Analysis Of So Long A Letter By Mariama Ba

From the very first stage of the human civilization, it is concluded that there has been discrepancy in the distribution of power between man and woman. And any art form for that matter render as a palpable evidence which are created on the base of facts in projecting women as mere ‘objects’. Further, the astute changes men brought down the ages are invisible, wide spreading, intrinsically complex, and it oppressed and reinforced physical, economic, political and ideological domination over the ‘other’. Literature, being one of the art forms, has no exception from such accusation. Alongside, volumes of literary works are produced to resist patriarchal domination; to rewrite and to redefine the concept of gender; and to historicize any modes
An examination of the issues such as Islamic principles and cultural practices by people of Senegal, in the Novella “So Long a Letter” by Mariama Ba would seem to indicate the marginalisation of Muslim women in particular. Ba uses the epistolary form to reflect on the female condition in post colonial Senegal. Women in the novella can be traced to be ‘victims’ and ‘victimizers’ of the patriarchal society. Hence, this paper aims to analyze the battle of sexes in the novella by examining the treatment, exploitation and manipulation of the female characters that are established on the ground of principles of Religion and
The Noma Award Novella So Long a Letter is a sequence of reminiscence recounted by Senegalese school teacher Ramatoulaye who widowed recently. Ba delineates the effects of Islam and tradition on women. As a letter begins, we learn that Ramatoulaye has just lost her husband because of heart attack. She resolves to write a letter to her friend Aissatau to cope up herself in a seclusion of four months as mandated by Islam for a window. She writes about her emotional struggle to regain her life soon after she came to know about her husband’s second marriage at the age of fifty. Though the laws of Islam agreeable to the actions of her husband Modou, it is regarded as abrupt rejection of their thirty years of life together. It also considered as betrayal of trust of woman, which is encouraged by a religion as Islamic law allows polygamy, where a Muslim man can be married to four women at the same