SO LONG A LETTER
By
Mariam Ba
Full Summary
and analysis
Compiled by Rajabu Mpella Rashidi
GENERAL OVER VIEW OF THE BOOK
So
Long a Letter begins when Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese woman living in Dakar, the country’s capital,
decides to write a letter to her old friend Aissatou, who lives in America.
The letter is occasioned by the sudden death of Modou, Ramatoulaye’s estranged husband. In keeping with Muslim custom, Ramatoulaye must observe a mirasse, a forty-day period of isolation and mourning. Over the course of this period she keeps a diary, which she eventually intends to send to Aissatou. Ramatoulaye begins by reflecting on the long funeral proceedings following Modou’s death. Senegalese-Muslim customs dictate that Ramatoulaye serve as a host to all the mourners and well-wishers, opening her house to them and providing them with food and drink. This strikes Ramatoulaye as a grave injustice, as Modou, in his final years, wanted nothing to do with her. The mourners virtually sack her house, and though they bring gifts—mostly bank notes—the most of them end up in the hands of Modou’s second wife, Binetou, and her greedy mother (Lady Mother-in-Law).
The letter is occasioned by the sudden death of Modou, Ramatoulaye’s estranged husband. In keeping with Muslim custom, Ramatoulaye must observe a mirasse, a forty-day period of isolation and mourning. Over the course of this period she keeps a diary, which she eventually intends to send to Aissatou. Ramatoulaye begins by reflecting on the long funeral proceedings following Modou’s death. Senegalese-Muslim customs dictate that Ramatoulaye serve as a host to all the mourners and well-wishers, opening her house to them and providing them with food and drink. This strikes Ramatoulaye as a grave injustice, as Modou, in his final years, wanted nothing to do with her. The mourners virtually sack her house, and though they bring gifts—mostly bank notes—the most of them end up in the hands of Modou’s second wife, Binetou, and her greedy mother (Lady Mother-in-Law).
Ramatoulaye
goes on to reflect on her marriage to Modou. She cannot understand what led him
to lose interest in her. Their first years together, as sweethearts and then as
a young married couple, seemed hopeful. They married despite the protestations
of Ramtoulaye’s family, who saw Modou as something of a loaf. In her diary she
admits that they were right, and wonders why, despite her education, she chose
him over the more sensible option—Daouda Dieng, an older and more established, financially stable man.
Aissatou’s
marriage, like Ramatoulaye’s, also disintegrated. Around the time that
Ramatoulaye married Modou, Aissatou married Mawdo, a medical student and overall model citizen. The two were
greatly in love. However, Mawdo is of noble birth, while Aissatou is merely the
daughter of a goldsmith. Mawdo’s family—in particular his mother, Aunty Nabou—objected to the union. In an effort to undermine the
marriage, Aunty Nabou traveled to her ancestral hometown and convinced her
brother to relinquish one of his daughters—Aunty Nabou’s namesake—to her care.
Aunty Nabou proceeded to raise and preen young Nabou. Then, when the girl was of proper age, Aunty Nabou begged
Mawdo to take young Nabou as his second wife. Mawdo, fearing that his mother
would become distressed and fall ill if he declined, agreed. He assured
Aissatou that he did not love young Nabou, but he also had children with her.
Aissatou could not accept this and divorced him. She focused on her education,
received a degree in diplomacy, and moved to America to work in the Senegalese
embassy.
Meanwhile,
Ramatoulaye was enduring her own marital misfortune. Her daughter Daba befriended a girl name Binetou. Binetou spoke often of a
“sugar daddy,” an older man who bought her clothes. After a while, Binetou’s
family began to pressure her into leaving her education behind and marrying the
man for his money. Binetou reluctantly agreed. Ramatoulaye was disappointed by
this news, but not otherwise suspicious. Some days later, Mawdo, Modou’s
brother Tamsir, and a local Imam appeared at Ramatoulaye’s house. Together
they informed her that Binetou’s sugar daddy was in fact Ramatoulaye’s husband
Modou, and that Binetou would soon be her co-wife.
Ramatoulaye
was left heartbroken and effectively abandoned as Modou began a new life with
Binetou. Despite this, she decided to remain married to Modou, accepting her
fate as if it were a duty to fulfill. Her children protested, but she remained
steadfast.
Now
Modou has died, and Ramatoulaye must navigate the strange situation of being
forced to mourn for a man who abandoned her. As her mirasse draws to a close,
she is approached by Tamsir, who announces that he will marry her. Ramatoulaye
is deeply offended by his crass proposal, and tells him off in front of Mawdo
and the Imam. Later, Daouda Dieng proposes to her. Though he does so with
considerably more tact than Tamsir, Ramatoulaye rejects him as well. She
resolves to focus her efforts on raising her children.
Thanks
to the increasingly prevalent forces of modernity, Ramatoulaye’s adolescent
children become exposed to a host of new dangers, dangers from which she feels
they must be protected. While playing baseball in the street, two of
Ramatoulaye’s sons are run over and injured by a wayward motorcycle. She catches three of her daughters smoking. Aissatou’s namesake gets pregnant out of wedlock. Ramatoulaye responds to all
of these crises with strength, equanimity, and poise.
Ramatoulaye
concludes her long letter by anticipating Aissatou’s impending return to
Senegal. She looks forward to seeing her friend, and trusts that despite the
physical changes they’ve endured, their friendship will be strong as ever.
CHAPTER SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 1
Ramatoulaye, the narrator (living in Dakar, Senegal), addresses her
friend, Aissatou, who lives far away, in America. Ramatoulaye writes that
she has received Aissatou’s letter and that, by way of reply, she has decided
to write a diary. This diary, she decides, will serve as a “prop in [her]
distress”—though she doesn’t yet reveal what has caused this distress. First
she recalls her childhood with Aissatou, listing off a series of discrete
images: the two of them walking along the same road to Koranic School, and the
two of them burying their baby teeth in the same hole.
The
immediate intimacy of Ramatoulaye’s address establishes how close these two
friends are, and how close they remain despite the physical distance between
them. At first Ramatoulaye’s promise to keep a diary that will also serve as a
letter to Aissatou seems like a contradiction—one typically thinks of a diary
as private, and a letter as inherently shared. Yet Ramatoulaye’s memories from
their childhood together makes it clear that the two friends share
everything—and thus this diary/letter gives the novel its unique form.
Ramatoulaye then reveals the cause of her distress: “Yesterday you were
divorced,” she writes, “today I am a widow.” Ramatoulaye’s estranged husband, Modou, has died suddenly of a heart attack. Ramatoulaye describes
to Aissatou the phone call she received informing her of the news, as
well as her trip to the hospital, and her encounter with the body. She explains
that Mawdo, Modou’s doctor friend and Aissatou’s ex-husband, was
called to the scene but arrived too late—all his attempts to resuscitate Modou
were for naught—and describes his sadness with a certain tenderness. Distraught
and confused, Ramatoulaye seeks consolation in remembered verses from the
Koran.
Although
Ramatoulaye is estranged from Modou, she receives the news of his death with
the solemnity, awe, and devotion that her faith demands, and with the grief of
a loving spouse. Similarly, she expresses her tenderness toward Mawdo without
restraint, despite his estrangement from the letter’s addressee, her friend
Aissatou. For Ramatoulaye, death is a sacred matter, the gravity of which
overcomes (if only for a moment) feelings of animosity or remorse. Here we also
see the strength of Ramatoulaye’s Islamic faith, and the way that it informs
her life, emotion, and decision-making on almost every level.
CHAPTER 2
The day after Modou’s death, droves of mourners appear at Ramatoulaye’s house to pay their respects. Modou’s close relatives
appear as well, and the women among them help make the funeral preparations,
bringing incense, holy water, white muslin, and dark wrappers to the hospital
in order to dress the body. In accordance with custom, Modou’s young second
wife, Binetou, is installed in Ramatoulaye’s house, to receive guests
alongside her. Ramatoulaye is bothered by her presence but ultimately feels
pity toward the girl. The male mourners form a funeral procession and accompany
the body to its final resting place, while the women stay behind. Modou’s
sisters ritually undo Ramatoulaye’s and Binetou’s hair.
Ramatoulaye’s description of the
funeral preparations demonstrates just how much custom and tradition saturate
Senegalese culture and experience—further, it demonstrates that
Senegalese-Muslim rituals typically delineate distinct, complementary roles for
men and women. Ramatoulaye’s complex feelings toward Binetou, her co-wife,
include both indignation at having to associate with her husband’s second wife
and a kind of maternal feeling—after all, Binetou is young enough to be
Ramatoulaye’s daughter.
Custom dictates that Ramatoulaye serve as a hospitable host to Modou’s family and to her co-wife’s family, providing them with
food and lodging and generally accommodating their every need. Ramatoulaye
dreads this responsibility, most of all because it calls on her to surrender
her personality and dignity in the interest of serving her estranged relatives.
Modou’s sisters shower praises and words of consolation over Ramatoulaye and Binetou, but it bothers Ramatoulaye that they give equal
consideration to both—Binetou was married to Modou for only five years, while
Ramatoulaye was married to him for thirty. The men return from the funeral
procession and offer their condolences to the women in a highly ritualized
fashion.
In order to satisfy the demands of
custom, Ramatoulaye must essentially erase herself, render herself transparent,
and reduce herself to an object in the service of men. The fact that she and
Binetou receive the same amount of attention only underlines the fact that
Ramatoulaye’s “role” as the aggrieved wife has, in the eyes of the other
mourners, overwhelmed any and all of her individual characteristics as a human
being.
CHAPTER 3
The funeral ceremony continues into
its third day. Now all sorts of people come out of the woodwork to pay their
respects and mooch off the hospitality of the aggrieved. Ramatoulaye’s house is essentially trashed by the crowd. The men and women
occupy different sides of the parlor; the men occasionally shout over at the
women to chastise them for gossiping loudly and not showing the solemnity that
the occasion demands. Many of the guests present gifts of money to Ramatoulaye
and to Modou’s family. Ramatoulaye explains that these customary gifts
once consisted of unquantifiable goods, such as livestock or millet, but now
everyone simply presents the aggrieved with banknotes, and tries to one-up
everyone else by giving the most cash. The proceeds are divvied up among
Ramatoulaye, Binetou and her family, and Modou’s family. Binetou’s
mother and Modou’s sisters get the lion’s
share, leaving Ramatoulaye destitute in comparison.
Ramatoulaye experiences firsthand
the marked disconnect between the premise of dignity on which the funeral
ritual is founded and the indignity that the ritual actually can create. But
while she is skeptical of the traditions she is expected to follow, she is also
nostalgic for traditions that have been abandoned or otherwise corrupted: the
exchange of cash in lieu of actual gifts strikes her as somewhat appalling. The
unequal apportioning of the gift money between her and her family-in-law only
underlines the illogic of custom for custom’s sake, and the way even traditions
of generosity and selflessness can be easily twisted.
Finally Binetou and the relatives clear out, leaving destruction in their
wake: Ramatoulaye’s floors are blackened and her walls are stained with oil,
and trash litters the house. In their absence, Ramatoulaye now must confront
her mirasse, a period of four months and ten days that she must spend in
solitude and mourning, in accordance with custom. She is apprehensive but faces
her “duty” with resolve, writing that her “heart concurs with the demands of
religion.”
Despite her clear and outspoken
discomfort with many of the demands of her religion and culture, Ramatoulaye is
determined to meet them head on and operate within them, rather than against
them. This is one of the first glimpses of Ramatoulaye’s particular brand of
stoicism and quiet courage.
CHAPTER 4
The mirasse also demands that Ramatoulaye and her family-in-law meet to “strip” Modou and reveal the secrets he kept during his lifetime. Mostly
this involves laying bare his financial debts. It is then revealed that the
chic villa in which Modou had been living with Binetou and Binetou’s
mother was acquired on a bank loan
originally granted to both Modou and Ramatoulaye. Even though the deed has
Modou’s name on it, Ramatoulaye essentially helped pay for the house. However,
Modou’s lavish treatment of Binetou and her mother—he paid for their pilgrimage
to Mecca, bought them cars, and, to Ramatoulaye’s horror, provided Binetou with
a monthly allowance after pulling her out of school— has led the two to think
that they are guaranteed the house. It seems also that they have begun
fraudulently removing furniture from the house, even before the estate is
settled.
It becomes clear that Modou has used
his privileged position to exploit Ramatoulaye’s financial independence. His
family intends to prolong this exploitation into the future, and it doesn’t
seem like there is much Ramatoulaye can do about it. Ramatoulaye’s horror at
Binetou’s removal from school establishes Ramatoulaye as someone who cares
deeply about education, particularly for young women, and once more illustrates
her conflicted maternal feeling toward her young co-wife.
CHAPTER 5
Alone again with her thoughts, Ramatoulaye becomes distressed. She wonders what could have possibly
caused Modou to abandon her, not to mention their twelve children, in
order to marry the 17-year-old Binetou. Ramatoulaye compares her fate to that of the blind,
disabled, and destitute, asking how those in worse situations than hers find
strength, moral fortitude, and even heroism in their disadvantage and distress.
Like the blind and the disabled,
Ramatoulaye’s position of social disadvantage has everything to do with the
circumstances of her birth and nothing to do with her character. Her assertion
that the blind can still act heroically in quiet ways, within the confines of
their societal disadvantage, reflects her own brand of stoic feminism.
CHAPTER SIX
Ramatoulaye recalls meeting Modou for the first time, while on a trip to a teachers’ training
college with Aissatou. Addressing Modou directly, in the second person, she
remembers him asking her to dance and their ensuing romance, which endured even
after Modou went off to study law in France—Modou, she explains, felt homesick
and lonely the whole time he was there, and wrote to her often.
Modou’s dissatisfaction in France
illustrates a conundrum that then faced the educated in Senegal: most pathways
to higher education also demanded assimilation to French culture—that is, the
culture of the colonizer and oppressor. Separately, Ramatoulaye’s use of direct
address illustrates her continued feelings of intimacy towards Modou, even
after estrangement and death have separated them.
Upon his return to Senegal, Modou and Ramatoulaye prepared to marry. Modou also introduced his friend Mawdo to Aissatou. Ramatoulaye’s mother was skeptical of her daughter’s
choice, however, and Ramatoulaye now understands her skepticism. Ramatoulaye
and her mother belonged to the first generations of women fighting for
empowerment in Senegal, and her mother wanted her daughter to have a husband that
would be equal to Ramatoulaye’s intellect and ambition. It seems that by
marrying Modou, an idler, Ramatoulaye surrendered her freedom to a man who was
beneath her. Now she has nothing to show for it.
Ramatoulaye’s disagreement with her
mother raises a question that vexes the entire novel: are traditional family
life, religious marriage, and motherhood fundamentally at odds with female
empowerment? Does a woman surrender essential freedoms just by choosing to
marry? Or just by marrying the “wrong” kind of person?
CHAPTER 7
Ramatoulaye remembers with fondness her and Aissatou’s French—which is to say, white—schoolteacher. All of her
students came from different cultures within French West Africa, and she
treated them all equally, and instilled universal moral values in them, lifting
them out of the “bog of tradition, superstition, and custom.”
The acceptance offered to
Ramatoulaye by her schoolteacher stands in contrast to the alienation Modou
felt in France. Ramatoulaye’s admiration for the teacher demonstrates a certain
optimism—a faith that education and progress do not have to include the
indignity and erasure of forced assimilation into the culture of the oppressor.
Ramatoulaye wonders why, despite her education, she chose Modou over Daouda Dieng, an intelligent, mature, wealthy doctor who tried
unsuccessfully to court her. She rejected him against the wishes of her
parents, who saw Daouda as the more stable, practical option.
At the time, Ramatoulaye’s rejection
of Daouda was in some sense an expression of empowerment and a rejection of
tradition. But now she wonders whether accepting a more practical option might
have ultimately offered her greater freedoms in the long run.
CHAPTER 8
Ramatoulaye shifts her attention to Aissatou’s controversial engagement to Mawdo. Aissatou is of modest birth—her father is a
goldsmith—while Mawdo is nobility, his mother a “Princess of the Sine.” In the
eyes of tradition it was a total mismatch, and at the time of the engagement
everyone in town gossiped angrily about the scandal.
The widespread shock in response to
the engagement demonstrates just how strong a grip custom has over social
relations in Senegal, or at least the parts of the country that Bâ describes.
Ramatoulaye then uses Aissatou’s father’s profession to discuss some of the broader social
changes happening in Senegal. Aissatou’s younger brothers will not take up
their father’s profession, pursuing a Western education instead. While
Ramatoulaye acknowledges the importance of education—she is a schoolteacher,
after all—she is wary of overemphasizing it. For one, education is still
largely inaccessible for the poor, and in any case schooling is not necessarily
right for everyone. What will the dropouts do? Modernization has begun to
render obsolete the traditional crafts—like goldsmithing—that would otherwise
serve as alternatives to those not receiving a higher education. This conflict
between modernization and tradition is an “eternal debate,” Ramatoulaye writes.
Modernization is not, Ramatoulaye
suggests, a universal good. While it is necessary for the progress of Senegal
as a newly independent nation, it also seems to compromise important facets of
Senegal’s cultural identity. While Ramatoulaye cannot offer a solution to the
conundrum, she seems to suggest that the “eternal debate” is important to
preserve—perhaps the solution lies partly in the very process of debating.
CHAPTER 9
Ramatoulaye and Aissatou marry their fiancés around the same time, and together they
endure the joys and frustrations of their new marital life. Ramatoulaye is
pestered constantly by her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law, who day after day
drop in unannounced and abuse her hospitality. She is also exasperated to
discover that despite her professional life as a teacher, and despite the help
of a few maids, the brunt of household duties still fall to her. For Aissatou’s
part, her family-in-law does not respect her, and barely acknowledges her
existence.
Modou’s family’s careless treatment
of Ramatoulaye is a form of objectification—in their eyes she is little more
than a provider of service. Even her professional success cannot save her from
the role assigned to her by custom. Ramatoulaye and Aissatou’s friendship
provide them with an escape, however. With their spouses and in-laws they
endure their oppression silently, but with each other they can express their
frustration openly.
In their precious free time
together, Ramatoulaye and Aissatou take long walks together along the coast and relax in
Aissatou’s beautiful home. They find solace in nature and the open air. They
find solace, too, in their professional lives. They are both schoolteachers,
and the satisfaction they derive from helping young children is incomparable to
anything they feel at home.
The openness and natural beauty of
the coast stands in sharp contrast to the confines of the home. Against the
claims of custom and tradition, Ramatoulaye and Aissatou find more fulfillment
in their friendship and profession than their conventionally “sacred” household
duties as wives.
CHAPTER 10
Modou rises to the top ranks of the trade union for which he
works. Meanwhile, Senegal is in the midst of achieving its independence. Debate
over the right path forward—how best to shed the history of colonial
exploitation and bring a new republic into being—grips the country. Ramatoulaye sees her generation as occupying a privileged but difficult
position between two distinct eras. Modou leads his trade union into
collaboration with the government. He is skeptical, however, of the hasty
establishment of too many embassies, which he sees as an unnecessary drain on
Senegal’s precious resources.
Ramatoulaye and those around her
feel personally invested in the political debates taking place, and the path
before them is somewhat fraught. Modou’s skepticism of the embassies
illustrates one of the biggest dilemmas facing independent Senegal: modernization
seems to demand participation in an increasingly global economy, and yet doing
so also seems to come at the expense of internal stability (and often at the
expense of Senegal’s unique culture, at least when “globalization” means
assimilation into an oppressive Western culture).
CHAPTER 11
While admitting that she must be
reopening old wounds for her friend, Ramatoulaye proceeds to describe the breakup of Aissatou’s marriage. She explains that Mawdo’s mother, Aissatou’s “Aunty
Nabou,” simply could not accept that her
son had married a woman of low birth. Nabou resolves to visit her brother, Farba
Diouf, who is a customary chief in
Diakhao, a rural town far inland. After a
long journey she visits the tomb of her noble
ancestors, which is located in the town, and pays her respects there. Nabou is
received in her brother’s house like a queen: she is served the choicest bits
of meat, and relatives from all over the area come to visit her. Toward the end
of her visit, she tells her brother that she needs a child by her side—her
children have married and her house is now empty. Farba, hearing this,
immediately offers to surrender his own daughter, Nabou’s namesake, to Nabou’s
care. Aunty Nabou returns home with the young
Nabou in tow.
Nabou’s symbolic journey to the
country’s interior is like a journey back in time: the rural town of Diakhao is
still very much under the spell of tradition, unlike cosmopolitan Dakar. And
while the rituals Nabou rehearses there are antiquated, Ramatoulaye still
describes them with a degree of awe and respect—they are somewhat beautiful and
powerful, even if they ultimately quicken Aissatou’s personal troubles. Still,
the ease with which Farba offers up his young daughter is certainly appalling.
She has no say in the matter, and is exchanged like a mere commodity. It’s also
worth noting that Aunty Nabou, a woman, has internalized the sexist aspects of
her culture seemingly as much as any man, and feels no qualms about accepting
her niece solely as an object.
CHAPTER 12
Under Aunty
Nabou’s guardianship, and with the help
of Ramatoulaye, young Nabou is enrolled in a French school and after a few years
becomes a midwife. One day, Aunty Nabou summons Mawdo and tells him that Farba has offered young Nabou to Mawdo as a wife. Aunty Nabou
implores Mawdo to accept—if he doesn’t, she says, she will surely die of shame.
Mawdo takes this to heart, and agrees to marry young Nabou. The whole community
learns about this before Aissatou does. Reluctantly Mawdo breaks the news to her, telling her
that he is agreeing to the marriage only to appease his mother—he does not love
young Nabou. Aissatou goes along with this for a while, but when Mawdo begins
to have children with young Nabou, Aissatou leaves, leaving him a letter—which
Ramatoulaye reproduces for the reader—explaining in direct terms that she
cannot accept his decision.
While at first it seems that Mawdo
maintains an entirely practical view of his marriage to the young Nabou, his
actions—namely, having children with his new wife—undercut his claims to
pragmatism. Mawdo tells Aissatou his decision is a matter of principle, not
passion, and yet Aissatou’s uncompromising and impassioned rejection of him is
the most principled decision perhaps in the whole novel. Ramatoulaye’s role in
all of this—in the background, never intervening on the part of either Mawdo or
Aissatou—illustrates her more conservative and reserved tendencies.
Now free of her marriage, Aissatou turns to books, and begins taking her education seriously. Ramatoulaye admires this greatly. Aissatou returns to school, receives
a degree in interpretation, and gets a job at the Senegalese embassy in
America. Meanwhile, Mawdo finds himself dissatisfied with Nabou. She does not keep up the house in the way Aissatou had,
and she is constantly receiving visitors from her hometown. In letters Mawdo
begs Aissatou to return, but she refuses. Despite his misery, Mawdo continues
to have children with Nabou. When Ramatoulaye confronts him about this, Mawdo
can only explain himself with a crude analogy: he is a starving man, and Nabou
is the nearest plate of food. This disgusts Ramatoulaye.
Aissatou flourishes outside the
confines of marriage and custom, embracing modernism and education and going so
far as to leave the entire country behind. For his part, Mawdo misses Aissatou
for reasons that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with her
ability to serve him. Ramatoulaye’s disgust at Mawdo’s analogy demonstrates not
just a solidarity with Aissatou but also with Nabou, who throughout the whole
ordeal has never been treated as more than just an object.
CHAPTER 13
Ramatoulaye now decides to recount her own marital misfortune. Her
teenaged daughter, Daba, begins to spend a lot of time with a friend Binetou; together they are preparing for a standardized test. Modou often offers to drive Binetou home after the study
sessions. Binetou wears expensive dresses which, she explains, have been paid
for by a “sugar daddy.” Ramatoulaye doesn’t think much of this until, one day,
Daba explains that the “sugar daddy” wants to marry Binetou. Ramatoulaye tells
Daba that Binetou’s education is far more important, and that she shouldn’t cut
short her youth simply because a rich man wants to marry her. Though Binetou
agrees, she cannot convince her family, who are attracted to the “sugar
daddy’s” money. She reluctantly accepts his marriage proposal.
Ramatoulaye’s emphasis on education,
and her wish for a successful future for Binetou, seems to be driven in part by
Aissatou’s success after leaving Mawdo. Ramatoulaye knows firsthand how
difficult it is, in Senegalese society, for a wife to maintain both a home and
a professional life. Binetou’s submission to her family’s demands ominously
echoes Mawdo’s submission to Aunty Nabou’s demands—it seems that the older
generation often forces their family members to continue within the confines of
strict or outdated customs.
On the day that Binetou is to be married to her sugar daddy, Modou’s brother Tamsir, Mawdo, and a local imam appear at Ramatoulaye’s house. Modou is nowhere to be seen. After some dawdling
and beating around the bush, the three men announce the reason for their visit:
Modou, it turns out, is Binetou’s sugar daddy, and today he is taking her as
his second wife. The men express their support of the marriage, which they see
as a matter of God’s will, though Mawdo, evidently remembering Aissatou’s reaction to his own second marriage, seems subdued.
Ramatoulaye is of course shocked and upset—suddenly all of Modou’s absences in
recent months begin to make sense—yet she maintains her composure, smiling, thanking
the men, and offering them something to drink.
The formality of the exchange, while
supposedly customary, comes off as ridiculous and cowardly, a total breakdown
of respectful communication—Modou can’t even confront his wife himself.
Depending on how you look at it, Ramatoulaye’s stoicism in the face of this
absurd development is either tragic or empowered. At the very least, it’s clear
that maintaining her composure and offering these men hospitality is no easy
feat.
CHAPTER 14
Daba, who was also kept in the dark about the true identity of Binetou’s sugar daddy, is infuriated, and implores Ramatoulaye to leave Modou just like Aissatou left Mawdo. Ramatoulaye’s neighbor, Farmata, also encourages Ramatoulaye to leave. Farmata is a griot,
a kind of fortune teller, and she informs Ramatoulaye that her future includes
laughter and a new husband. Ramatoulaye rejects these predictions, however—she
thinks she is too old to attract the attention of a new man, and worries that
if she were to leave Modou she would live out the rest of her life in
loneliness. Increasingly distraught, she finds herself descending into a
nervous breakdown.
Modou’s abandonment of Ramatoulaye
has left her unable to imagine that any man will find her attractive in the
future. Her steadfast refusal to act on Daba’s and Farmata’s advice is at once
tragic and somewhat impressive—it might be argued that she is asserting a kind
of independence, rejecting the idea that she requires a man in her life at all.
By way of illustrating her own
distress, Ramatoulaye tells the story of her acquaintance, Jacqueline. Jacqueline, a protestant from Coite d’Ivoire, marries Samba
Diack, a friend of Mawdo’s. Jacqueline is not used to Senegalese customs. She is
treated like an outsider, and is shocked when Samba begins chasing after other
women—relatively standard behavior for Senegalese husbands. Distressed, she
begins experiencing all manner of physical pain, which no doctor can diagnose.
She undergoes a host of x-rays and invasive tests, but the nature of her
illness remains a mystery—that is, until a doctor diagnoses her with
depression. The diagnosis alone helps Jacqueline greatly. Now that she knows
the source of her illness, she turns her energies inward, and begins to
overcome her depression. Taking heart in this story, Ramatoulaye resolves to
confront her suffering head-on. She decides to remain married to Modou—in her view, the dignified solution.
For Jacqueline and, the reader can
assume, Ramatoulaye, mental pain manifests itself as physical pain—a potent
reminder of the toll that the constant stress of oppression takes on the body.
The conclusion Ramatoulaye draws from Jacqueline’s story is certainly
counterintuitive: she seems to suggest that her suffering is more a matter of
attitude than circumstance. Whether this conclusion should be applauded is left
somewhat ambiguous by Bâ. Separately, Jacqueline’s story illustrates a
political reality that is often overlooked in the West: just how diverse
Africa’s nations and cultures are.
CHAPTER 15
Ramatoulaye compares and contrasts Nabou and Binetou. Nabou is full of poise and tact, thanks in part to Aunty
Nabou’s intense involvement in her moral
education. Her job at a maternity home is difficult and often frustrating, but
Nabou is a fighter, and in this way Ramatoulaye sees her as a kindred spirit.
In contrast, Ramatoulaye feels a kind of pity for Binetou. Trapped in a
marriage she never wanted, Binetou can tolerate her life only by making Modou dye his hair, dress younger than his age, and lavish money
on her. Some of Ramatoulaye’s friends, horrified by Modou’s behavior, suggest
that she stage a supernatural intervention, using love potions or spiritual
mediums to break up the marriage. However, Ramatoulaye rejects these
suggestions as irrational.
Whereas Ramatoulaye feels a kind of
parallel feeling toward Nabou—they are both working women struggling to
reconcile their home life with their working life—she feels something closer to
a maternal feeling toward Binetou. Ramatoulaye’s rejection of her friends’
suggestions constitutes a rejection of the old ways, a rejection of
superstition in favor of a kind of brutal and resigned rationalism.
Instead, Ramatoulaye resolves to “look reality in the face.” As she explains,
reality consists of Lady
Mother-in-Law (Binetou’s mother) living a pampered, “gilded” life on Modou’s dime. It also consists of the odd couple, Modou and
Binetou, going to nightclubs and dancing awkwardly, to everyone else’s delight
and embarrassment.
Neither Binetou nor her mother are
seemingly at all interested in Modou; they are only interested in his money.
CHAPTER 16
As time goes on, Ramatoulaye finds that what her children originally begged her to do—to
leave Modou—is now functionally the case, as Modou seems to have lost
all interest in maintaining even the semblance of a relationship with her.
While Ramatoulaye did not make this choice for herself, she learns to cope with
and even enjoy her newfound independence. Being a single parent to twelve
children is no easy feat, however. Money is tight, and she must make certain
compromises, such as making her children ride public transport, while Binetou and Lady
Mother-in-Law drive around in a fancy new car.
Ramatoulaye’s resolve in the face of
a fate she never chose for herself demonstrates an extraordinary resilience,
and a belief in making due with whatever life has in store. Ramatoulaye does
not take direct action on her own behalf in the sense that she doesn’t stand up
to Modou, but she at least takes the challenges of single motherhood
(multiplied twelve-fold) in stride.
In passing, Ramatoulaye one day mentions having to ride public transportation to Aissatou in a letter. In response, Aissatou immediately buys
Ramatoulaye a car by calling in an order to the local Fiat agency. Ramatoulaye
is surprised and overjoyed. She does not know how to drive and is somewhat
afraid to learn, but remains determined and overcomes her fear.
Not only must Ramatoulaye adapt to her newfound personal
independence, she must adapt to Senegal’s increasing modernization and
globalization, as represented by her learning to drive an Italian car purchased
for her by her friend overseas.
CHAPTER
17
Ramatoulaye reflects further on the fate of her marriage. She struggles
to understand why Modou decided to leave her in the first place, and tries to
determine if there was anything she could have done to prevent his flight. She
is sure, however, that she has been an exemplary wife and mother. Further, she
admits that she is still devoted to Modou, despite his terrible treatment of
her. She writes to Aissatou that, though she respects women who take a stand against
their errant husbands and leave them behind, she has never conceived of
happiness outside of marriage.
Ramatoulaye clearly did nothing to
invite Modou’s abandonment of her. Despite her sacrifices and invaluable
contributions to her family life, she is still seen by Modou as entirely
disposable. Ramatoulaye’s “confession” to Aissatou shows again just how much
she has internalized custom and tradition, including the idea that there can be
no real happiness or fulfillment for a woman outside of marriage.
CHAPTER 18
It is now the fortieth day after Modou’s death. Ramatoulaye writes that she has forgiven him. Then, out of the blue, Tamsir, Mawdo, and the Imam appear again in Ramatoulaye’s home. Tamsir
speaks, telling Ramatoulaye that as soon as she comes out of mourning her will
marry her, explaining that he prefers her to the “other one” (Binetou, that is).
Tamsir expects to inherit
Ramatoulaye from his dead brother much like he would a piece of furniture. His
confidence—he doesn’t ask so much as he informs—conveys a total disrespect for
Ramatoulaye’s independence and intelligence, and even her basic humanity. His
reference to Binetou as “the other one” might be laughable if it weren’t so
horrible.
Ramatoulaye is infuriated by this proposal. In response, she rails
against Tamsir’s disrespect and presumptuousness. She tells him that he is
disrespecting not only her, but his own wives and the memory of his brother.
She insinuates that he is simply after his brother’s properties, which Daba and her husband have recently bought. Taken aback, Mawdo begs Ramatoulaye to stop yelling, but she refuses. Finally
she finishes, and Tamsir leaves, defeated and speechless.
This is perhaps the first time in
the novel that Ramatoulaye takes a stand against her oppressors, and it is certainly
satisfying. She proves herself to be more sensitive, smart, and rhetorically
deft that Tamsir. Her outburst, which cuts straight to the heart of things, is
a stark counterpoint to the three men’s bumbling, awkward admission of Modou’s
infidelity earlier in the novel.
CHAPTER 19
The next day, Daouda
Dieng, Ramatoulaye’s old suitor, appears. Ramatoulaye senses that he has come
to ask for her hand in marriage, although he lacks the obnoxious confidence
that Tamsir displayed. Wanting to steer Daouda away from the topic of
marriage, Ramatoulaye begins discussing politics with him (he is a member of
the National Assembly). Ramatoulaye teases Daouda about the lack of women in
the assembly—only four of the one hundred representatives are women. She
stresses that women should have the right to equal education and equal pay, and
that Senegal has gone too long without a female leader. Daouda vehemently
agrees, and claims to have given speeches before the assembly on those very
issues. He concludes by saying that Senegal has a long way to go. He leaves
without bringing up marriage.
Though this is exchange is certainly
intelligent and mutually respectful, there is something ironic about it too.
That is, Daouda has come to Ramatoulaye essentially to claim ownership over
her, and yet he insists that he wants greater freedoms for women in Senegal.
Still, despite the irony, the civil exchange presents a hopeful picture of the
future of political discourse in Senegal (in both public and private spheres).
The two speakers are energized and enthusiastic about their country’s future.
CHAPTER 20
Some days later, Daouda appears at Ramatoulaye’s door again. Once again they fall on the subject of
politics, but this time Daouda redirects the conversation to the subject of
marriage. He admits to Ramatoulaye that he has never stopped loving her, ever
since he first tried to court her. Ramatoulaye is taken aback if not entirely
surprised. She even feels, as she tells Aissatou, a little “intoxicated” by the proposal. Tactfully, Daouda
tells Ramatoulaye to think about it, and then he takes his leave. On his way
out, he runs into Farmata, Romatoulaye’s griot neighbor. After the brief encounter
Farmata rushes back to Ramatoulaye and informs her that she’s met Ramatoulaye’s
new husband, whose arrival she predicted earlier.
Daouda’s humility and tact are a
breath of fresh air in comparison to Tamsir’s crass proposal. Rather than
announce his intentions, Daouda presents Ramatoulaye with a choice. Still,
Ramatoulaye is by no means overjoyed by the attention—at most she is slightly
intrigued. Farmata’s excited reaction is somewhat absurd and, in Ramatoulaye’s
eyes, overly superstitious. Ramatoulaye is the true master of her fate, at
least in this aspect of her life.
CHAPTER 21
Ramatoulaye thinks over Daouda’s proposal in solitude. She knows Daouda is an honorable
man. She trusts that he would serve as wonderful father to her children, and
she notes that, despite not really loving his current wife, he has always
treated her with the utmost respect, going so far as to involve her in his
political life. Farmata concurs with all these assessments, and encourages
Ramatoulaye to accept the proposal. However, Ramatoulaye can’t bring herself to
love Daouda. As she puts it, she knows in her head that he would make a fine
husband, but her heart disagrees. She decides she cannot marry him.
Ramatoulaye cannot bring herself to
agree with a practical view of marriage, choosing instead to follow her heart.
In this way she rejects the traditional, conservative worldview—represented
here by Farmata’s urgings—according to which she has essentially no choice but
to choose Daouda. Her choice to remain a single mother is as brave as it is
honest.
Ramatoulaye decides to write a letter to Daouda, explaining her decision not to marry him. In it, she says
that while she holds Daouda in high esteem, it is ultimately only esteem that
she feels for him, not romantic love. She also writes that, having only
recently been abandoned by her husband, she cannot in good conscience come
between Daouda and his current wife. Farmata delivers the letter, thinking that Ramatoulaye has accepted
the proposal. She learns otherwise when she sees Daouda’s reaction upon reading
it. Angry and disappointed, she returns to Ramatoulaye with Daouda’s response:
“All or nothing. Adieu.”
Ramatoulaye’s letter is measured and
reasonable, while Daouda’s response is curt and somewhat extreme. Though its
extremity perhaps originates in personal anguish, it also seems to reveal that
Daouda is unable to conceive of Ramatoulaye as a friend and a peer—she is only
a potential mate. Now that she has turned him down, he has no use for her
company anymore.
After Daouda, more and more men show up at Ramatoulaye’s doorstep to ask for her hand in marriage. She rejects
them all, which earns her a reputation among her neighbors as a crazy woman. As
Ramatoulaye explains, all the men seem to be after her inheritance, which she
has recently won back from Binetou and Binetou’s
mother. Most notably, Ramatoulaye—with the
help of her daughter Daba and Daba’s husband—has won back the villa that Modou lived in with Binetou and her mother. Binetou and her
mother are evicted from the house. While Binetou’s mother is terribly upset by
this, Binetou is indifferent.
Ramatoulaye’s steadfast refusal of a
second husband is completely sensible—and financially responsible—yet in nearly
everyone’s eyes she seems crazy. In other words, the prejudices of the
community do not permit the idea that a powerful, financially independent woman
can live on her own. Binetou’s indifferent reaction to the loss of her house
seems to suggest that her early marriage has sapped her of all emotion, or that
the greed that seemed to motivate the marriage mostly belonged to her mother,
not herself.
CHAPTER 22
Ramatoulaye writes to Aissatou that Ousmane, her youngest child, is always the one to bring her the
letters that Aissatou sends her. Ramatoulaye is greatly comforted by Aissatou’s
words of comfort and encouragement. She looks forward to the day when they meet
again, writing that the changes their bodies have undergone, and the time they
have spent apart, will be meaningless to them. Their friendship is founded in
the content of their hearts.
For Ramatoulaye, true friendship,
unlike romantic love and marriage, is impervious to distance, time, and change.
Even though Ramatoulaye and Aissatou have conducted their friendship only
through letters over many years, it remains as strong as ever.
Daba returns from the secondary school that Mawdo (Mawdo
Fall), one of Ramatoulaye’s sons, attends. He has been getting into trouble with his
white philosophy teacher, who “cannot tolerate a black coming first in
philosophy,” and favors a white French boy, consistently giving him the highest
marks even though Mawdo is the better student. Both Mawdo and Daba understand
this to be a great injustice, and Daba wants to tell the teacher off. But
Ramatoulaye tries to dissuade her, arguing that doing so will be a waste of
energy. It is more important, Ramatoulaye argues, to focus on one’s own studies,
one’s own improvement.
Ramatoulaye and her daughter have
two separate ways of responding to this obviously racist, colonialist
injustice. Ramatoulaye represents a more conservative,
pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps view of self-reliance. Daba, who is younger
and more fiery, seems to favor confrontation and protest in the face of
injustice. These two perspectives represent in miniature a greater political
question dogging newly independent Senegal: how best to respond to white
supremacy and a recent history of colonialism and oppression.
Ramatoulaye lingers on Daba for a while, describing her marriage to her husband Abou.
Daba maintains a far more practical view of marriage than Ramatoulaye ever has,
fully accepting that there may come a day when she and her husband decide to
divorce. Daba has also decided she does not want to enter into electoral
politics, preferring instead the small women’s organization to which she
belongs. Ramatoulaye is somewhat bewildered by her daughter’s decisions but
ultimately impressed by her conviction and the clarity of her reasoning.
Ramatoulaye closes this section of the letter by describing how her daughter
Aissatou (Aissatou’s
namesake) helps her with raising the young
children, and how Mawdo
Fall helps her when she is sick.
Though Daba’s view of marriage
differs significantly from Ramatoulaye’s, Ramatoulaye is able to understand and
ultimately respect her daughter’s reasoning. Daba represents a younger, more
progressive generation coming to the fore, taking the reigns of newly
independent Senegal. Ramatoulaye, then, represents an older generation that is
potentially willing to let in new values and cultural norms, rather than
bitterly clinging to custom and causing pain for her children.
CHAPTER 23
Ramatoulaye recounts to Aissatou a recent episode in which she walked in on three of
daughters—whom she describes as “the trio”—smoking cigarettes secretly in their
room. She is shocked by this, and doubly shocked by their bewilderment in the
face of her anger. Ramatoulaye wonders whether she has been too liberal as a
mother (she lets them go out at night on their own) and worries that smoking
will lead them into other, more dangerous vices. She notes also that her
daughters have started wearing trousers, which strikes her as indecent. Despite
her worry, however, Ramatoulaye doesn’t crack down on her children—instead she
simply keeps watch over them, otherwise trusting them to make their own
decisions.
The trio’s behavior suggests that
they are abandoning conventional Senegalese-Muslim wisdom in favor of a more
progressive, European-inflected outlook. On the one hand, they now have access
to greater freedoms; on the other hand, these new freedoms present dangers to
their health (in a quite literal way, in the case of the cigarettes), and
threaten to admit indulgence and vice. Though Ramatoulaye disagrees with her
children’s decisions, her ultimately measured response to them suggests an
underlying liberal attitude.
CHAPTER 24
Not long after, Ramatoulaye is interrupted during her evening prayers when her two
sons, Alioune and Malick, come home injured and crying, a group of friends in tow.
Malick’s arm looks broken. The children explain that while they were playing
soccer in the street, a man on a motorcycle ran over a group of them. They bring the motorcyclist, whom
they have beaten up, before Ramatoulaye. He apologizes to her, explaining that
he did not expect the boys to be playing in the street, and failed to stop
before hitting them. To her sons’ surprise, Ramatoulaye takes the side of the
motorcyclist, chastising her children and telling them they shouldn’t have been
playing in the street to begin with. Malick’s broken arm is treated by Mawdo at the hospital.
The motorcycle symbolically comes
crashing into the children just as modernization has come crashing into
Senegal—with a sudden influx of both new freedoms and new dangers.
Ramatoulaye’s decision to take the motorcyclist’s side in the dispute further
characterizes her as a tough but conscientious mother, focused more on
educating her children than soothing them in their distress, especially when
doing so might compromise her morals or sense of justice.
Ramatoulaye segues into discussing her daughter Aissatou, her friend Aissatou’s
namesake. Aissatou has become pregnant out
of wedlock. Ramatoulaye recounts how she learned of this development. Aissatou
had begun to show some signs of pregnancy—she had lost weight, her breasts were
swelling, and she was suffering from morning sickness—but Ramatoulaye brushed these
signs off as coincidences. However, Farmata, Ramatoulaye’s griot neighbor, insisted otherwise, until
finally Farmata herself confronted Aissatou, learned the truth, and brought her
before Ramatoulaye to explain herself.
In this case, Ramatoulaye’s
hands-off parenting leads her into blindness. She does not expect the news, or
does not want to believe it, or both. Suddenly Farmata, who until this point
has seemed like a fanatical quack, is the one who sees through to the truth of
things. Perhaps conventional wisdom isn’t totally useless after all.
Aissatou II tearfully explains that
the father is Ibrahima Sall, a law student that she has been dating and, in fact,
loves. Ramatoulaye is at first angry—how could her daughter do something so
careless, and so soon after Modou’s death? However, swallowing her anger and remembering how
her daughters supported her in her distress, Ramatoulaye decides to embrace
Aissatou with open arms and confront the situation with optimism. Farmata, who expected Ramatoulaye to put on a more angry, indignant
display, is hugely disappointed.
By consciously rejecting the part of
her that wants to punish Aissatou, Ramatoulaye bucks conventional wisdom,
creating for herself a code of ethics that prioritizes love, understanding, and
forgiveness over the dictates of religion and tradition. It is perhaps only a
small victory against the forces of oppression that Ramatoulaye contends with
throughout the novel, but for Ramatoulaye and Aissatou it makes all the
difference.
CHAPTER 25
Ramatoulaye summons Ibrahima
Sall, and he comes to visit her. She is
pleasantly surprised by him: he is clean, dresses well, and conducts himself
with tact. He assures her that he and Aissatou
II have figured everything out: his
parents will take care of the baby until Aissatou and Ibrahima finish their
studies. Luckily, the baby is due during the holidays, so Aissatou will be able
to hide her pregnancy and avoid expulsion. Ramatoulaye is impressed by all of
this, and adds nothing to the plan. She writes that she feels that Aissatou has
entered Ibrahima’s care; Ramatoulaye is no longer her daughter’s primary
guardian.
Ibrahima and Aissatou’s open
dialogue, careful planning, and their love and mutual respect for each other
offer a clear counterpoint to Ramatoulaye’s and (other) Aissatou’s failed
marriages. By Senegalese standards, Ibrahima and Aissatou’s union is entirely
unconventional—even immoral—and yet in practice it seems like a far healthier
relationship than the others the novel has offered thus far. Their example
gives Ramatoulaye hope.
CHAPTER 26
Ibrahima visits Ramatoulaye’s house often. He is a role model to Ramatoulaye’s young
sons, and he encourages Aissatou’s
namesake in her studies. “The trio” spurns
him, and Farmata remains skeptical, but Ramatoulaye comes to admire him
greatly.
Once again, Ibrahima’s conscientious
and solicitous behavior is a hopeful counterpoint to Modou’s abandonment of
Ramatoulaye.
Spurred on by Aissatou
II’s pregnancy, Ramatoulaye decides to have a conversation with “the trio,” her younger
daughters, about sexual education. She remarks that in the past, young girls
have been taught chastity above all else. However, instead of forbidding sex
outright, she channels a more “modern” outlook, and decides to emphasize safe
sex above all. In addition, she tries to underline the “sublime significance”
of sex, in the hope that her daughters will take it seriously. She delivers her
lecture nervously and with some difficulty, but her daughters seem unfazed and
even bored by it—Ramatoulaye gets the impression that, to them, she is merely
stating the obvious.
Times have changed: though
Ramatoulaye finds it difficult to adopt a more “modern” outlook than she is
used to, her daughters, simply by virtue of being young, have naturally
developed more liberal attitudes toward sex than the older generations. If
Ramatoulaye’s daughters are any indication, the future of Senegal has the
potential to be more open, honest, and understanding than ever before.
CHAPTER 27
Aissatou is coming to visit soon,
and Ramatoulaye looks forward to her arrival. Ramatoulaye reflects further
on the fate of women in Senegalese society: she is heartened by the expansion
of their rights and liberties, but remains wary that their hard-fought gains
are unstable—certain social restrictions persist, and men still have a monopoly
on power. Ramatoulaye insists, however, on her faith in the institution of
marriage, and what she calls the “complementarity” of man and woman. Man and
wife are the most basic political unit, she argues, as nations are made up of
families.
With regard to the status of women
in society, Ramatoulaye is hopeful but ever vigilant: she knows that societal
advances for women are always fragile and difficult to maintain. At the same
time, her belief in the institution of marriage shows her more conservative
streak, and demonstrates her belief that family life and political life are not
distinct, mutually exclusive pursuits—in fact, they are inseparable.
Ramatoulaye wonders if Aissatou will appear changed upon returning. She guesses that
Aissatou will be wearing a suit, not traditional clothing, and will ask to eat
at a table with utensils, in the Western style. Ramatoulaye closes by saying
that she retains hope for her future, and that she will go out in search of
happiness.
Ramatoulaye’s conjecture about
Aissatou, though lighthearted, expresses an anxiety that modernization might
come to erase Senegalese culture. Tellingly, the novel does not describe the
actual reunion of the two friends—it only exists as an address, a kind of
monologue, and any response Aissatou might offer exists only beyond the page.
CHARACTERS ANALYSIS
Ramatoulaye
Ramatoulaye is the narrator of So Long
a Letter; the book is both her diary and a long letter to her friend Aissatou. Ramatoulaye belongs to the generation that grew up under
the French colonial regime and came of age just as Senegal was achieving its
independence. Accordingly, she is very politically engaged, and reflects often
on the future of her country, the role of tradition in modern life, and the
prospect of women’s liberation. She is fundamentally a feminist, though she
holds certain beliefs that some feminists might find unfamiliar or perhaps even
disagree with. For one, she is a devout Muslim, and follows the dictates of her
faith even when they seem to advocate the unequal treatment of women. Though
she is a teacher and has a professional life of her own, she is also a devoted
mother. Her faith and her patience are tested when her husband, Modou, decides to take a young second wife (perfectly acceptable
in Senegalese-Muslim culture) and proceeds to abandon Ramatoulaye and her
twelve children. Despite Modou’s infidelity, though, she chooses to remain
married to him.
Aissatou
Aissatou is Ramatoulaye’s old childhood friend, and the addressee of her letter.
She comes from a rather poor family; her father is a goldsmith. Aissatou
experiences similar trouble in her marital life—her husband takes on a young
second wife, of noble birth, in order to please his mother—but she reacts to it
quite differently. Unlike Ramatoulaye, Aissatou decides to leave her husband on
principle. Of a much more independent spirit than Ramatoulaye, Aissatou decides
to pursue her education. She ends up moving to America, to work in the
Senegalese embassy there.
Modou
Modou is Ramatoulaye’s husband. He is a union organizer and, like Ramatoulaye,
engaged in his country’s politics. At first, the two are very deeply in love,
and they marry despite the protestations of Ramatoulaye’s parents. However,
their love fades as they grow older. Modou takes secret interest in his
daughter’s young friend Binetou. He lavishes her with gifts and money, and eventually
decides to marry her without telling Ramatoulaye. After this second marriage,
Modou essentially abandons Ramatoulaye and their twelve children. His death
occasions Ramatoulaye’s letter to Aissatou.
Mawdo
Aissatou’s husband. Mawdo is a doctor, an upstanding citizen, and a
member of Senegal’s class of nobles. He and Aissatou fall in love despite the
class difference between their two families. This upsets Mawdo’s mother, who
eventually tricks him into taking on his young cousin Nabou as a second wife. He does so somewhat reluctantly, but then
proceeds to have children with Nabou, claiming all the while that he only loves
Aissatou. Aissatou cannot accept this and leaves him. Even after Aissatou’s
departure, however, Mawdo remains a good friend to Ramatoulaye.
Binetou
Modou’s second wife, and a friend of Daba. She is only 17 when she reluctantly marries Modou. She
does so at the urgings of her family, who are after Modou’s money. Binetou
survives her marriage to Modou by making fun of him, ordering him around, and
making him buy her things
THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK
The Senegal depicted in So Long a Letter is a country on the
threshold, passing between two historical eras. Ramatoulaye is born and
educated under the French colonial regime, and she lives through Senegalese
independence. Hers is the generation responsible for the slow process of
Senegalese self-determination. They have taken on the enormous task imagining a
new sociopolitical order, and with it a postcolonial future for their country.
The
opposing pulls of custom and progress that Ramatoulaye encounters in the
Senegalese political climate become personal and particular in her struggle to
reconcile her abiding faith in Islam with her feminism. The central drama of
the novel is the disintegration of Ramatoulaye’s marriage to Modou after the
latter takes on a second wife—his daughter’s young friend, no less. Motherhood Ramatoulaye is a devoted mother to
her twelve children. When Modou abandons her for Binetou, and then when he
eventually dies, Ramatoulaye must redouble her efforts as a mother and face
with courage the prospect of being a single parent. Ramatoulaye’s struggles as
a mother are not just particular to her marital situation—they are also
particular to the times in which she lives, as her children are growing up
during the dawn of Senegalese.
Throughout
the novel, Ramatoulaye’s close bond with her friend Aissatou is continually
posed against the disintegration of both of their marriages. For both
Ramatoulaye and presumably Aissatou, friendship—especially female
friendship—offers a richer and more intimate connection than marriage ever can.
This contrast is evident in the very form of the novel.
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