The Wretched of the Earth: Chapter 5: Series A Summary & Analysis

This is a collection of five cases of severe reaction disorders. The first case, B, is a 26-year-old Algerian suffering from impotence after the rape of his wife. He complains of migraines and insomnia. He is a taxi driver and has been a militant in the nationalist party since he was 18. At times, he has used his taxi to deliver propaganda or political leaders. He had been driving near a point of attack and was forced to abandon his taxi. He went underground with the liberation front, and after two years, received a letter from his wife telling him to forget her. After B’s taxi had been found by the French authorities, French soldiers went to his house and questioned his wife. They took her to headquarters and kept her for days, and that is where a French officer raped her.

B is pleasant, Fanon says, but his smile is “forced.” On his second day at the psychiatric hospital, he refuses to get out of bed and is suffering from anorexia and depression. He claims that he is unable to have sexual intercourse, no matter how he tries. He claims that his young daughter has “something rotten inside her,” and he fights the impulse to shred her picture. “She got a bit of French meat,” B says.

B admits that he doesn’t love his wife. In fact, he never did. But when the French soldiers came for her and questioned her, she refused to talk, B says. She would not give up her husband, and she took all of the abuse that they leveled at her. In the end, she did not blame B for what had happened. Instead, she told B to leave her. Thus, B feels obligated to take her back despite the rape, although he doubts he will ever get over it.

Case number two is S, a 37-year-old man, who survived a massacre in his village. S has never been concerned with politics, until the French army ambushed his village and killed 29 men at point-blank range. S took two bullets and survived, but the hospital personnel thought his behavior odd. He demanded a gun and was extremely paranoid. He had even taken a soldier’s gun and fired on some sleeping soldiers. He repeatedly told the doctors that he wasn’t dead, and he displayed mood swings and violent shouting. Over the course of his hospitalization for the gunshot wounds, he attacked eight patients. After three weeks in the psychiatric hospital, he is sleeping better and is less agitated. After a month, he is discharged.  

Case number three is D, a 19-year-old liberation fighter, suffering from a major depressive disorder. D is intensely depressed, experiences constant insomnia, and has attempted suicide twice. He presents with auditory hallucinations and incoherent thoughts. He speaks constantly about his blood spilling, and he begs the doctors not to let the hospital “suck the lifeblood” from him. He complains of nightmares, in which a woman is haunting him.

D knows who the woman is haunting him, he says, because she is the one whom he killed. After D’s mother was killed by French soldiers, he joined the liberation front and was sent to an estate owned by white settlers. The estate manager was known to have killed two Algerians, but he wasn’t there. The man’s wife was there and begged for her life, but D stabbed her with his knife. Now, she comes to him at night and demands her blood back. After several weeks, D’s nightmares subside, and he is discharged.

Case number four is A, a 28-year-old European police officer suffering from depression. He is pleasant but complains of difficulty sleeping due to hearing screams. A few months back, he began working at police headquarters and has since been involved in numerous interrogations, many of which were violent. “They scream too much,” A says, and the screams change depending on the torture. After hanging someone by the wrist for a couple of hours, they scream differently than the one who is electrocuted in the bathtub.

A is sick of his job and wants to resign. One day, while walking on the hospital grounds, A runs into a patient (an Algerian being treated for post-traumatic stress). A had previously interrogated and tortured the man at police headquarters, and the man is convinced that A has come to arrest and torture him. After weeks of therapy, A begins to make progress, but the Algerian cannot be convinced that the police have not infiltrated the hospital.

Case number five is R, a 30-year-old European police officer who tortures his wife and children. He complains of loss of appetite and disturbed sleep, as well as his self-described “fits of madness.” He feels like punching everyone and is sensitive to noise. R violently beats his wife and kids, including his baby, who is 20 months old. He claims that he has never abused his wife until he had been sent to Algeria to “restore law and order.” He claims that some days, he tortures for 10 whole hours. The torture is exhausting, R says, but he is most worried about beating his wife.