The Human Nature of Violence Lizbeth Marquez Torres College

In The Wretched of The Earth, French author Frantz Fanon focuses on colonization as well as decolonization and its consequences. Fanon examines and analyzes the psychological impacts that colonization has on colonizers but particularly, he focuses on the colonized. Published in 1961, the book addresses political and social culture and the implications that colonization has had on that culture. While the book’s focus is steered toward decolonization, it still touches on the issues of race and violence because those topics are essential to the beginning and end of colonization. Fanon argues that any social movement or political overthrow must involve violence to all or some extent. The violence behind colonization is the same violence that must be sparked in order for decolonization to occur therefore, the text leads us to believe that violence is simply an attribute of human nature in a variety of ways. While not every human is necessarily violent, it is indubitable that violence is deeply rooted in the human species. Essentially, Fanon’s text alludes the idea that violence connects humans because it is in our nature and at the end of the day it is violence that serves us as a reminder that we are all the same thing; humans.

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