Challenging and reflecting culture in so long a leter by Mariama Ba

789 Words4 Pages
The story of So long a letter, gives us an insight of the struggle faced by Ramatoulaye after her husband brings in a second wife. Ramatoulaye’s feeling and emotions are brought out to us as she is writing to her friend, in real sense the reader creeps into Ramatoulaye’s mind as she write a letter to her best friend Aissatou. By using this it seems that writer wants us to see the full picture of the life of a woman in Senegal and the way it is influenced by religion, education and culture. Mariama Ba seems to be giving us her views on the Senegalese way of life through Ramatoulaye. She challenges the role of the religious leader of the society through contrast and irony, as is shown when Tamsir wants to inherit Ramatoulaye and the Imam accepts this, and yet Tamsir cannot even provide for his existing wives, which contradicts the religion which does not allow one to take up a wife if he cannot provide for her and her co-wives equally. Also when Daouda Dieng wishes to marry Ramatoulaye, it seems to bring out irony in his thinking, as it is said he champions for women’s rights in parliament but yet he wants to marry Ramatoulaye as a second wife showing the lack of independence he feels women have, and making it seem that the men seem to belong to an exclusive elite group when he tell her she cannot be his friend if she does not marry him. Using Ramatoulaye’s sarcastic talk Ba tends to reveal to us the problem that are faced by Ramatoulaye but shows Ramatoulaye’s character as patient , as she tends to take little or no action when faced with a problem. Ba has used Aissatou to bring out contrast in Ramatoulaye’s character as both are faced with a similar situation but act in different ways. This parallelism tends to reflect on Ramatoulaye’s strong ties with her culture and religion which force her to stay into her marriage despite the betrayal of her trust by Modou.
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