Women, Individual and National Aspirations in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter

Abstract

Almost every discourse on gender in Africa invariably slides into an evaluation of the fate of women in a male structured society. This tendency is also prevalent in the body of writings known as modern African literature. The focus of this paper is to examine the emergence of the new African woman in the scheme of a social order that is programmed to suffocate her. The Senegalese Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter (a novel) will be adopted as an illustrative text to depict the emergence of the new African woman striving against social and religious impediments to carve a niche for herself in a continent that hitherto did not factor women into its aspirations. Ba’s novel portrays the role education can play in the empowerment of women not only in breaking cultural barriers, but also in self-actualization which leads to their contributing to the wellbeing of their family, social order and by extension national development. Although, the novel depicts two women badly bruised by marital crises aided by cultural sanctions there is hope that education and the appropriate social and gender policies will ensure a place for the new woman.

Keywords: Women, National Aspirations, Discourse, Gender, Empowerment