So Long a Letter Essay | Critical Essay #9

So Long a Letter Critical Essay #9

Now, my way of bringing together class strati- fication and commitment to female freedom might be viewed as a contradiction which, indeed, it could be but is not. Ramatoulaye's feminism as an expression of freedom constitutues only a partial aspect of the total reality of African life. Femininity is the virtue of the traditionalist; feminism, the veneer of the progressive striving to become a man. The latter feels insecure, unfulfilled, incomplete. Colonialism has taught her the lessons of civilization. Equality. Emancipation. Independence. In short, the African woman has a right to enjoy the privileges of the man who is now the new master. Like the man, the feminist lives on borrowed training and thoughts. But the questions remain: what is freedom in decolonized Africa? Is African literature as a whole truly de-colonized from a borrowed life, a borrowed language? We may recall that the French language continues to give the...
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