“I had been walking for a long time, I was extremely exhausted, I had the impression that something was waiting for me, I climbed
barricades and walls, I came into an empty hall, and from behind a door I heard noise: I hesitated before I went in, but finally I made up
my mind and opened the door. In this second room there were white
men, and I found I too was white.” It’s concluded that that person has an unconscious wish which represents that he
wants to be like the white or he needs the white to help him. Such person lives in a society that makes him inferior and proclaims the superiority of one race.
The very good example of the person who suffers the unconscious and then becomes dependent to the white is the soldier that is under the command of the white.
Why do they accept to be commanded by the white? The only reason is that they have suffered that the unconscious in the greatest level. They obey what the white
command to attack the people of the same race as Fanon 1986:77 states, “They were “men of colour” who nullified the liberation efforts of other “men of colour”.”
2.3 O. Mannoni’s Theories
2.3.1 Prospero Complex The other that becomes the basic of colonization is Prospero Complex.
Mannoni in Fanon, 1986:80 states that Prospero complex is an awareness of a world in which the white must be respected because they rejects the racially different
people. This is a kind of feeling to dominate. This domination feeling is also the important cause of the colonization that leads to dependency complex. In other
words, it’s a mindset of a person that he and his group are the only people that must be respected.
2.3.2 Inferiority Complex Fanon 1986:68 opposes Mannoni’s statement saying that an inferiority
complex related to skin colour is found to those who form a minority in a group of another colour by showing this statement:
“A white man in a colony has never felt inferior in any respect; as M. Mannoni expresses it so well, “He will be deified or devoured.” The
colonial even though he is “in the minority”, does not feel that this makes him inferior. In Martinique, there are two hundred whites who
consider themselves superior to 300,000 people of colour.” Therefore Fanon concludes that the feeling of inferiority of colonized people is
relational to the superiority feeling of the European and the one who creates the inferiority complex is the racist.
As discussed before, the one who does racialism is the colonizer and we know that they are the white who consider themselves superior although they are inferior in
number. Typical colonizers have made bonds dependence between them and the colonized. Because the white are mentally superior, is seems that the colonized are
more dependent to them. Fanon 1986:69 says that when an educated black suddenly realizes that his race is rejected and he refuses to be dependent to the colonizers and
speaks off his independence, he absolutely pays his rejection of dependence with and inferiority complex. This is just the same with what Mannoni 1964:61 says:
“When he [the Malagasy] has succeeded informing such relations [of dependence] with his superiors, his inferiority no longer troubles
him: everything is alright. When he fails to establish them, when his
feeling of insecurity is no assigned in in this way, he suffers a crisis.” We can conclude
that Fanon is really inspired by Mannoni’s statement in arguing that inferiority complex becomes a sign of dependency complex. When one suffers
dependency complex, he won’t get inferiority complex. Nevertheless, when one refuses the dependency complex, he will suffer the inferiority complex. This is how
inferiority complex becomes the characteristic of the dependency complex. Then, questions must appear after showing the theories and reading the novel
Funny in Farsi. How does dependency complex exist among Iranian people in the white world such as United States of America? How is the relationship between the
story in the novel and the context of the real life of Iranian people living in United States of America?
The first question will be answered by describing the backgrounds and the characteristics of dependency complex. The backgrounds mentioned in the theory are
racism, Prospero complex and anti-Semitic mentality. One of the moments that show the backgrounds causing dependency complex is when the first
time the character „I’ came to America and joined in the elementary school named Leffingwell. In that
time, she faced curious and strange gazes from her new classmates. Although the reason is not stated in the novel, readers can think logically that she was the only
different person, racially or ethnically. The inability to speak english added her fellow classmates’ curiousity and underestimate. It shows that her classmates treated
her differently and racially. It’s clearly shown that racism happened in there. Racism
is one of the backgrounds causing the dependency complex. That is only one example of discussions in this thesis.
The second question will be answered by showing the real history of what Iranian did in the same era with the story in the novel. Then the real story is
compared to the story in the novel. Although Firoozeh Dumas entitles her novel with the word memoir, it won’t be believed that it is real until it’s compared to other
historical refferences. The dependency complex told in the novel will be compared to the real story of Iranian people in America. By showing it, the question about the
relationship between the story in the novel and the story of the real life will be answered. The descriptions of the dependency complex in the novel and in the real
story will also prove that dependency complex actually happened to Iranian people living in America.
2.4 The Approach to Use
