LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:7 July 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Shades of Womanhood in Mariama Ba’s So Longer a Letter

Ajay Sahebrao Deokate and Dr. Jayant S Cherekar


Courtesy: www.amazon.com

Abstract

Mariama Ba has created a unique place for herself in African literature by her contemporary themes and narrative style. Her protagonists act as the spokesperson for Senegalese women. Her female characters depict Senegalese woman who are subjected to patriarchal system of Senegal society. Obioma Nnaemeka, the writer of the book, Mariama Ba: Parallels, Convergence, and Interior Space, analyzed the works of Ba. She writes that, “the works of Ba question, subvert, and destabilize certain dichotomies rooted in race, age, sex and culture. The author posits that dualisms, when they do exist, coexist in a mere flexible and relational manner (…) The richness of Ba’s works emanates from the author’s ability to transcend the rigidity of binary paradigms”. (p.14)

The present paper aims to explore and analyze the issues of women and their individual responses as represented in So Long a Letter. The novel is written in first-person narrative by the protagonist Ramatoulaye, who relates the stories of herself and her friend Aissatou. The novel is semi-autobiographical in nature, thereby the writer herself is enacting the role of the narrator. The novel slowly and steadily unfolds the stories of its female characters with apt explanation and well documented commentary of the narrator. The novel reveals the conscious effort of the writer to bring change in the condition of African/Senegalese women. Her female characters emerge out of their traditional roles and challenge the system by taking new and breaking decisions.

Keywords: Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter, Patriarchy, Oppression, Exploitation, Francophone, Intersectionality, Communities.

Introduction

Mariama Ba has been an iconoclast writer in Francophone literature. She has been the pioneering writer in discussing the condition of African women, particularly the African Muslim women. She is credited with discussing the multi-layered oppressions of women at the hands of African/Senegalese men. Her novels explicitly articulate the intersectionality of oppression observed in African/Senegalese cultures and communities. Intersectionality is the term used by the African American writer Kimberle Crenshaw to expose the layers (sections) of exploitation of African women in male-centered societies. Ba’s literary outputs align completely to the term intersectionality because she consciously highlights women exploitation in every good and bad situation. With the publications of So Longer a Letter (1980) and Scarlet Song (1981), Ba occupies a place in the line of world feminist writers like Buchi Emeceta, Flora Nwapa and Nawal El Sadaawi.

So Longer a Letter is a feministic work which describes the life of women in the patriarchal society in Africa/Senegalese society. It denounces gender discrimination and violation of human rights of women in patriarchal societies. Treiber in her article, “Feminism and Identity Politics: Mariama Ba’s “Un Chant ecarlate”, observes the case of African married women not better than a ‘prison house.’ (p.109) Treiber finds African communities to be highly traditional and essentially male-centered where women are expected to perform stereotype roles only. So Longer a Letter is a representation of the conditions of women which hardly allow them to break the shackles prepared for them by the rigid socio-cultural societies.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ajay Sahebrao Deokate
M.A. English. NET, MH-SET.
Research Scholar, School of Languages and Literature
Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada University, Nanded (MS)
ajaydeokate12@gmail.com

Dr. Jayant S Cherekar
M.A., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of English
ACS College Shankarnagar, Tq. Biloli Dist Nanded (MS)
cherekarjayant7@gmail.com
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