Summary
Ramatoulaye apologizes for bringing up this painful topic but says that she cannot help remembering. She recalls Mawdo’s mother, who was proud and from royal blood, called Aunty Nabou by the two of them. Aunty Nabou was a deep believer in the power and importance of bloodline. A widow, Aunty Nabou’s only son was Mawdo and she was fiercely protective of him. Thinking that Assiatou was not good enough for Mawdo, she quietly began to plot revenge against Assiatou. One day, she packed up her things and went to visit her the place of her ancestors, Diakhao, where she was treated with what she believed to be the proper amount of respect. Summoning her brother, she hid her hatred of Assiatou carefully, then requested that she be allowed to foster one of her brother’s children so she could have a child with her in her old age. Her brother, Farba Diouf, agreed and gave her young Nabou, her namesake. Satisfied, Aunty Nabou took the child back to town.
Aunty Nabou introduces young Nabou to her friends as well as Ramatoulaye. Young Nabou is admitted into the French school, where she gains her primary school certificate and spends some time in secondary school, after which Aunty Nabou advises her to begin to study to become a midwife which she does. One day, Aunty Nabou calls Mawdo, and gives young Nabou to him as a wife, which everyone is aware of but Assiatou; only once the wedding date had been confirmed is Mawdo brave enough to tell her the truth. His reasoning is that he must do it to protect his mother’s health.
From that moment, Assiatou did not matter in the community; Nabou and her sons were valued over her, even though in some respects it was clear that Mawdo preferred Assiatou. But Assiatou refused to be treated that way, and leaving a letter for him, leaves Mawdo, takes her four sons with her, going first to France, and then getting appointed to the Senegalese embassy in the US. In Assiatou’s absence, things continue on. Mawdo is shaken by Assiatou’s departure, though Ramatoulaye has no pity for him. He justifies himself to her by saying men have needs, and therefore he cannot resist Nabou, reducing her to “a plate of food.” But Ramatoulaye takes heart from Assiatou’s calmness and her success. Ramatoulaye discusses her own marital crisis, which was not caused by her mother-in-law, but her husband himself.
Ramatoulaye's daughter Daba, who is going to university, brings home a friend named Binetou who is getting rewards and new clothes from a sugar daddy, and who is pressured to marry the sugar daddy in question. The Sunday that Binetou is to get married, Tamsir, Modou’s brother, and Mawdo come to her house with the local imam to comment that when Allah puts two people together, it always ends up well. Ramatoulaye is initially confused, but quickly realizes what has happened: Modou has gotten married without her knowledge, which Tamsir confirms. They say the typical comforting words about her place in Modou’s house. Ramatoulaye flashes back to their life together, and the warnings that her mother had given her when they first got together. Despite her distress, however, Ramatoulaye fights to keep calm on the outside. Everyone is pleased, except Mawdo, who guesses at her anger.
Ramatoulaye quickly discovers that Binetou is the one that has married Modou. Daba is furious at what she perceives to be a betrayal coming from her best friend, but Ramatoulaye tempers her frustration with the knowledge of how much Modou and the adults around her must have pressured Binetou. Daba, along with her other children, advises her to leave Modou, but Ramatoulaye hesitates, reluctant to give up 25 years of marriage for uncertain ends. She knows few divorced women who marry again and believes that her body is no longer beautiful enough to attract attention. She becomes depressed and has a nervous breakdown, which reminds her of a woman she knew named Jacqueline who had the same thing happen to her.
Jacqueline, a black African woman from the Ivory Coast, married one of Mawdo’s contemporaries, Samba Diack, against the wishes of her Protestant parents, and came to live with him in Senegal. Her years there were unpleasant, as Samba abandoned her for other women, the Senegalese people made fun of her and her perceived rural nature, and her husband’s family treated her cooly as a result of her refusal to convert to Islam. Eventually, she began to feel a strange weight in her chest that she could not alleviate; despite consulting doctors in Senegal and Ivory Coast, she could not figure out what is wrong. By chance, one of Jacqueline’s roommates recommended that she go to France, where she learned that the problem was in fact psychological. Cheered, Jacqueline began a steady recovery. Ramatoulaye wonders why that story came to her at that moment but reminds Assiatou of how, contrary to the wishes of her children, and Modou and Mawdo’s expectations, she decides to stay. But Ramatoulaye is miserable, and Daba’s prediction that she “has not finished suffering” proves to be true, as Modou abandons them entirely, and effectively forgets about Ramatoulaye and their children.
While acknowledging that there can be no comparison between Assiatou and young Nabou, Ramatoulaye points out that the two of them are similar with respect to drive and to loving Mawdo. Nabou, who was clearly raised under the hateful Aunty Nabou, occupies her time with simple pursuits and is concerned with her profession, which rewards and disappoints her in turns. Fundamentally, she is content with her lot in life. In contrast, Binetou dislikes her lot in life even while she flaunts it. Coming from poverty, she realized the difference between her and her classmates and the sacrifices she would be making for her marriage. Imprisoned in a way, Binetou demanded that prison be at least somewhat enjoyable, and became demanding and cruel towards Modou, who in response, desperately tries to keep up. People begin rumors that it’s witchcraft and begin to recommend that she use spiritual means to try and separate them, but Ramatoulaye refuses this as superstition and unrealistic. What is realistic for Ramatoulaye is the reality of Binetou’s mother enjoying her social advancement and loathing to give it up, thereby displacing Ramatoulaye; what is realistic is Binetou taking Modou to nightclubs to show him off to her young peers, and Daba and her fiancé heading to the same clubs in silent condemnation.
Ramatoulaye talks about how she survived. She begins to pick up the duties of Modou, to pay the electric bills as well as traditional wifely duties. She starts going to the cinema, stops being nervous about going by herself. Ramatoulaye suggests that she’s actually grateful that Modou made such a clean break, which enables her to live an independent life without being beholden to him when most husbands suffer from indecision. At night, she gets lonely, but this loneliness is helped by the radio broadcasts and music that comes on to send her to sleep. The love for her children keeps her going; she considers bringing a new man into the house but hesitates since because there are 12 people the man would have to impress, and she is still technically married. She survives and experiences how difficult public transport can be, in trying to transport herself and her children while Modou’s car drives Binetou’s mother around. She recalls how she confided this to Assiatou, and her response, which was to buy Ramatoulaye a new Fiat. Ramatoulaye, overcome with gratitude, learns how to drive, for herself, for her children, and for Assiatou. She thanks Assiatou for making her able to look Binetou and her mother in the eye when they go around town. Friendship, she says, sometimes runs much deeper than love.
Analysis
Ramatoulaye, in this chapter, talks about the first major incident in her life (that the reader knows about) where tradition has a definitively negative impact on her. While her mother disapproved of Modou, Mawdo's mother's hatred of Aissatou goes beyond mistrust of her. She has an ingrained belief in her own superiority because of her birth. For Aunty Nabou, a traditionalist royal woman, her son would have been her proudest achievement. His marriage to a goldsmith's daughter, in her eyes, is an insult to her son, to her, and to her entire family. Her decision to take young Nabou under her wing is her way of using tradition to displace Aissatou. The motif of naming is extremely evident here: young Nabou is named after Aunty Nabou, and in a similar fashion, Aunty Nabou shapes young Nabou to be a younger version of herself.
Chapter 12 is defined by the dramatic irony of Aissatou's lack of knowledge about young Nabou. While everyone else knows what's happening, Aissatou remains in the dark until after the wedding date is set. It is this lack of communication that gets Aissatou so angry and makes the reader doubt Mawdo's excuse that he is forced to marry young Nabou. But in a shocking turn of events, rather than accept her lowered role in his household, Aissatou asserts her independence and decides to leave him. This is extremely brave of her since even though she is a bad situation with regards to her marriage, making a life for herself as a divorcée from Senegal abroad is a shaky future. But Aissatou is proud, despite the messages she receives from a society that tells her not to be, and she decides to be courageous.
But Ramatoulaye's marital crisis is a much bigger betrayal than Aissatou's. Modou is essentially unfaithful—while Islam allows for polygamy, it doesn't necessarily allow for extramarital affairs or for dishonesty. Ramatoulaye is angry first with the fact that she has been lied to, and that Daba has been lied to as well. The depth of the betrayal increases with the context that she took Binetou into her own home, a space that acts as a sanctuary for her, and Binetou repaid her and her daughter by marrying Modou. Moreover, it speaks again to the problems of polygamy.
Ramatoulaye's reluctance to leave Modou may seem somewhat surprising and stands in sharp contrast to Aissatou's reaction to Mawdo's second marriage. While she has a significantly larger amount of children (12 to Aissatou's 4), Ramatoulaye still considers leaving Modou. But she appears to fear the potential fallout from divorce much more than Aissatou does. Her mental health struggles after Modou leaves cause her to think about how influential mental and familial situations can be on peoples' lives and their bodies. Jacqueline's story shows how serious mental illness is and how much people's treatment of each other can influence mental health.
The situation in which Ramatoulaye, Modou, and Binetou live afterward further demonstrates the novel's argument that polygamy is often flawed and unfair for all parties. Ramatoulaye is the completely innocent party who suffers the most as Modou abandons their family. At the same time, however, neither Modou or Binetou's lives are pleasant. Modou is punished for his abandonment of a woman who loves him by living for the rest of his life with a woman who is disgusted by his age. Paradoxically, it is her youth that causes him to continue to invest in her: Modou's desire to feel young despite becoming old is what truly drives him to pursue Binetou. For Binetou's part, her valid desire to rise out of her social situation has put her in a place where she can no longer associate with her peers in her new class without judgment. Bitter at the trap she has created for herself, she lashes out.
But despite not actually leaving Modou, Ramatoulaye learns to become independent in her own ways. She asserts full control over her house and learns to exist alone. She admits that it is not easy or ideal, but she manages. Independence, similar to how it works on a national level, is difficult and far from straightforward. But Ramatoulaye's ability to love and be loved in return is what saves her. The love she has for her children enables her to keep going day after day, and the gift of the car that Aissatou gives her out of love allows her to express her independence. When she claims that friendship sometimes runs deeper than love, it speaks to how deeply the love from non-romantic relationships affects Ramatoulaye's life.
