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¶ … Mariama Ba's So Long A Letter. It discusses how the style used by the author hinders her presentation of the whole question of male/female relationships within the entire family structure, not just the nuclear family. It also discusses how the reader only has the main character's opinion and not those of the characters around her. Two sources used. APA.
So Long A Letter
Mariama Ba in her novel, "So Long A Letter," gives the audience a glimpse into the Islamic world. The book is written as a letter from the main character, Ramatoulaye, to her childhood friend, Aissatou. It is both a missive and lamentation of Ramatoulaye's life, more than half a century of years. She has reached a cross-road, and as one might retrace his route on a map if lost, she retraces her feelings and experiences that have brought her this far on her journey (Ba 1996). Her husband of twenty-odd years has died. However, it has only been a short time since he sent word to her that he had taken a new wife, a mere girl, a friend of their daughter's. Ramatoulaye's indignation of the marriage turns to sympathy for the young widow. Through the journal, the audience learns of her feelings and experiences as a single mother coping with first abandonment and then widowhood (Johnson 1999).
Ba's chosen style of writing only adds to the...
From the very first page we are wrapped in Ramatoulaye's essence. These are indeed private thoughts and perhaps resemble more a dairy than journal (Johnson 1999). We are given access to the other characters only through her eyes. From the beginning of the first chapter when she is at the bedside of her dead husband, everything and everyone is seen through the filter of Ramatoulaye's heart and memory (Ba 1996).
Events that happen around her and in her life can only be shared through her personal dialog within the context of the letter. When Ramatoulaye's teenaged daughter tells of her unwelcomed pregnancy, we only know how Ramatoulaye feels,
Remembering, like a lifebuoy, the tender and consoling attitude of my daughter... I overcame my emotion.... The umbilical cord took on new life, the indestructible bond beneath the avalanche of storms and the duration of time. I saw her once more, newly sprung from me.... The life that fluttered in her was questioning me" (Ba 1996).
Aissatou left her husband rather than stay with him when he married another. Although it is not forbidden in their culture, more than one wife is not considered the chosen way (Ba 1996). Through Ramatoulaye's memory, we learn of Aissatou's feelings regarding her husband decision…
Works Cited
Ba, Mariama. Bode-Thomas, Modupe (Translator). So Long a Letter. Reed Publishing, Incorporated. September 1996.
McElaney-Johnson, Ann. "Epistolary Friendship: La prise de parole in Mariama B? Une si longue lettre." Research in African Literatures. Volume 30. July 15, 1999. http://ask.elibrary.com/getdoc.asp?pubname=Research_in_African_Literatures&puburl=http~C~~S~~S~www.indiana.edu~S~~iupress~S~journals~S~ral.html&querydocid=:bigchalk:U.S.;Lib&dtype=0~0&dinst=0&author=Ann+McElaney%2DJohnson&title=Epistolary+Friendship%3A+La+prise+de+parole+in+Mariama+B%26%23226%3B%27s+Une+si+longue+lettre++&date=07%2D15%2D1999&query=%22So+Long.(accessed07-19-2002).
Letter," by Mariama Ba, "Devil on the Cross," by Ngug" wa Thiongo, and "July's People," by Nadine Gordimer. Specifically, it will discuss and explain gender and family in "So Long a Letter," the aspects of Colonialism and Imperialism in "Devil on the Cross," and cultural freedom and integrity in "July's People." THREE AFRICAN NOVELS In "So Long a Letter," Mariama Ba writes of Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese schoolteacher in her 50s, whose
DEATH AND THE KING'S HORSEMEN The purpose of this paper is to compare and discuss the play, "Death and the King's Horseman," by Wole Soyinka. Specifically, it will discuss the style and language used by the Praise Singer throughout the play, and show how the Praise Singer fits the understanding of oral literature and storytelling. It will also look at the part ritual suicide plays in the story. DEATH AND THE KING'S
authors employ oral styles to convey the voices of individual characters and their unique jargon. Vocal inflections can be heard in print, imagined in the head as the reader loses him or herself in the novel. Kenyan author Ng-g? wa Thiong'o in his novel Devil on the Cross uses at least five different oral styles that contribute volumes to the complexity of his seminal work. The narrator begins and
Social dissent and unrest should not be the result of multiculturalism, the authors point out, but nonetheless those are the social realities, in many instances, of the new global picture. There is now, like it or not, a "blurring of cultural borderlines," the authors report; and as a result, the notion of culture within the word "multiculturalism" no longer refers to habits and customs of a people in anthropological terms.
If anything, the more languages in which a book is published the better. This way there can be as much cross fertilization of ideas and solutions to pressing needs. References Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Penguin, 2006. ____African Trilolgy. London: Picador, 2000 Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen (eds.). The Post Colonial Studies Reader, London: Routledge, (1995) Bassnett-McGuire, Susan. Translation Studies. London: Routledge, 1991. Chevrier, Jacques. "Writing African books in the French
Devil on the Cross, War? nga exhibits meekness and self-hatred. Her self-loathing prompts her to bleach her black skin and iron her hair. When she interacts with her fellow passengers in the taxi, War? nga lacks the resolve she has following her encounter with the Devil on the golf course immediately prior to the Njeruca revolt. Witnessing the circumstances and listening to the speeches at the Devil's Feast was not enough