"This is the moment dreaded by every Senegalese woman, the moment when she sacrifices everything ( … ) becoming a thing in the service of the man who has married her.’’
So Long a Letter portrays marriage in a mostly negative light. The woman is forced to give up everything when she marries, including her identity, and she becomes a "thing" in the service of the man who is now her husband. In the Senegalese community where Ramatoulaye lived, women had almost no rights in comparison with men and a woman’s worth was determined by her husband. In a way, after marrying a man, a woman became almost his shadow, always present but never noticed until her presence was needed.
"We were full of nostalgia but were resolutely progressive.’’
Ramatoulaye talks about her country in contradictory terms, as a place where the past and the present clash. Some people in the country insisted that they remain traditional, the rest of the country tried to embrace the globalization of their country. This however not only changed the way the country traded with other countries but also the way people thought. As a result, women were more inclined to leave their husbands and insisted on getting an education and on being independent. The dress code also changed and young girls were less inclined to wear traditional clothes. They also had different opinions about sexual relationships and were more inclined to have unprotected sex and get pregnant out of wedlock. The mentality of the parents had to change, and instead of teaching their children that abstinence was the only way, they began teaching their children about contraception and other methods of protecting themselves against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease.
I was irritated. He was asking me to understand. ( … ) I could not be an ally to polygamic instincts.
Like Ramatoulaye's husband, Aissatou’s husband took a second wife later in his life. While he was pressured by his family to do so, it still affected the relationship he had with his first wife, Aissatou. She ended up leaving him and after she found a job in America, her former husband talked with Ramatoulaye about how much he missed his first wife. When Ramatoulaye asked him why he didn’t leave his second wife, he insisted that his sexual desires were what kept him back. He also asked Ramatoulaye to try and understand why he did what he did but she claims that she could never understand polygamy and why a man would be willing to marry another woman even though he loved his first one. From the perspective of a woman whose marriage was ruined by polygamy, there is no possible explanation.
Friendship has splendors that love knows not. It grows stronger when crossed, whereas obstacles kill love. Friendship resists time, which wearies and severs couples. It has heights unknown to love.
Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that romantic relationships fail both Ramatoulaye and Aissatou. But in the midst of all of their pain, the two friends remain loyal to one another when their husbands are no longer with them. Of all of the relationships in the novel, this friendship is the one that lasts the longest, having started while they were at school and lasting through the loss of two husbands and the birth of sixteen children. The core of the novel is the friendship between these two women. While the novel centers around their failed marriages, the novel is about the love and friendship between these two women, and its ability to outlast even the harshest circumstances.
How many dreams did we nourish hopelessly that could have been fulfilled as lasting happiness and that we abandoned to embrace others, those that have burst miserably like soap bubbles, leaving us empty-handed?
Despite their investment in the advancement of women even into their middle age, Ramatoulaye and Aissatou look back and acknowledge that in many ways, they were extremely naive. Often, particularly with their choice in husbands, they abandoned stable and trustworthy options for options that did not pay off. This quote speaks to how often youthful mistakes come from poorly chosen dreams, and how those choices sometimes don't prove to be wrong until well after youth. In addition, their dreams for the advancement of women are often confronted with stark realities, like polygamy or politics or the difficulty of balancing housework with a profession. Ramatoulaye laments that these lofty dreams often cannot survive obstacles.
I am stripping myself of your love, of your name. Clothed in my dignity, the only worthy garment, I go my way.
Clothing is extremely important and often ceremonial in Senegal, like it is in many non-Western cultures. It is subtly present throughout much of the novel, from the scene where the relatives dress Ramatoulaye to the trio’s controversial decision to begin wearing trousers. Clothing signifies who somebody is and indicates rank and place in society. So it is significant that in the end of her letter, Aissatou asserts that she is stripping herself of Mawdo’s love and his name. Not only is she refusing to continue to be his wife, but she’s also saying that his love and his name/position can no longer define her as a person at all. Then she goes a step further and claims her own dignity, which has been maligned because of her supposedly humble origins, as better than anything he could ever give her. With that, she leaves him. It is an extremely powerful end to Aissatou’s statement of independence.
This time I shall speak out. My voice has known thirty years of silence, thirty years of harassment. It bursts out, violent, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes contemptuous.
In this scene, Ramatoulaye finally gets to use her voice to control the situation of her marriage. For 30 years, the time she was married to Modou, even after he left her, the wishes of men silenced her, at times even harassed her. But while she wasn’t able to speak at the last meeting like this, Ramatoulaye now has the confidence to speak and stand up for herself. Her expression of independence isn’t perfect, and sometimes she oversteps, but it’s important and unstoppable. Again, we see how similar Ramatoulaye’s personal revolutions are to political revolutions. Although the "violence" it contains is troublesome, on another level, the defeat of silence is triumphant. Finally, this show of independence is only the beginning: it is the foundation, not the climax, of Ramatoulaye’s newfound freedom.
I always tell my children: you are students maintained by your parents...Tomorrow, you will be able to elect to power anyone of your choice, anyone you find suitable. It is your choice, and not ours, that will direct the country.
Education’s importance is inseparable from the political state of the country, and Ramatoulaye makes that clear in this quote. With Ramatoulaye’s emphasis on the relationship between the nation and family, it’s telling that her way of describing the relationship between parents and children is to describe children as “students”. Ramatoulaye’s higher calling of being a teacher applies to the classroom and the household. Their education in both is essential because of how the younger generation must carry the torch that is passed down by the previous generation. While her generation serves a bridge between colonial rule and independence, this new generation will determine what independence looks like.
How could she have lived alone with her secret? I was traumatized by the effort and skill employed by this child to escape my anger...
As Ramatoulaye moves past her anger and shock at Aissatou’s pregnancy, she realizes that the real problem with the situation is that Aissatou did not tell her. For Ramatoulaye, secrets have ruined her life, and so to see her child feeling like she must keep secrets from her mother breaks her heart. She realizes that her first consideration should be making Aissatou feel safe and loved. Worrying primarily about her child’s regard for and trust in her causes Ramatoulaye to again turn her back on tradition in favor of comforting Aissatou and helping her through what is an extremely difficult situation. This quote is an excellent example of how good a mother Ramatoulaye is, and how she lets love shape her societal views and decisions—rather than the other way around.
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.
In spite of everything, Ramatoulaye still remains hopeful. Unlike before, when her dreams were young and unfounded, this hope comes from experience. Rather than her youthful habit of dreaming and hoping, in spite of her knowledge of the world around her, as an older woman, Ramatoulaye leaves behind the broken dreams and makes something new for herself. Even though from a traditional perspective, she is in one of the most powerless social positions possible—a widow—she refuses to let that stop her from reaching for hope and for happiness. No matter her age, Ramatoulaye refuses to stop dreaming, only this time her dreams are even stronger.
