College Language Association

WOMEN'S SEARCH FOR VOICE AND THE PROBLEM OF KNOWING IN THE NOVELS OF
MARIAMA BÂ
Author(s): Glenn W. Fetzer
Source: CLA Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1 (SEPTEMBER 1991), pp. 31-41
Published by: College Language Association
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 WOMEN'S SEARCH FOR VOICE AND THE
PROBLEM OF KNOWING IN THE NOVELS OF
MARIAMA BÂ

By Glenn W. Fetzer

Of Third World literary figures whose appeal transcends

the parochial, the late Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ
speaks with exceptional clarity and universality. Her first
novel, Une Si Longue lettre, for which she was awarded the
Noma Award in 1980, catapulted her to the status of a
spokesperson for much of African literature. Her next
work, Un Chant écarlate, published in 1981, proved to be
her last, due to her untimely death. Despite a short career,
however, Mariama Bâ leaves in those two works a rich leg-
acy, both to her fellow Africans as well as to all of us who
seek definition and direction for our human experience.
The protagonists in both novels are women who, finding
themselves disenfranchised socially and personally, embark
upon a quest for full participation in society and for a voice
which may be called their own. Une Si Longue lettre is a
novel of personal triumph. Taking the form of a long letter,
it tells the story of two well-educated, progressive-thinking
African women who had been socially and politically active
with their husbands in post-independent Senegal. After
years of secure marriages, both women, Ramatoulaye and
Aîssatou, discover after the fact that their husbands have
each taken another wife. In her letter to Aîssatou, occa-
sioned by the sudden death of Ramatoulaye's husband,
Modou Fall, Ramatoulaye recounts the reactions of each
woman to the polygamous situations in which they find
themselves and focuses on the decisions each woman makes
in order to achieve a sense of inner well-being and to enjoy
the liberty of expressing that about which they care deeply.
Mariama Bâ has been widely recognized as a proponent
of choice. Irène Assiba d'Almeida, for one, identifies choice

31

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32 Glenn W. Fetzer

as one of the key concepts which

She sees choice as the operative
sonal development and to social
through chioce that Ramatoulay
strength and courage to face pr
women, to overcome what threa
also through choice that they a
Despite ingrained societal patterns
customs antithetical to personal
Aîssatou surmount opression and f
of meaning and fulfillment.
Un Chant écarlate is quite diff
years of post-independant Seneg
initially beautiful love affair of t
Senegalese Ousmane Guèye and
de la Vallée. Their love, nurtured
covered by Mireille's diplomat f
ment's delay, repatriates Mireil
the two young people, however,
ter several years when Mireille co
the Muslim religion, Ousmane t
two are married.
The happiness they enjoy together begins to dissipate
soon after they return to Senegal. Ousmane's intransigence
in clinging solely to his cultural heritage and in preferring
his mother's influence over his wife's, coupled with
Mireille's refusal to assimilate into the African culture, re-
sults in marital discord. Bit by bit they drift apart, and
Ousmane's eventual involvement with and subsequent mar-
riage to Oumatouley, a childhood friend, exacerbates the
rift between Ousmane and Mireille. The discovery of her
husband's second wife is too much for Mireille to bear: in a
frenzied fit of dispair she kills her son - symbol of her failed

1 Irène Assiba ďAlmeida, "The Concept of Choice in Mariama Bâ's Fiction," in

Ngambika : Studies of Women in African Literature , ed. Carole Boyce Davies
and Anne Adams Graves (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1986), p. 165.

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 The Novels of Mariama Ba 33

mixed marriage - and then assaults her husband

novel ends tragically. Mireille is sent to an asylum in
France and Ousmane is left with the realization of an irrep-
arable broken marriage.
Unlike the protagonists of Une Si Longue lettre, Mireille
fails to secure her place in the world. Her notion of self,
initially strong and confidant, crumbles when she finds her-
self uprooted from her homeland. The voice which she
seeks throughout the novel eludes her, and she is aban-
doned to a state of oppression - cultural, personal, and fin-
ally, mental.
The disparity in tone and apparently different foci of the
two novels in no way abrogates their commonality. Edris
Makward points to personal happiness as the underlying
theme of both works. In Une Si Longue lettre, Makward
argues, Mariama Bâ advocates a notion of marriage based
on romance and personal choice. And in Un Chant
êcarlate, although the protagonists' marriage fails, the suc-
cessful union of two peripheral characters, Lamine and
Pierrette, demonstrates the viability of harmonious marital
partnership.2
Notwithstanding this theme of happiness, the two novels
intersect on yet another level. The three main women char-
acters, Ramatoulaye, Aîssatou, and Mireille, each strive for
self-realization in a different manner. With the general goal
of personal satisfaction before them, they make choices
which help determine their destiny. The choices they make,
however, are informed by the way they individually per-
ceive reality. That is to say that the way in which the main
female characters in the two novels search for a voice re-
flects the manner in which they draw conclusions about
truth.
A recent study by a group of women psychologists focus-

2 Edris Makward, 'Marriage, Tradition and Women's Pursuit of Happiness in

the Novels of Mariama Bâ/ in Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Litera-
ture, ed. Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves (Trenton: Africa World
Press, 1986), p. 280.

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34 Glenn W. Fetzer

ing on epistemological developme

basic perspectives from which w
consequently, understand truth
perspectives as presented in W
The Development of Self, Voice
Field Belenky and others, is instr
the protagonists in Bâ's novels an
different ways by which they
voice.

The five perspectives, which im

stages of development, include
subjective knowledge, procedur
structed knowledge. Silence in
women experience themselves a
subject to authority around them
culty in establishing even the mo
others. Lacking confidence in t
women see themselves at the m
Any conception of self on the pa
essarily emanate from another
None of the main characters in Bâ's novels illustrate this
mode of knowing, although Mireille's mother, Mathilde de
la Vallée, aptly fits the description of the silent type. Dom-
inated totally by her husband throughout their wedded life,
Mme. de la Vallée can only echo her husband's violent con-
demnation of Mireille upon learning of her marriage with
Ousmane:

"La traîtresse! La saleté!" he exclaims. "Alors, elle aussi par

habitude, - trente années où elle n'avait eu aucune pensée
propre, aucune initiative, aucune révolte, trente années où elle
n'avait fait que marcher où on la poussait, trente années où ac-
quiescer et applaudir avaient été ses lots - alors, par habitude

3 Mary Field Belenky, et al., Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of

Self, Voice, and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986), p. 28. Hereafter cited
parenthetically in the text.

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 The Novels of Mariama Ba 35

plus que par conviction, elle répéta, les larmes aux yeaux,
sanglots dans la voix: 'La traîtresse! La saleté!' avant de tombe
évanouie."4

In all of the pain of feeling "la plus solitaire des femmes"

(p. 120), Mathilde de la Vallée ranks with those women who
have no voice.
The term "received knowledge" denotes that perspective
from which women conceive of themselves as capable of re-
ceiving knowledge and even reproducing knowledge re-
ceived from an outside authority, but not as able to create
knowledge on their own (Belenky, p. 39). Women in this
position see themselves only as reflected in others, only as a
product of others' voices. In Mariama Bâ's fiction, none of
the women characters actively seeking self-realization oc-
cupy the position of received knower. The one who most
nearly reflects this perspective is Binetou, the young bride
of Modou Fall's old age and the co-wife of Ramaoulaye in
Une Si Longue lettre. As a received knower, Binetou
demonstrates a concept of self derived from her environ-
ment. Having listened too much to the voice of her mother
intent on self-aggrandizement and to the voices of her ma-
terialistic friends, Binetou adapts their view of reality to
herself. Although initially manipulative of Modou - a way
of behaving learned from her mother, Binetou soon finds
herself locked into an unfulfilling marriage, without the re-
sourcefulness to create for herself an identity. The narrator
describes her as "un agneau immolé comme beaucoup
d'autres sur l'autel du 'matériel.' "8 Having listened too
often to the voices of others, Binetou loses the ability to
hear her own.
The perspective which Belenky et al. calls "subjective"
denotes that point of view from which truth and knowledge
are considered private, personal, and intuitive. Subjectivist

4 Mariama Bâ, Un Chant écarlate (Dakar: Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines,

1981), p. 120. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.
6 Mariama Bâ, Une Si Longue lettre (Dakar: Les Nouvelles Editions Afri-
caines, 1979), p. 60.

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36 Glenn W. Fetzer

women hold predominantly anti

knowing: distrustful of logic, rea
they rely on their own experienc
(p. 71). Although these women
their inner voice, many of them
sion of consideration for externa
many, a subjectivist epistemology
development, a position which p
jectivity and analysis as tools f
Neither of the two female pro
lettre, Ramatoulaye nor Aîssatou,
sition. Both are reflective and me
evaluate the world around them objectively. Nor can
Mireille, the philosophy professor in Un Chant écarlate, be
considered subjectivist. She, whom education has infused
with rational thought, knows much more differently than
does the subjectivist. The subjective position, however, does
characterize her mother-in-law, Yaye Khady, who, despite
all attempts by her husband to persuade her to accept the
marriage of her son with a white woman, rejects Mireille.
For her, a white woman can never be a true daughter-in-
law:

Une Toubab ne peut être une vraie bru. Elle n'aura d'yeux que
pour son homme. Nous ne compterons pas pour elle. Moi qui
rêvais d'une bru qui habiterait ici et me remplacerait aux tâches
ménagères en prenant la maison en mains, voilà que je tombe
sur une femme qui va emporter mon fils. (pp. 101, 102)

For Yaye Khady, all subsequent efforts on the part of

Mireille to bridge the gap between them will be to no avail.
Yaye Khady obstinately believes all that her senses suggest.
Procedural knowers are those who have internalized ob-
jective means of obtaining knowledge of the world and of
themselves. Deliberate and measured, these women show
themselves to be pragmatic problem-solvers. Many women
who now live lives of reasoned reflection once depended
upon some forms of received or subjective knowledge, rely-
ing upon their own senses or upon some form of absolutism

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 The Novels of Mariama Ba 37

(Belenky, p. 99). Unlike subjectivist women, proce

knowers are critical of their intuition and realize tha
are not always what they seem to be. As they beco
creasingly skillful at analyzing and evaluating way
taining and communicating knowledge, these wom
themselves as gaining control over their lives (p. 9
From her exile in France, Mireille accepts the pr
tions of marriage with Ousmane; namely, that she
to Islam. In a letter to her fiancé she expresses her
"L'habit religieux que tu me proposes ne me va pa
que celui dont tu exiges l'abandon. Mais je l'endoss
enthousiasme. Ne magnifie pas mon geste. ... Il n'
la logique d'un processus déjà déclenché, avant not
contre" (Bâ, Chant, p. 64). Seeing her decision as t
sult of careful thought, she goes on to announce the
intends to live her life as Ousmane's spouse, true to h
not dependent upon the authority of African traditi
Je suis décidé de rester Moi pour l'essentiel, pour les val
auxquelles je crois, pour les vérités qui m'éclairent. ... Je
peux donc moi aussi t'apporter en guise de dot une liste de r
noncements. Je ne serai pas malléable, épousant toutes le
formes de l'Afrique. . . . Chaque être est condamné à vivre so
expérience propre. Je souhaite la mienne réussie. Je suis
Amour et Volonté, (p. 64)

Clearly Mireille has weighed the situation carefully, taking

into account her inner voice as well as the voices of others.
Confident of her ability to make her way in the world, she
articulates her position with idealism tempered by
pragmatism.
Her procedural orientation to knowing, however, proves
to be her undoing. Once back in Senegal with Ousmane as
husband, Mireille shows to what extent she rejects the
forms and traditions of Africa. With her apartment fur-
nished as an island of French culture in a sea of African
savagery, with meals strictly following European patterns of
etiquette and food preparation, and with her vociferous
preference for quiet and orderly social gatherings, Mireille

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38 Glenn W. Fetzer

forcefully asserts her will not t

for Ousmane, we read "Les méth
ganisation, ses clivages qui classaient et déclassaient
l'agaçaient" (p. 143). Ousmane understands and accepts his
wife's culture and wonders why she has no inclination to
meet him in his.
As Mireille's alienation from African society grows, so
does the realization that her true self remains incomplete.
Although she has heard herself speak with different voices,
she yearns for a voice which is more integrated, a voice of
belonging. Abandoned by Ousmane for a woman of his own
race, Mireille deeply feels her misery. The very presence of
her son, Gorgui, the child whom Yaye Khady calls
"Gnouloule Khessoule" - "Ni noir, ni clair" (p. 244) - repre-
sents for Mireille her own isolation, an isolation she cannot
escape. Just as only death will free Gorgui from prejudice
and alienation, so will confinement to a mental hospital in
France prove to be the only outcome of the oppression
which Mireille endures.
Mireille's initial strength in operating within a procedural
framework is attenuated by her overdependence on the ra-
tional structure she inhabits. Having chosen for herself
perimeters of taste, acceptable traditions, and family rela-
tionships, she is unable to function beyond those limits.
This inability to move out of procedural knowing is identi-
fied by Belenky and others as a common weakness of proce-
dural thinkers. Convinced of the primacy of the rational,
women who continue to ignore the role of logically unjustifi-
able institutions in uncovering truth inevitably fall short (as
does Mireille) of finding an integrated self (Belenky, p.
129).
The experience of Ramatoulaye and of Aîssatou from
Une Si Longue lettre demonstrates the successful move
from procedural thinking to the fifth category identified by
Belenky et al., that of constructed knowledge. This is the
position in which women accept reason and intuition and
the influence of others as integral components of knowing

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 The Novels of Mariama Ba 39

(p. 133). Women at this stage incorporate subjecti

objective strategies of knowing with the result th
successfully reclaim the integrated self. Reflective an
nizant of the world around them, these women ha
found to be aware of their own inner struggles an
tively seek to balance the extremes in their lives.
motivated to conscientiously find her own voice
which the authors of Women's Ways of Knowing d
as "her own way of expressing what she [knows] and
about" (p. 133).
Throughout its lengthy epistolary form, Une Si
lettre reflects Ramatoulaye's developing conscious
many ways letter-writing appears to provide her w
therapeutic tools needed for self-realization. Memo
her upbringing, her friendships, her teacher-train
courtship and marriage with Modou Fall serve to c
within her the choices she makes - choices based on both
reason and emotion. The pain caused her by Modou's dis-
affection from the family unit, the initial bitterness she ex-
periences in acknowledging the young, superficial Binetou
as her co-wife, the resignation she expresses in actively re-
jecting offers of remarriage, and the responsibility she feels
in guiding her children to adulthood - all demonstrate a
conscious weaving together of the rational and the emotive.
"Mon coeur est en fête chaque fois qu'une femme émerge
de l'ombre," she writes near the end of her lengthy letter
(p. 129). And so it is that her heart can rejoice each time a
woman realizes self-fulfillment only because she herself has
achieved that point. Critical of the polygamous structure
which suppresses the personhood of women, Ramatoulaye
explains the ways by which she perceives truth:
Mes réflexions me déterminent sur les problèmes de la vie.
J'analyse les décisions qui orientent notre devenir. J'élargis
mon opinion en pénétrant l'actualité mondiale. Je reste per-
suadée de l'inévitable et nécessaire complémentarité de l'homme
et de la femme, (p. 129)

Although constructivist women are those who have found

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40 Glenn W. Fetzer

a voice, they realize that the path

are many and personal (Belenk
one does not necessarily work
was not the first woman in her circle of friends to suffer
marital rupture. Her best friend and addressee of the letter
she is writing, Aîssatou, had gone through that experience
years earlier and had responded by divorcing her husband,
moving to France to study, and then creating a life for her-
self as a translator in Washington, D.C. The example for
Aîsatou encourages Ramatoulaye in her struggle and repre-
sents for her the conviction that finding one's place in the
world arises from deliberate actions tailored to one's indi-
vidual experience.
Unlike at the other positions, at the constructivist stage
there is a capacity to understand another person and to fos-
ter growth in that person. Aîssatou, whom we learn came
to grips long ago with her own self, attends to Ramatoulaye
in her development. From her long-standing friendship,
her letters of support, and her material gift of a car to ease
Ramatoulaye's burden, Aîssatou shows herself to be instru-
mental in her friend's emerging concept of self. From her
own secured place in the world, the constructive knower
Aîssatou assists Ramatoulaye to discover her own way of
expressing what she knows and cares for.
The main women characters in Mariama Bâ's fiction have
in common a preoccupation with finding a voice. Ramatou-
laye and Aîssatou, alienated by polygamy; and Mireille, os-
tracized by prejudice against interracial marriage, all seek
liberation from their oppression and affirmation of their
true selves. However, the success or failure of each charac-
ter in her quest depends not so much upon the choices
made in pursuing that quest as upon the ways in which
each perceives reality and demonstrates her manner of
knowing.
Within the epistemological framework provided by
Women's Ways of Knowing, we may conclude that the pro-
tagonists in Une Si Longue lettre succeed primarily be-

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 The Novels of Mariama Ba 41

cause the perspective from which they view know

flects a totally integrated stage of development. O
other hand, we may attribute the tragic demise of
in Un Chant écarlate to her inability to progress
procedural type of knowing.
The novels of Mariama Bâ continue to have wide-reach-
ing appeal. Literature by an African woman about African
women, her novels develop themes common to all cul-
tures - themes of love, happiness, choice, and self «expres-
sion. But beyond these universal concepts, her fiction also
reflects diverse ways of looking at the world - ways of know-
ing which underscore the ever-present question of voice.
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Michigan

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