they keep stumbling into. The result is disorientation. They cannot recall how they came to be travelling, they are unsure of their own names, and they interpret the world through games such as coin tosses and word puzzles because nothing else makes sense. When the coin lands heads repeatedly, their rational framework collapses, and with it their confidence that the universe is governed by rules they can grasp.

Where Shakespeare shows marginalization through outcome (they die and are barely mourned), Stoppard shows it through experience. His characters feel the absence of agency. They are summoned, sent, and directed without ever being told the purpose. The Player, who leads a troupe of actors, tells them that they are performers who are watched and defined by their roles, a hint that all of them are already inside a script. Their final realisation, that they cannot identify the moment when they might have refused their fate, is the play's bleakest note: powerlessness is not a single event but a slow accumulation of small compliances.

Both plays critique systems that use ordinary people, but they do so differently. Hamlet exposes the hierarchy by omission: the "little people" fall silent while the great ones speak. Stoppard exposes it by amplification, giving the silent ones voices and letting the audience discover that their inner lives are as confused, funny and frightened as anyone else's. His dark comedy also suggests that the powerful are not much better placed. Everyone is on a stage, following a text they did not write, but only some get the consolation of a meaningful part.

This matters for contemporary readers because Stoppard's absurdism fits the modern workplace. Employees are asked to be flexible, loyal and "aligned" with strategies they had no part in shaping, and they can find themselves discarded without ever seeing the decision being made. Stoppard's play suggests that the real tragedy is not just the death or dismissal, but the years spent unable to tell whether one's life had any significance to the people directing it. Reading the two plays together, we see how a Renaissance court and a modern corporation can share a logic: value flows upward, risk flows downward, and the person at the bottom is the last to find out which is which.

 Monologue Writing

Create a short monologue for either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, incorporating modern corporate language to highlight their disempowerment.

(Guildenstern, alone at a glass desk, a sealed envelope in front of him.)

GUILDENSTERN: I was told this was a "touchpoint." A quick alignment. Nobody says what we are aligning to. Rosencrantz thinks it's a promotion, because they used the word "opportunity," and he has never once suspected that word.

They said we were "high-potential resources." I checked. A resource is what you use up. I'm not sure they hear it. I'm certain we don't.

We've been "onboarded" into a mandate nobody will put in writing. We "circle back" to a Prince who never quite replies. We "leverage our relationships" with a man who has never learned either of our names. Last week the King thanked me warmly and called me Rosencrantz. Rosencrantz was standing beside me. I said "thank you." What else would I say? That's the mechanism: you accept the wrong name because correcting it feels like a performance issue.

They tell us the organisation is "in transition." Everything is in transition, always, and the only people who never get to transition anywhere are the ones holding the envelope.

(He turns the envelope over. Does not open it.)

I keep looking for the moment I could have said no. There must have been a meeting, an email, a small yes that became the whole of my life. But every yes was so reasonable. That's the design: the trap isn't a cliff, it's a staircase.

They'll call it a "restructure." They'll offer us a "package." There will be a farewell message with the word "grateful" in it, and it will be sincere, in the way that a sponge might be thanked.

(Beat.)

Rosen Ros (He stops.) I'm not going to check which of us it is. It doesn't seem to matter, and that's the whole problem.

 Research Report

Investigate a recent case of corporate downsizing and write a brief comparison with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's fate in Hamlet.

Case: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), 2025

TCS, India's largest IT services firm, announced it would lay off about 2 per cent of its global workforce (12,261 employees), with most of those affected in middle and senior grades. Reports described it as the most significant downsizing in the company's five-decade history, hitting largely non-client-facing staff such as project managers in older delivery models and specialists in legacy technologies. TCS framed the move as part of becoming a "future-ready organisation", with investment in new technologies, AI deployment and a realigned workforce model. 

Several details make the comparison with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instructive:

Language of abstraction. The official rationale was strategic and impersonal. The people affected appear in the statement as a "workforce model" being realigned, much as the two courtiers appear in Claudius's plans as tools for observing Hamlet.

Timing against profit. The announcement came shortly after TCS reported a Q1 FY26 net profit of Rs 12,760 crore, up 6 per cent year on year. Like the sponge, those affected were let go not because the enterprise was failing, but because their particular usefulness had ended.

Slow, phased exit. The CEO said the layoffs would not be immediate and that affected employees would be identified in phases through the year, with support such as extended insurance, outplacement and counselling. This is a gentler procedure than Hamlet's forged letter, but the structural point is similar: the decision is taken above, and the individual learns their status through the process. 

Contested consent. Unions alleged that some exits were forced resignations. That echoes Stoppard's theme that compliance can be manufactured, so that removal looks like a choice.

Pressure before the cut. One report described a stricter bench policy under which employees could be terminated for exceeding 35 unallocated days a year, a reminder that a person's continued place can depend on being visibly "in use".

Where the parallel breaks down. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are killed, while TCS employees receive severance and notice, and TCS clarified that AI is not directly replacing jobs. There is also an ongoing debate about how far AI and automation drive such cuts, so the causes should not be oversimplified. The comparison is about structure (who decides, who is informed, whose value is measured) rather than about equivalent harm. 

Conclusion. The TCS case shows that Stoppard's absurdist insight still holds: many people learn about decisions that reshape their lives through announcements made in the language of strategy, and the search for someone accountable ends in a system rather than a person. Shakespeare shows the cost in a single line about two dead courtiers, and Stoppard asks us to imagine what those two lives felt like from the inside.

Sources for the TCS case: The News Minute, PTI/The Week, Moneylife, and IANS (July 2025). Add your own play editions and citation format as your instructor requires.

 

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth: Colonialism, Violence, Culture and Decolonization

“The colonial world is a Manichaean world.” — Frantz Fanon

Introduction

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is one of the most important works of postcolonial studies. Originally published in French as Les Damnés de la Terre in 1961, the book examines colonialism, violence, racism, culture, nationalism, decolonization, and the problems that newly independent nations may face. Fanon wrote the book in the context of anti-colonial struggles, especially the Algerian struggle against French colonial rule. His discussion is not limited to political independence. He also asks what happens to the mind, culture, economy, and identity of people who have lived under colonial domination.

Fanon presents colonial society as deeply divided between the colonizer and the colonized. The colonizer possesses political and economic power, while the colonized are treated as inferior and denied their humanity. Therefore, for Fanon, decolonization means much more than changing the flag or transferring political power. It means transforming the entire colonial structure and creating a new society.

1. What is the role of violence in colonialism with reference to The Wretched of the Earth?

Violence is one of the central ideas of The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon argues that colonialism itself is created and maintained through violence. The colonizer takes land, controls political institutions, exploits labour, and uses the police and military to control the colonized people. Therefore, colonialism is not simply a peaceful relationship between two cultures. It is a system based on force and domination.

Fanon famously describes decolonization as a “violent phenomenon.” His argument is that because colonial rule was established through violence, the colonized people may use revolutionary violence to destroy that system. Violence, in Fanon’s analysis, is therefore not presented simply as individual anger. It becomes part of a collective struggle against the colonial system.

Violence also has a psychological function in Fanon’s argument. Colonialism creates feelings of inferiority, fear, helplessness, and humiliation among the colonized. Participation in collective resistance can help people recover a sense of agency and dignity. Fanon therefore connects political liberation with psychological liberation.

At the same time, Fanon’s discussion should be understood within the historical context of anti-colonial struggles. His argument is controversial because he gives revolutionary violence an important role in liberation. Later scholars have debated whether his account should be understood as a defence of violence generally or as an analysis of violence within specific colonial conditions.

2. What does Manichaeism mean in a colonial context?

The term Manichaeism comes from Manichaeism, an ancient religious tradition associated with a strong opposition between light and darkness. Fanon uses the term to describe the extreme division created by colonialism.

For Fanon, the colonial world is divided into two opposing zones: the colonizer and the colonized. The colonizer represents himself as civilized, rational, moral, and superior, while the colonized are represented as primitive, irrational, dangerous, and inferior. In this way, colonialism creates a simple opposition between good and evil, civilized and uncivilized, white and non-white.

This division is not only geographical. It also becomes psychological and cultural. The colonized person may begin to see himself through the negative image created by the colonizer. Fanon shows that racism therefore becomes a system of knowledge and representation as well as a system of political control.

Thus, Manichaeism helps us understand how colonialism justifies itself: if the colonizer is presented as civilized and the colonized as inferior, domination can be made to appear natural or necessary.

3. What does Fanon mean by “the infrastructure is also a superstructure” in colonialism?

Fanon changes the usual Marxist understanding of the relationship between economic infrastructure and social superstructure.

In Marxist theory, the economic structure or infrastructure is generally understood as the material foundation of society, while institutions, politics, ideas, and culture are often discussed as part of the superstructure.

However, Fanon argues that colonial society cannot be understood only through class and economics. In a colonial situation, race and economic position are closely connected. The colonizer is not only economically powerful but is also socially identified with whiteness and colonial authority.

Fanon therefore writes:

“The economic infrastructure is also a superstructure.”

He explains this through the relationship between race and wealth: “You are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.”

This means that in colonial society, economic inequality is immediately visible through racial inequality. Race is not simply a cultural idea added to an economic system. It becomes part of the structure through which economic power is organized.

Therefore, Fanon believes that colonialism must be studied through both class and race. A purely economic explanation cannot fully explain the colonial experience.

4. According to Fanon, what is wrong with the “racialization” of culture?

Colonialism often represents the culture of the colonized as primitive, backward, or without real value. Fanon criticizes this process because it makes culture dependent on racial categories.

The colonizer may claim that European culture is universal while treating African or other colonized cultures as inferior. This creates a false hierarchy in which one culture is presented as the standard of civilization and another is treated as evidence of backwardness.

Fanon is particularly concerned with the psychological effect of this process. When colonized people repeatedly hear that their culture is inferior, they may begin to doubt their own history, language, traditions, literature, and artistic achievements.

However, Fanon also warns against simply replacing one racial hierarchy with another. The purpose of cultural revival should not be to create another system in which one race is declared naturally superior. Instead, culture should become part of the struggle for human freedom and national renewal.

For Fanon, the recovery of culture is important because colonialism attempts to destroy the colonized person's connection with history. But culture should ultimately contribute to a new and more human society rather than become another form of racial division. Fanon therefore connects cultural revival with the larger process of decolonization.

5. What is the national bourgeoisie, and why does Fanon think it is “useless”?

The national bourgeoisie refers to the local educated and economically privileged class that emerges in a colonized country. After independence, this group may become politically powerful and take control of the new state.

Fanon is critical of this class because he believes that it often does not have the economic strength or industrial vision necessary to transform the newly independent nation. Instead of creating a genuinely independent economy, it may imitate the colonial system and become dependent on foreign capital.

In other words, political independence can exist while economic dependence continues.

Fanon fears that the national bourgeoisie may simply replace the foreign colonial elite without changing the basic economic structure. It can become an intermediary between international capitalism and the people of the newly independent nation.

This is why Fanon describes the postcolonial bourgeoisie as “useless” in the context of national development. His criticism is not simply about individuals. It is about a class that, in his analysis, may lack the revolutionary economic programme needed to transform colonial society. Scholars have noted that Fanon’s critique of the bourgeois phase is an important and distinctive part of his postcolonial political thought.

For Fanon, true independence therefore requires more than political power. It requires economic transformation and the participation of ordinary people in building the nation.

6. How does decolonization fit into a larger global capitalist picture?

Fanon does not see colonialism as an isolated relationship between one European country and one colonized country. He connects colonialism with the larger international economic system.

Colonial powers extracted resources, controlled markets, and used colonies for economic benefit. Even after formal independence, these relationships could continue through foreign investment, economic dependence, unequal trade, and international capitalism.

Therefore, decolonization must also question economic dependence. If a newly independent nation remains dependent on former colonial powers or international capitalist interests, political independence may remain incomplete.

Fanon warns that newly independent countries should not simply copy the economic models of powerful countries. Instead, they should develop a path that responds to the needs of their own people.

This is why Fanon connects national liberation with questions such as poverty, land, education, employment, industrial development, and economic independence. Later interpretations of Fanon similarly emphasize his concern that postcolonial societies could either break with imperial structures or become dependent parts of world capitalism.

Thus, decolonization for Fanon is both a national and an international question.

7. What is the relation between culture and combat according to Fanon?

For Fanon, culture and political struggle are closely connected.

During colonialism, the colonizer attempts to weaken the culture of the colonized by presenting it as primitive or backward. At the beginning of colonial domination, some educated colonized people may even try to imitate European culture because they have been taught to believe that their own culture has little value.

However, during the struggle for liberation, people begin to rediscover their history, language, traditions, literature, music, and collective identity.

This is where culture and combat meet.

The struggle for freedom gives culture a new political meaning. Traditional songs, stories, literature, historical memories, and cultural practices can become ways of expressing resistance. Culture becomes active rather than merely something preserved in a museum.

Fanon therefore sees national culture as something that develops through the struggle of the people. The recognition of a national culture becomes an important part of building a new nation.

However, Fanon does not want culture to become a simple return to the past. The goal is to use cultural recovery to create a new future. In this sense, combat revitalizes culture, and culture strengthens the consciousness necessary for combat.

8. Short Note on the Title: The Wretched of the Earth

The title The Wretched of the Earth refers to the oppressed people living under colonial and imperial systems. The original French title is Les Damnés de la Terre, and the English title was published as The Wretched of the Earth. The book appeared in 1961.

The word “wretched” suggests poverty, suffering, humiliation, exploitation, and exclusion. These are the conditions Fanon associates with colonized people. The “earth” can be understood as the world inhabited by these oppressed people.

But the title does not only describe suffering. It also suggests transformation. The people who have been pushed to the margins become the people who struggle to change the existing order. The “wretched” are therefore not presented only as victims; they become active participants in decolonization.

The title also reflects the international dimension of Fanon’s argument. Colonialism affects people across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and other parts of the colonized world. Fanon therefore speaks to a larger history of oppressed peoples seeking freedom.

In this sense, The Wretched of the Earth is both a title of suffering and a title of struggle, awakening, and transformation.

Conclusion: From Colonial Subject to Human Being

Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth shows that colonialism affects much more than political government. It influences economics, race, culture, psychology, identity, and social relationships.

His discussion of violence explains the destructive foundations of colonialism and the radical character of decolonization. His concept of Manichaeism shows how colonial society divides people into opposing racial and cultural categories. His statement about infrastructure and superstructure demonstrates the close relationship between race and economic power. His criticism of the national bourgeoisie warns that political independence without economic transformation can reproduce colonial dependence.

Most importantly, Fanon presents decolonization as a process of creating a new society. Cultural recovery, political struggle, economic independence, and the participation of ordinary people are all connected.

Reading Fanon today therefore encourages us to ask an important question: What does genuine freedom mean when the political system changes but old economic, racial, and cultural inequalities remain?

My Reflection

While reading The Wretched of the Earth, I understood that colonialism cannot be understood only as the rule of one country over another. It also affects the way people think about themselves and their culture. The idea of Manichaeism helped me understand how colonialism creates a division between “superior” and “inferior” people. I also found Fanon’s discussion of culture interesting because he shows that recovering culture can become an important part of resistance.

The discussion of the national bourgeoisie also made me think about the difference between political independence and real independence. A country may become politically free, but economic dependence can continue in different forms. Overall, Fanon helped me understand decolonization as a much larger process of rebuilding society, identity, culture, and economic life.

Works Cited

• Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington, Grove Press, 1963.
• Google Books — The Wretched of the Earth
• “Frantz Fanon.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2026.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Frantz Fanon
• Selwyn, Benjamin. “De/Recolonising Development: Fanon, Rostow, and the Violence of Social Change.” Antipode, vol. 56, no. 5, 2024, pp. 1881–1902. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12944.
• Wiley Online Library — De/Recolonising Development