Alone again with her thoughts, Ramatoulaye becomes distressed. She wonders what could have possibly caused Modou to abandon her, not to mention their twelve children, in order to marry the 17 year old Binetou. Ramatoulaye compares her fate to that of the blind, disabled, and destitute, asking how those in worse situations than hers find strength, moral fortitude and even heroism in their disadvantage and distress.
Like the blind and the disabled, Ramatoulaye’s position of social disadvantages has everything to do with the circumstances of her birth and nothing to do with her character. Her assertion that the blind can still act heroically in quiet ways, within the confines of their social disadvantage, reflects her own brand of stoic feminism.
Ramatoulaye recalls meeting Modou for the first time, while on a trip to a teacher’s training college with Aissatou. Addressing Modou directly, in the second person, she remembers him asking her to dance and their ensuing romance, which endured even after Modou went off to study law in France-Modou, she explains, felt homesick and lonely the whole time he was there, and wrote to her often.
Modou’s dissatisfaction in France illustrates a conundrum that then faced the educated in Senegal: most pathways to higher education also demanded assimilation to French culture-that is, the culture of the colonizer and oppressor. Separately, Ramatoulaye’s use of direct address illustrates her continued feelings of intimacy towards Modou, even after estrangement and death have separated them.
Ramatoulaye remembers wit fondness her and Aissatou’s French-wich is to say, white-school teacher. ALl of her students came from different cultures within French West Africa, and she treated them all equally and instilled universal moral values in them, lifting them out of the “bog of tradition, superstition, and custom”
The acceptance offered to Ramatoulaye by her school teacher stands in contrast to the alienation Modou felt in France. Ramatoulaye’s admiration for the teacher demostrates a certain optimism-a faith that education and progress do not include the indignity and erasure of forced assimilation into the culture of the oppressor.
Ramatoulaye shifts her attention to Aissatou’s controversial engagement to Mawdo. Aissatou is of modest birth-her farther is a goldsmith-while Mawdo is nobility, his mother a “princess of the sine”. In the eyes of tradition it was a total mismatch, and at the time of the engagement everyone in town gossiped angrily about the scandal.
The widespread shock in response to the engagement demonstrates just how strong a grip custom has over social relations in Senegal, or at least parts of the country that Ba describes.
Ramatoulaye and Aissatou marry their finances around the same time, and together they endure the joys and frustrations of their new marital life. Ramatoulaye is pestered constantly by her mother in law and sister in law, who day after day drop in unannounced and abuse her hospitality. She is also exaperated to discover that despite her professional life as a teacher, and despite the help of a few maids, the brunt of household duties still fall to her. For Aissatou’s part, her family in law does not respect her and barely acknowledges her existence.
Modou’s family’s careless treatment of Ramatoulaye is a form of objectification-in their eyes she is little more than a provider of service. Even her professional success cannot save her from the role assigned to her by custom. Ramatoulaye and Aissatou’s friendship provide them with an escape, however, with their spouses and in laws they endure their oppression silently, but with each other they can express their frustration openly.
Modou rises to the top ranks of the trade union for which he works, meanwhile, Senegal is in the midst of achieving its independence. Debate over the right path forward-how best to shed the history of colonial exploitation and bring a new republic into being-grips the country. Ramatoulaye sees her generation as occupying a privileged but difficult position between two distinct eras. Modou leads his trade union into collaboration with the government. He is skeptical however, of the hasty establishment of too many embassies, which he sees as an unnecessary drain on Senegal’s precious resources.
While admitting that she must be opeining old wounds for her friend, Ramatoulaye proceeds to describe the breakup of Aissatou’s marriage. She explains that Mawdo’s mother, Aissatou’s “Aunty Nabou,” simply could not accept that her son had married a woman of low birth. Nabou resolves to visit her brother.
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