Summary
Ramatoulaye breaks from addressing Assiatou to address the deceased Modou, asking him if he remembers when they met. She tells the story of how they met during their time in teachers college in Ponty-Ville, how he asked her to dance and she was instantly in love. He knew how to be tender, she says, and she gave in to his possessiveness and started seeing him. Their romance continued despite his years abroad in France, after which he returned to Senegal with a law degree. He was humble and preferred humble work, introduced her to his friend Mawdo Bâ, which changed the life of her best friend Assiatou.
But in retrospect, Ramatoulaye can no longer completely condemn her mother’s dislike of him, can no longer laugh when she thinks of how her mother thought he was too pretty and a bad idea. Among those who advocated for the advancement of African women's rights, Ramatoulaye acknowledges that many people were interested in possessing them, but that perhaps they should have invested in something more solid than just dreams. Returning to the main letter, Ramatoulaye asks Assiatou to recall the school they both attended where they were supported and encouraged. The school welcomed girls from the whole of French West Africa by way of an entrance exam, so multiple girls from different nations formed a kind of sisterhood at that school. Its focus on cosmopolitanism encouraged girls to think globally, to strengthen their solidarity, and to give them a good moral character was spearheaded by the headmistress of the school, who was a white woman.
Her lessons coincided well with the new age of African women taking control of their own situations and standing up for themselves. It was the combination of these mentalities, Ramatoulaye says, that made her refuse Daouda Dieng, a respectable doctor, and shock her town by choosing Modou instead.
Ramatoulaye discusses Assiatou’s marriage to Mawdo as being even more shocking to the community than her own. Many people thought that Mawdo was far too good for Assiatou, given that he was descended from royalty and she was just the daughter of a goldsmith. But Mawdo insisted, and expressed respect for what her father did, saying that he was a craftsman. Despite her father’s skill, however, her younger brothers were sent to white schools to try and get a more “elite” education. Ramatoulaye uses this moment to think about how across the country, the path to education has become popular, but is often complicated. The stages of education are often inaccessible and difficult, and while she advocated for it unequivocally when she was younger, but now she wonders about the loss of a professional class.
Ramatoulaye continues to reminiscence about the past, and tells Assiatou about the early days of their marriages. Ramatoulaye’s love of her husband caused her to compromise with and tolerate his relatives, who constantly invaded her house and her space. While her sisters-in-law commented on her ability to pay housemaids, she reflects that they did not understand that the housemaids still had to be supervised, and that the reason she was able to pay for housemaids was because she worked all day as a teacher at the local school, along with Assiatou.
Ramatoulaye recalls the holidays they would take to the seaside suburbs, with their favorite spot being Ngor Beach, where depression and sadness would disappear as they watched the fishermen at work. She recalls the picnics they organized at Sangalkam, the farm Mawdo Bâ inherited from his father, and how Assiatou added a small building at the far end of the idyllic country property. They “represented a force in the enormous effort to be accomplished in order to overcome ignorance,” (23), as teachers responsible for overseeing the good of their students. They loved their jobs.
Still looking at the past, Ramatoulaye describes how Modou and Mawdo continue to rise in the ranks of their respective positions, while political change and unrest define the rest of the country. As the bridge between periods of domination and independence, their generation is experiencing big shifts, many of which Modou and Mawdo are involved in. Modou would lead his unions into collaboration with the government, and they (Modou, Mawdo, Ramatoulaye, and Assiatou) were all beginning to ascend socially. But Mawdo’s mother saw Assiatou beside her son and began to plot against her.
Analysis
The beginning of this section uses a form of a literary device called an apostrophe, which is when the speaker addresses someone who is not present or who is deceased for an extended period of time. Ramatoulaye does this by breaking the flow of the general letter to address her late husband. Her words to her husband express her frustration with his betrayal of her but also her deep love of him—she still looks at the years they had together with fondness, but the memories are also painful because of how he treated her towards the end of his life. Ramatoulaye's flashbacks highlight the dramatic irony created by her younger self's lack of knowledge, particularly when pointing out how her mother disliked Modou from the very beginning. Also important to note is how closely Modou and Ramatoulaye's romance is tied to the advancement of women in Senegal—their courtship is made possible because of Ramatoulaye's greater access to education. The friendship they have with Mawdo and Aissatou is very much based on their shared political dreams.
The school that Ramatoulaye and Aissatou attended together represents how after independence, many women looked to gain advancement in African countries through education. Ramatoulaye's education is representative of the period directly after postcolonialism, where many African countries were concerned with educating their young as well as having both national identities and broader African identities, something demonstrated by the fact that the school accepts children from all over French West Africa. The instruction of this school, as Ramatoulaye mentions, helped her Aissatou and Ramatoulaye learn to stand up for themselves. For both of them, education is nearly synonymous with sociopolitical power and advancement. This love of and belief in education is the underlying motivation for their decision to become teachers.
At the same time, tradition has a firm hold in their lives despite their new modern inclinations. Aissatou's marriage to Mawdo, despite their compatible levels of education, goes against community expectations because Aissatou doesn't come from a good family. And while Mawdo expresses appreciation for her father's goldsmithing, education is still seen as the only thing that can advance Aissatou's younger brothers, and Mawdo is still seen as having married down. However, this emphasis on education often leaves out the work of the professional class like goldsmiths or other craftsmen. Ramatoulaye's concern with the potential loss of a professional class is a part of a larger political question about kinds of educations. An excellent education is often a way to become a part of the upper classes, but the economy still needs people who do crafts, fix electric appliances, etc.— all of these people are essential to society, and yet they are treated as lesser than their counterparts who do medicine or law. Aissatou's father's situation showcases the problems of educational elitism.
The tensions of education also show themselves when it comes to the challenges Ramatoulaye faces as a woman who works. Her sisters-in-law cannot understand that she can only afford housemaids because she works as a teacher all day, but at the same time, Ramatoulaye does not quite understand what it is like to be confined to the house and to have to do housework. Their holidays to the seaside demonstrate that they are a fairly well-off family, and Ramatoulaye idolizes these years all four of them had together where there seemed to be no conflict.
Again, we see that the political and the familial are connected for Ramatoulaye, who sees her work in the school as as true living, just as much as vacationing on the beach was. During this time, her life is nearly perfect. The four of them are all involved politically, and so the building of their families are all very much associated with the building of the nation. Ramatoulaye's analogy of their generation being a bridge tells the reader that Ramatoulaye associates the building of their families and their friendships with the building of the country and the government. Her perception of the state of the country is reflected in her feelings about those she loves. However, the recounting of this idyllic existence ends with ominous foreshadowing as Ramatoulaye sees something coming in to ruin that happiness: Mawdo's mother.
