So Long a Letter: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

Not long after, Ramatoulaye is interrupted during her evening prayers when her two sons, Alioune and Malick, come home injured and crying, a group of friends in tow. Malick’s arm looks broken. The children explain that while they were playing soccer in the street, a man on a motorcycle ran over a group of them. They bring the motorcyclist, whom they have beaten up, before Ramatoulaye. He apologizes to her, explaining that he did not expect the boys to be playing in the street, and failed to stop before hitting them. To her sons’ surprise, Ramatoulaye takes the side of the motorcyclist, chastising her children and telling them they shouldn’t have been playing in the street to begin with. Malick’s broken arm is treated by Mawdo at the hospital.

Ramatoulaye segues into discussing her daughter Aissatou, her friend Aissatou’s namesake. Aissatou has become pregnant out of wedlock. Ramatoulaye recounts how she learned of this development. Aissatou had begun to show some signs of pregnancy—she had lost weight, her breasts were swelling, and she was suffering from morning sickness—but Ramatoulaye brushed these signs off as coincidences. However, Farmata, Ramatoulaye’s griot neighbor, insisted otherwise, until finally Farmata herself confronted Aissatou, learned the truth, and brought her before Ramatoulaye to explain herself.

Aissatou II tearfully explains that the father is Ibrahima Sall, a law student that she has been dating and, in fact, loves. Ramatoulaye is at first angry—how could her daughter do something so careless, and so soon after Modou’s death? However, swallowing her anger and remembering how her daughters supported her in her distress, Ramatoulaye decides to embrace Aissatou with open arms and confront the situation with optimism. Farmata, who expected Ramatoulaye to put on a more angry, indignant display, is hugely disappointed.