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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in So Long a Letter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Custom, Modernity, and Progress
Feminism and Islam
Motherhood
Friendship vs. Marital Love
Dialogue and Address
Summary
Analysis
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 disadvantage 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 societal disadvantage, reflects her own brand of stoic feminism.
Themes
