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African feminism presented through an epistolary novel: an essay on the experience of Ramatoulaye Characterization of Ramatoulaye to comment on the Senegalese society. In So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ So Long a Letter, an epistolary novel written by Mariama Bâ, centers around women’s roles in post-colonial Africa. aAnd the way the main themes like polygamy, marital love, motherhood, and feminism in the Islamic religion are connected are through Ramatoulaye, the main character of this epistolary novel. The West African country of Senegal, in which So Long a Letter is set, has a wide historical context and it takes place all along the plot of this novel.
Before colonial times, Senegal was part of the powerful Ghana and Wolof empires. Nowadays, most Senegalese identify as Wolof, which is an ethnic group marked by its practice of Sufi Islam. On the other hand, the French system had colonials subjects which were theoretically offered a path to French citizenship, and during the recount of these personal texts, many French- influenced names are mentioned, which gives a context of influence and effect for her ideology.
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So Long a Letter centers around women’s roles in post-colonial Africa. This is done through Ramatoulaye, the protagonist, by repeatedly writing letters to her best friend, Aissatou. The complexity of these letters is placed in order to find out about Ramatoulaye’s relationship with her husband before and after his death, and of course, the emotional path because of it. And in order to get a full glance of what the post-colonial era was for a feminist woman, the wisest thing to do was to base this text as an epistolary one.
Taking into account that Ramatoulaye is set in a Senegalese-traditional culture, in which oppression is still a big issue, but more than that, a reality, she is forced to remain quiet and do what she believes is best.
The Islamic practice of polygamy goes back to the sixth century, even being practiced by Muhammad himself. The Qur’an explicitly explains that the husband must treat all of the wives equally and not favoring one over the other. Throughout the novel, Ramatoulaye’s close friendship with Aissatou is continually raised against the disintegration of its two marriages, and for both, Ramatoulaye and seemingly Aissatou, friendship (especially female friendship) offers a richer and more of an intimate connection than marriage ever can, as for in their culture. This comparison between marital love and friendship is vivid and evident in the very form of the novel. Ramatoulaye’s intense feelings of kindred with Aissatou, even while Aissatou is thousands of miles away from this scenario.
The situation of Modou leaving Ramatoulaye convinced her that friendship is way more resilient and rewarding than marital love. “Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love”. Daba, follows this when she says “Marriage is no chain. It is mutual agreement over a life’s programme. So if one of the partner is no longer satisfied with the union, why should he remain?” Then again, Ramatoulaye announces that she is not in agreement with her daughter’s liberal view of marital love.
While Ramatoulaye is in a way scared of the institution of marriage, and wary of the particular injustices it haswas wrought in herown life, she encounters marital love with a kind of resignation, patience and forbearance, upholding it as a task that must be taken on, if only for the sake of one’s children. However, it is in friendship with Aissatou that Ramatoulaye finds real strength and emotional support. “Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resist time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love”.
Furthermore, Ramatoulaye is a devoted and given mother to her twelve children., When Modou abandons her for Binetou, and then when he eventually dies, Ramatoulaye must rethinks her roleworks as a mother and face them with courage and hope of being a successful single mother. Ramatoulaye’s battles as a mother are not just particular to her marital situation, they are also particular to to her relationship status and situation with Modou, they are also particular to the historical background in which the novel is set; her children are growing up during the Senegalese independence scenario. They are overcoming a society that is less repressed and forced to follow certain rules that were life-limiting at once, but that is a plot twist, being full of dangers for teenagers, who are now exposed to a much wider world of cravings and temptations, as well as urges.
Ramatoulaye is a progressive mother, she treats her adolescent children with what is known as a laissez-faire attitude, by allowing her daughters to wear trousers and go out at night, which are both unusual behaviors for a Senegalese-muslim womaen. Sshe expresses it as “I wanted my daughters to discover [love] in a healthy way, whiteout feelings of guilt, secretiveness or degradation”. However, when Ramatoulaye finds three of her daughters smoking behind her back, and soon afterwards discovers that another daughter (Aissatou II) has become pregnant without being married, she starts to believe that the best way to improve these situations is by reconsidering her parenting methods. She gets mad at her children and worries that her “hands off” parenthood has left them in danger. However, Ramatoulaye brings herself to a balance, in which she meets her children’s mistakes with equality and love. Instead of backing her pregnant daughter off, she remembers how they all support her in times of need, and welcomes her with open arms, “one is a mother in order to understand the inexplicable...one is a mother in order to love without beginning or end”. By that, she was impressed by her children’s ability to overcome and resolve their mistakes. But beyond all that, she is surprised to find that Aissatou, when she discovered her pregnancy, worked together with her boyfriend to figure out how the baby would be care for, concluding that her boyfriend’s grandparents would care for the child in the first years of its life.
For Ramatoulaye, motherhood is a mysterious, hugely difficult and unadventured path with every single one of her children. Her decision to get to love her daughter boundlessly, and jumping over the conventional community’ standards, brings her close to Aissatou II and revitalizes her with a new understanding of what motherhood actually is. Moreover, the opposing pulls of custom and progress that the main character encounters in the Senegalese political climate become personal and make her struggle to reconcile her faith in Islam with her feminism as well. The plot of Bâ’s epistolary novel turns around the disintegration of Ramatoulaye’s marriage to Modou after he takes a second wife, which is his daughter’s young friend. Her religion permits polygamy, and by that being, it dictates that she has the obligation to sthay with her husband even if he marries another woman. Still, Ramatoulaye is able to feel the injustice of her position because of Modou’s decision toon building a proper life with his second wife. Effectively, he abandons Ramatoulaye and her twelve children.
When Modou dies, it is believed that his whole inheritance will fall to his in-laws and his second wife, Binetou. Ramatoulaye, argues with her mother in law in order to claim the house that the first couple acquired together on a joint bank loan, a house that is clearly hers. in the Senegalese-Islamic model of marriage, the woman is seen as something of a disposable commodity, more like an object and as a thing that one can grow out of, and this is reflected with the circumstances of her husband’s second marriage and the events that follow.
Aissatou, is apparently going through when her husband marries his young cousin in order to allay and satisfy his mother, fills Ramatoulaye with knowledge coming from an example of escape, because, rather than chasing him, Aissatou divorces him and goes after education in France, before moving to America, where she actually is set for the most of this novel. She never forgets her faith, her decision leans towards an implicit rejection and denial of some Senegalese-Islamic norms. However, Ramatoulaye brings together her feminism with her religiously-inflected notions of family. She remains married to Modou, even though he has abandoned her, and supports the indignities of the period of touring as the fulfillment of a vow. She is a professional and well-prepared woman, working day after day as a school teacher, she also stays committed to her
role as the homemaker. She turns her feminism “off”, in order to look for empowerment within the boundaries of custom. She learns to drive and raise twelve children on her own, for them to become sensitive adults. Tamsir and Daouda propose to marry her, right after Modou’s death, and Ramatoulaye publicly rejects them both (making Tamsir feel humiliated) and resolves to live a life of self-reliance. Not long after, she achieves to win back the house that her late husband but with her.
So Long a Letter sets Ramatoulaye as African, Muslim and feminist, in order to reject ideas and/or identities that devalue women in a conservative culture such as the post- colonial Islamic-Senegal. This is an open expression of empowerment through females towards a non-acceptant and declining society.
“This is the moment dreaded by every Senegalese woman, the moment when she sacrifices her possessions as gifts to her family-in-law; and, worse still, beyond her possessions she gives up her personality, her dignity, becoming a thing in the service of a man who has married her, his grandfather, his grandmother, his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, his uncle, his aunt, his male and female cousins, his friends. Her behavior is conditioned: no sister-in-law will touch the head of any wife who has been stingy, unfaithful or inhospitable”.
Exploring African Feminism In So Long A Letter. (2024, Feb 03). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/exploring-african-feminism-in-so-long-a-letter-essay
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