Divergent Role of Western Influence in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter

  

What role did Western influence play in the transformation of traditional Senegalese society in So Long a Letter? 

Set in the post-colonial times, So Long a Letter is a feminist novel with slightly semi-autobiographical attributes. There is striking resemblance between the ethos of the main protagonist Ramatoulaye, and the writer Mariama Ba’s personal life. Both are Senegalese-Muslim women, belonging to the same generation of a society deeply knitted within the roots of culture and religion. The novel intrigues a thought regarding how the emotional turmoil experienced by distinct individuals can be so undifferentiated. Albeit the plot takes off around 1970s, readers might argue that it is still a very common incidence for West-African women to have dozens of children, for their husbands to indulge in polygamous relations, as well as numerous other stigmatized customs to occur (Harrow, 2008. p.i). Yet the author of So Long a Letter depicts transformation that took place within the Senegalese society as it transitioned from a colonized traditionalist region to a modern state under post-colonization era. What kind of West-influenced ideologies played a role in diverting the conservative culture towards modernization? 

In Ba’s work, we see elements of empowerment attributed to females. Unlike previous portrayals of women in African literature, we see differentiation in the representation of women away from their typical victimized image dictated mostly by male writers. Even some popular African female writers like Flora Nwapa and Ama Ata Aidoo accentuated these stereotypical images of abused and disempowered women (Harrow, 2008. p. ii). This might be due to these writers’ inability to pose women as more than just a suffering voice in their fictional pieces, or, to show a fuller account of how these strong women resiliently handled their plight. Ba was successfully able to demonstrate more than just the ‘sympathetic perspective’ of things. She integrated ‘flashback technique’ into her work making the narrative order logical rather than a chronological one. 

“But more often than not, it unsettles, crosses you. Then one has to endure. I endured the telephone call which disrupted my life…” 

and then, the narrator goes on to describe a flashback from the scene of her husband’s death in an illustrative way, full of descriptive imagery with a dismal tone to evoke the mood of losing her husband (Ba, 2008. p. 2). So Long a Letter remarkably embodies various versions within human life-stage that an average Senegalese female might have faced, for example, as a child; a spouse; a parent; a divorcee or widow. This way, not only is the reader aware of Ramatoulaye’s problems and agony, but they also see her stoicism and strength. Thus, this portrayal led to a more empowered image of women within the plot of So Long a Letter in terms of intertextuality. 

“I have received your letter. By the way of reply, I am beginning this diary, my prop in my distress”(Ba, 2008. p. 1). 

‘Prop’ metaphorically indicates the letter as an alibi for her pain. While the narrator's intentions were to find a safe haven for her thoughts after her husband’s demise, the underlying motive of the text evokes the vexation of women like Ramatoulaye and Aissatou by showing an evolving development in their characters. Through progression of time, they are shown to be gradually liberated from the systemic traditional oppression within their community. 

This inclusion also extends to Jacqueline, Binetou and young Nabou. All of them are women belonging to the same generation, facing distress in different ways; all their issues root from the same old societal dynamics. Ba’s writing reflected upon the lives of more than just one woman since the writer’s ulterior rationale was to present the reader with reality behind the oppression of women in her indigenous society and how different intersectional forces within the old traditional culture played part in women’s perpetual suffering. Collectively, it would be hard to portray the troubles of an entire group through the characterization of just one figure. Hence, despite the first-person narrative voice, certain authorial choices like the epistolary form and the intimacy of its address to Aissatou evoke not just Ramatoulaye’s experience as a Senegalese 3 woman but also other women around her belonging to diverse social backgrounds. This unique and descriptive writing style is to what Ba owes her actively present role as a black francophone author within the literary movement of Negritude (Harlow, 2008. p. iii). 

The portrayal of negritude in So Long a letter, or “the consciousness of the value of black or African culture and identity” (Soanes, 2003), itself is an ideology influenced from the pre-existing Harlem renaissance, which emerged from Western counterparts i.e. black philosophers in the United States (Britannica, 1998). 

Ramatoulaye’s modern feminist thinking resulted from French colonial schooling. She thoroughly appreciated the warmth and compassion lacking projections of supremacy that was shown by their white teacher toward the young black girls including herself. Being one of the first girls attending that school, she believed that the education they received under the school’s French administration was not at all luck but 

“... accorded with the profound choices made by New Africa for the promotion of black woman” (Ba, 2008. p. 16). ‘New Africa’ being postcolonial independent Africa away from old traditional customs, Ramatoulaye considered her generation to be “the first pioneers of the promotion of African women” (Ba, 2008. p. 15. Harlow, 2008. p. iii). 

The positive impact of the West could be juxtaposed to how being a woman of modernized liberal thoughts became a flaw of Ramatoulaye’s motherhood. Being a part of the generation that came between the elders with deeply traditionalized thoughts, and the youth who only knew of modern Senegal, readers could say Ramatoulaye had the best of both worlds. She saw Senegal transition from a colony to a modern independent nation. This is why she was so cooperative with her children although many other adults would find their actions outrageous and barbaric to moral beliefs and Senegalese customs. Ramatoulaye, too, found it difficult to 4 agree with some of her children's actions. For example when Aissatou II got pregnant out of wedlock, it was considered an illicit act by the typical Senegalese society, also being against religious Islamic values. Yet, the reader surprisingly witnesses Ramtoulaye going against all norms by consolidating with the truth and accepting her daughter’s pregnancy. This was partly due to her strong belief in God’s plan of life and death, intertwined with her intellect as a ‘modern woman’. Being a single mother, and in contrast to her furious reaction earlier on finding ‘the trio’ of her youngest daughters smoking cigarettes, this can be seen as a character development of maturity. Readers witness how change in times has brought in revised principles of motherhood in this newer generation of Senegal. Ramatoulaye realized the importance of Western practices like sex education in youngsters. 

She acknowledged that “Mothers of yore taught chastity. Their voice of authority condemned all extra-marital ‘wanderings’” (Ba, 2008. p. 92). 

Yet, due to increasing assimilations with Western culture, mothers of the modern era, like Ramatoulaye herself, were more understanding. They knew how to place the well-being of their children before the fear of being shunned by society. 

The motorcycle accident involving Ramatoulaye’s sons in the start of chapter 24 just prior to the discovery of Aissatou II’s pregnancy, is a symbolic foreshadowing of the transformation of Senegal from traditions to modernity. The motorcycle crashed into the boys i.e. metaphor, like the forces of modernity entering into newly independent Senegal. These include globalization, imported vices, and other assimilations from the Western culture. Like the flashy motorcycle, Western resources and values entering Senegal were also temptingly attractive, yet they brought along peril similar to the boys’ fate. 

Islam allowed men to have four wives for greater intellectual reasons, but the misogyny of Senegalese men fetishized and misused this permission. Such detrimental factors lead to 5 inevitable demonizing of religion through certain events that lead the younger generation like Ramatoulaye’s children to completely let go of their indigenous roots. Instead, they co-opted the Western lifestyle which they found more pertaining to the modernized post-colonial era. Ramtoulaye concluded that sticking to the traditional side had brought her no good. The admirable Ibrahima Sall standing up for Aissatou II, and his family being accepting toward their son’s choice, unlike what had happened to her namesake aunt Aissatou, is an evidence of the fact that Senegal’s people were gradually moving away from the grasps of harsh traditional beliefs regarding societal stigmas like wedlock and love-marriage. Many aspects of assimilation are inconvenient in regards to factors of intersectionality such as politics, education, dress and social comportment. But it is important to acknowledge that the ideologies introduced through Western concepts was what led individuals to improve their lives. Ramatoulaye recognized her social rights, and led the role of an empowered feminist weighing against the uneducated masses of women still undergoing the path of oppression. Her children led improved lifestyles. Ultimately, So Long a Letter displayed the theme of Western assimilations leading to the transformation of Senegalese society into a more socially-apt environment especially for women as people let go of norms that enabled skepticism within the society. 

Bibliography 

Ba, M. (2008). So Long a Letter. 4th ed. London: Heinemann. Britannica, (1998). Negritude. [Online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/Negritude [Accessed 1/9/2021]. 

Harrow, K. W. (2008). Introduction to So Long a Letter. Michigan: Heinemann. King, A. (1994). The Personal and the Political in the Work of Mariama Bâ. Studies in 20th Century Literature, 18(2), Article 4. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1348 [Accessed 1/9/2021]. 

Soanes, C. Stevenson, A. (2003). Negritude. Oxford Dictionary of English. Newyork: Oxford University Press.