Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter
When a person hears words like feminist or feminism, notions of what it means to be feminine, or consequently unfeminine, begin to dimly form in our mind’s eye. Although we cannot definitively answer the question of what is feminine, we are able to recognize it when we see it or its absence. This conception, however, is arbitrary at best. What is it about an evening gown that seems to define and dress the feminine aura while a woman spitting would be denounced as inherently unfeminine?
There is no question that Mariama Bâ’s novel, So Long a Letter, is undoubtedly a work of feminist literature. Although we are able to easily make this identification, it is much more difficult for us to define and explain how we were able to come to this conclusion. One explanation might be that the novel calls for a sense of equality and balance between the two sexes:
We have a right to equal well-paid employment, to equal opportunities. The right to vote is an important weapon. And now the Family Code has been passed, restoring to the most humble of women the dignity that has so often been trampled upon. (Bâ 61)
In this passage, Ramatoulaye asserts a woman’s entitlement to equality, but this idea of equality, like that of feminism itself, is hard to define and implement. Although men and women should be paid the same amount for the same job, are women and men equally suited to handle all jobs? Are there some jobs that would be better suited to a man than a woman? Can men and women ever be considered truly equal when society points out so many apparent and inherent differences between them? Is a separate but equal mentality the closest we can come to achieving true equality? The egalitarian...
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Finding strength in motherhood, Ramatoulaye is able to look towards the possibilities of the future and find hope for herself for the first time in her life:
Despite everything-disappointments and humiliations-hope still lives on within me. It is from the dirty and nauseating humus that the green plant sprouts into life, and I can feel new buds springing up in me. (Bâ 89)
Works Cited
Bâ, Mariama. So Long a Letter. Johannesburg, South Africa: Heinemann Publishers Limited, 1989.
Grosz, Elizabeth. Sexual Difference and the Problem of Essentialism. From The Essential Difference. Ed. Naomi Schar and Elizabeth Weed. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Young, Iris Manon. Breasted Experience: The Look and the Feeling. From Throwing Like a Girl. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990.
Murray, Judith Sargent. "On the Equality of the Sexes." Ed. Paul Lauter.The Heath Anthology of American Literature, third edition. Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992. 1058-1064.
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Whitbeck, Caroline. Theories of Sex Difference. Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing Company: California. 1986. 34-51.
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Young, Iris Marion. Throwing Like a Girl-Breasted Experience: The Look and the Feeling. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990.
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Throughout history, there have been constant power struggles between men and women, placing the male population at a higher position than the female. Therefore, in this patriarchal system women have always been discriminated against simply due to the fact that they are women. Their rights to vote, to be educated and essentially being treated equally with men was taken away from them and they were viewed as weak members of society whose successes depend on men. However, this has not prevented them from fighting for what they believe in and the rights they are entitled to. On the contrary, it has motivated them to try even harder and gain these basic societal rights through determination and unity. In Mariama Bâ’s book, “So Long a Letter”, the
Ramatoulaye realizes that she was obeying and depending on her husband and following the societal norms and urges all the other women to unite and be independent of a man that doesn't appreciate a woman. Also, Ramatoulaye makes a choice to be a single woman that will do anything for her children and doesn't want to be with a man like Daouda who might be rich, but has a wife already.