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 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 25-27 Summary
Rama meets Iba, the father of her future grandchild, and is pleased to see that he is an attractive, patient, and kind man. Rama tells him of her fear: because her daughter is pregnant, she will be expelled from university. Iba suggests that because the baby will be born over the holidays, young Aissatou can dress in loose clothing for the spring semester, after which she will graduate and the couple will marry. Iba is a man, and therefore in no danger of expulsion, which strikes Rama as horribly unfair.
As time passes, Iba visits the house every day, spending time with Rama and her family and encouraging his future wife in her studies. Rama realizes that her lack of candor with her older daughters may have contributed to Aissatou’s pregnancy, and vows not to make the same mistake with her younger daughters. She gathers them together and explains the nature of sex and the importance of birth control. They accept the information uneasily, and Rama realizes that they may already have known.
Rama prepares to finish her letter. Aissatou, her oldest and dearest friend, will be arriving the next day. Preparations are underway, and Rama is filled with excitement. She wonders whether she will see Aissatou in traditional clothing, or in a Western, tailored suit. Will Aissatou want to eat Western-style as well, with a table and cutlery? Well, Rama will not allow that. She will spread out the mat and bring bowls meant for eating with one’s hands. “Too bad for me,” she says, “if once again I have to write you so long a letter…” (95).
Chapters 21-27 Analysis
In the novel’s final section, the focus switches from Aissatou and Rama’s failed marriages and onto Rama’s children—particularly her daughters. Rama is the mother of twelve children, and her younger daughters are just now becoming women. Their coming of age fills Rama with both a sense of hope and of dread. In a rapidly evolving Senegal, there are some changes Rama approves of, or at least finds non-objectionable. Her daughters prefer pants to skirts, go the movies, and have mixed-gender social outings, and Rama allows this. However, she is mystified by their nicotine addictions. In this section, Rama struggles with where she fits in to this new Senegal. In years past, she saw herself and Aissatou as pioneers, as rebels, for pursuing their education and demanding their rights. But her daughters have moved far beyond her small rebellions, and she sees herself increasingly as a “stick-in-the-mud” (81). In this section, Ba manages to show the full arc of Rama’s journey: she has come so far and defied so much of what she was taught, and yet, progress has overtaken her.
One of the most shocking developments in Rama’s home life is the pregnancy of her teenage daughter, Aissatou. When Rama envelops her terrified, ashamed daughter in her arms, she once again places what she knows to be right above societal expectation or religious doctrine. Just as she did when she threw the three men out of her house, just as she did when she rejected Daouda Dieng, Rama allows her “pagan revolt and primitive tenderness” (88) to shape her choices, rather than outside forces or fear of judgment. And yet, despite all the ways Rama resists convention and forges her own path, she remains deeply connected to her roots. Her friendship with Aissatou is strong, despite years of separation. And now that Aissatou is finally coming to visit, Rama lays down her ground rules: they will eat like Senegalese women, without cutlery or dining chairs. Here, Ba makes it clear that Rama’s self is inextricably tied to her nationality and her culture, and it is this, coupled with their devotion to each other, that has ultimately bound Rama and Aissatou in a life-long friendship
