55 pages • 1 hour read
Mariama BaSo Long a Letter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 11-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 11-12 Summary
Mawdo’s mother, known to the girls as Aunty Nabou, is a traditional woman who “clung to old beliefs” (26). She is descended from kings and queens, and so believes Aissatou is beneath her. One day, Aunty Nabou travels to Diakho, her ancestral home. There, she prays at the tombs of her dead ancestors and vows that Aissatou will be driven from her house. She receives a royal welcome from the other village inhabitants, including her brother, Farba Diouf. She asks him to give her a child to care for, someone who might care for her in her old age. Farba Diouf gives her his own daughter, also called Nabou. The two Nabous, young and old, return to Mawdo’s home.
Aunty Nabou raises young Nabou in a strict, traditional home. Young Nabou attends the local French school, but also learns traditional homemaking skills and is constantly reminded of her “royal origin” (30). As she grows into a teenager, she is sent to become a midwife, one of the few feminine occupations that Aunty Nabou, who believes “a woman does not need too much education” (30), approves of. One day, Aunty Nabou goes to her son and informs him that she has raised young Nabou to be his second wife. She threatens him with family shame if he rejects the young girl. The whole town hears of this arrangement, even Rama, but no one tells Aissatou. Finally, Mawdo gathers his courage and tells Aissatou that he must take the girl as his wife, or his mother will suffer. Aissatou will stay in her home, he promises, and young Nabou will continue to live with Aunty Nabou. Though Aissatou is pressured by those around her not to make a fuss, she takes a stand. She leaves Mawdo, writing him a dignified note explaining her decision and taking her four sons with her.
Her departure shakes Mawdo to his core. He complains that young Nabou gives away his goods and his family has overtaken his life, but nonetheless has children by the young girl. He asks Rama about Aissatou and his sons, but she refuses to tell him anything. Finally, Aissatou emigrates, leaving Senegal forever.
Chapters 11-12 Analysis
The novel’s first section introduces several concepts that are vital to the plot, particularly the relationship between the past and the present in Senegal. The story itself begins in the present before flashing back to the past, and it is clear that Rama’s happiest memories are from her early adulthood. This is when she forms a strong bond with Aissatou, meets Modou, her future husband, and embarks on her own career as a teacher. Yet, in the present, Aissatou has immigrated to America, Rama is in ritual seclusion, and Modou is dead. Ba frequently compares and contrasts present and past, and the characters’ desire to live in the past, present, or future illuminates their character.
Mawdo’s mother, Aunty Nabou, is a prime example of a character who chooses to live in the past. The lonely, widowed daughter of a once-royal family, she thinks of herself still as a child of privilege. Mawdo’s decision to marry a goldsmith’s daughter strikes her carefully constructed self-image to the core, and so Aunty Nabou sets about constructing a new reality for herself. She travels to her home village, happy to be immersed in what is familiar. She adopts a young girl, whom she names after herself and raises to be Mawdo’s wife. Aunty Nabou uses the child as a surrogate for herself, in a mean-spirited and ultimately successful bid to recreate her past. Though Rama’s happiest times were also in the past, she, unlike Aunty Nabou, refuses to remain there. Rama uses her memories, she tells Aissatou, as a way of comforting herself during her period of isolation. Yet, even in Rama’s darkest moments, we see her determination to continue, to move into the future. She worries about the division of Modou’s estate. She creates a new, unconventional life for herself when abandoned by her husband. Later on, she will plan for her children’s’ futures and Aissatou’s visit. While both Aunty Nabou and Rama find comfort in their pasts, only Aunty Nabou is unable to see the future in front of her.
