النص

Mariama Bâ's So Long A Letter: Female Epistolary Voice Between Resistance And Identity Conquest

Auteurs : Zeghib Nardjas .

Résumé

This study offers an in-depth analysis of the epistolary genre as an instrument of female emancipation in So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ. Through a multidisciplinary approach combining sociocriticism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Philippe Hamon's character theory, we demonstrate how epistolary writing enables the Senegalese author to construct a space of resistance to patriarchal norms. Ramatoulaye's letter to Aïssatou becomes a cathartic act where personal introspection, denunciation of oppressive social structures, and identity quest articulate themselves. The analysis reveals that the epistolary device transcends its narrative function to become a tool of symbolic liberation, allowing female characters to negotiate their place between tradition and modernity in postcolonial Senegal. This research contributes to African feminist studies by demonstrating the specificity of female emancipation which, in Bâ's work, does not proceed through radical rupture but through critical reappropriation of cultural heritages.

Mots clés

epistolary novel ; female emancipation ; Senegalese literature ; patriarchy ; literary psychoanalysis ; sociocriticism