Summary
So Long A Letter is an epistolary novel, meaning it is composed entirely of letters. It opens with Ramatoulaye addressing her friend Assiatou and letting her know that her husband, Modou, has passed away suddenly from a heart attack, making her a widow. She describes being called from her house by his secretary, grabbing a cab, and rushing to the hospital, only to be too late. She is comforted by the doctor Mawdo, Modou’s old friend, but muses on how that friendship still could not save Modou’s life, how all of his medical knowledge was useless against what she refers to as a “divine will.”
Ramatoulaye continues the letter, telling Assiatou about the beginning of the funeral proceedings, where men and women begin to call on her to convey their condolences. Her close female relatives begin to prepare for the burial, by choosing both the clothing and the covering for Modou. Meanwhile, Ramatoulaye and her co-wife, who irritates her, submit to their relatives’ preparation rituals, which includes getting their hair done and celebrating their children. The men, who are Modou's family, friends, and other associates, wash their hands at the entrance of the house and file in to offer verbal condolences.
Overshadowing these events, however, is not just Modou’s death, but also the awareness Ramatoulaye has that she and her co-wife will be forced to give up all of their possessions to their husband’s family, becoming, in effect, possessions themselves. The funeral rituals continue into the third day, with Modou’s many friends continuing to come to the deceased’s house. Men and women eat in separate corners, with the men eating in silence and in contrast, the women loud, gossiping amongst themselves. Sometimes someone from the men’s corner reminds them to be solemn, but this warning is quickly forgotten and the volume resumes.
During the evening of the third day, visitors give monetary donations to Ramatoulaye and her co-wife, almost attempting to outdo each other in a strange way, she comments. This money is carefully recorded by her husband’s relatives as well as her younger sister. Ramatoulaye is delighted that she receives more money that her co-wife because she feels that her accomplishments in the community and time in the household are being acknowledged.
The amount she receives raises her status, which her mother-in-law, who receives donations as well but is new to the bourgeoisie, notices. After deliberation, Ramatoulaye’s sisters-in-law give her and her co-wife two hundred thousand francs with which to dress, i.e. pay for their mourning clothes, which is their traditional duty. However, the money that is ostensibly given to the widows is actually taken by the family-in-law, leaving the two widows destitute. After this, more relatives come through, and they also require monetary gifts. As the house empties, Ramatoulaye observes that her living space has become dirty and that the “balance sheet” for the day is not in her favor. These empty celebrations continue for forty days, then the co-wife, who we learn is named Binetou, leaves.
Ramatoulaye is left alone, and is confined to her house by her mourning period for another four months and ten days. Ramatoulaye describes the ceremony and family meeting, mandated by the Koran after a death, where the deceased (Modou) has their secrets revealed. She shares that he essentially abandoned his first family (her and his children) for another family, left her with an immense amount of debts, used their joint account to take out a mortgage on their estate so he could pay the expenses of the other family, including his second wife’s parents' trip to Mecca and her university degree, all of which are obligations she is expected to continue to meet after his death. In addition, Binetou and her mother removed (essentially stole) various objects from the villa and did not account from them in the official accounting of the assets present in the villa. Ramatoulaye says she is “excessively sentimental” and therefore was displeased with the events that took place.
Ramatoulaye ruminates on the question she assumes that Assiatou will be asking, which is why Modou went to marry Binetou. She emphasizes that she has no right to question human destiny, when there are so many with harsher lives, while she is troubled by a man who no longer has any effect on her material life. She vows to raise her eyes to heaven and to be thankful and to live, but these efforts, she says, are soon interrupted by her disappointment, and thinking on the others who are worse off than her just makes her despair even more. Why did Modou marry Binetou— she returns to the question. She tells Assiatou that she loved him passionately, gave him thirty years of her life, carried his child twelve times, and yet he betrayed her. But, as she reminds Assiatou, he did everything possible to make her his wife.
Analysis
From the very beginning, Ramatoulaye establishes herself as a strong character. Facing potential poverty because of her husband's death, Ramatoulaye nevertheless remains calm in the face of adversity. In the first chapter, we learn that she is extremely religious, believing in a divine will that controls life and death. Her loyalty is also evident, considering that despite their apparent estrangement, she still answers the call about her husband's illness and goes immediately in to see him.
The restrictions and traditions around mourning provide context for how limiting and traditional Ramatoulaye's life can sometimes be, and her twin appreciation for and frustration with said traditions. On the one hand, she is disturbed by how her co-wife, Binetou, is treated to be on the same level as her, demonstrating her traditionalist beliefs about the place of second wives in the household, and relies on markers like the number of children she has (12) to establish her superiority over her co-wife. At the same time, however, Ramatoulaye chafes under the oversight of relatives she feels are intrusive and greedy, as well as under the fact of how much social control her relatives can exert over her now that she is widowed. It is our first glimpse into how Ramatoulaye seeks to defy the social standards established for women in Senegal. As a widow, she is essentially culturally powerless.
Ramatoulaye's perception of the celebrations as fundamentally empty demonstrate how much Ramatoulaye defies what one might think of as the traditional Senegalese widow. In the mid 20th century—the time at which the novel is set—Ramatoulaye would have lived in a Senegal that was very much driven by religious tradition. While she is pious, she is also open-minded enough to recognize that much of the ceremony surrounding Modou's death is actually insincere and meaningless. Her critique of her relatives that take their donation money comments on how Senegalese society restricts widows by making them financially dependent, and how death is used as a way to line the pockets of those in the deceased's family who do not actually need it.
The frustration she feels with the news about the joint account reflects this. Ramatoulaye is angry that her independent resources were used to help Binetou not just because she dislikes Binetou and views her as a usurper, but because it represents a disrespect of her hard work and a manipulation by the late Modou of a society that makes it difficult for women to express their freedom. Modou's decision to leave Ramatoulaye with debts in favor of his second wife and her mother showcases how little control women at the time had over their own lives, and how the institution of polygamy supports this lack of control.
When Ramatoulaye thinks of the others in similar positions, she again shows her religious nature by arguing that she has no right to question the destiny God has laid out for humans. However, in keeping with her inquisitive and thoughtful nature, Ramatoulaye reveals that she still struggles with why Modou left her for Binetou after all she had done for him. Ramatoulaye's strong internal sense of fairness and justice, as well as her giving nature, naturally struggles with the fact of Modou's betrayal. She then highlights the irony of him choosing Binetou over her when he tried so hard to make her his wife.
