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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

The Portrayal of Woman
in the Works of Francophone Women Writers
from West Africa and the French Caribbean

presented by
Elizabeth Ann Wilson
has been accepted towards fulfillment

of the requirements for

Ph.D. degree in French

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THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMAN IN THE WORKS OF FRANCOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS
FROM WEST AFRICA AND THE FRENCH CARIBBEAN

By

Elizabeth Ann Wilson

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Romance Languages

1985

Copyright by
ELIZABETH ANN WILSON
1985

ABSTRACT

THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMAN IN THE WORKS OF FRANCOPHONE HOMEN WRITERS
FROM NEST AFRICA AND THE FRENCH CARIBBEAN

By
Elizabeth Ann Wilson

This study looks at the works of women writers from countries in
West Africa where French is the official language and from the French

Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, departements of France

 

since 1946. It focuses in particular on the way in which these writers
portray female characters and the feminine condition in their societies.
The image of the woman is examined in the following contexts: the Afri-
can woman at home; the West Indian woman in the French Caribbean; the

black woman, African and Antillaise, in Europe, and the West Indian in

 

Africa.

In both literatures the socio-historical context significantly in-
fluences the way women define themselves. As recently as the early
seventies the portrait of the woman in African literature was exclusive-
ly the creation of male writers. However, in the past ten years several
West African women writers, notably from Senegal, have been published.
In most cases their writing takes the form of autobiographical
narratives. The image of woman presented in these works is generally a
positive one. The African woman is shown as rooted in a rich cultural
heritage of which she is justly proud and as grappling successfully with
the stresses and problems of adapting to a changing society. She seeks
fulfillment in particular in terms of her relationships, including the

conjugal relationship--at times a source of friction and distress.

The West Indian works, too, are mainly autobiographical in struc-

ture. The question of assimilation plays a crucial role. The Antillaise

 

is depicted as a déracinée, exiled from herself and from her society.
Her solution is flight. She attempts to deal with her alienation by
making abortive journeys to France and to Africa. Although the settings
are different her conflict remains unresolved. Finally, except in rare
cases, she resigns herself to exile or seeks escape in dream, madness,
or suicide.

Secure at home in France the African woman, like her Antillaise

 

sister, finds she is a victim of prejudice, reification and rejection.
She too becomes exiled, but fortunately she can seek comfort in a return

to her ancestral homeland, an option denied her West Indian sister.

For Don, Karin, Tim, Steve, and Mark

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to Professor
Georges Joyaux, who directed my work, to Professors Ann Tukey Harrison
and Kenneth Harrow who offered invaluable help at each of its stages,
and to Professor Linda Beard, who generously agreed at very short notice
to be the outside reader. I would also like to thank Maryse Condé for
her encouragement and helpful suggestions, the countless friends who
gave me understanding and support, in particular Kate and Frank Dennis,
Nada Learned, Vicki Kingsbury, Melody Pierce, Margaret McNiven and
Robert Henry. Finally my thanks go to my husband and family whose love

and sacrifices made this dissertation possible.

iv

(6,!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IntrOdUCtion O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter One
“L'Africaine”: The Woman in African Society--
POSitive Images 0 O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter Two
“L'Evoluée”: The Woman in African Society--
Negative Aspects O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter Three
"L'Antillaise": Women in French Caribbean Literature . . . .

Chapter Four
”L'Europe révée, l'Europe réelle; l'Afrique révée,
L'Afrique réelle": The Black Woman in Europe, The Antillaise
in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

conC] "$10" 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O 0

Bibliography 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O C O O O O O O O 0

Appendix 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

15

56

88

131
174
187
196

Introduction

This study looks at the works of women writers from countries in
West Africa where French is the official language or the language of
instruction and from the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and

Guadeloupe, départements of France since 1946. It focuses in particular

 

on the way in which these writers portray female characters and the
feminine condition in their societies.

The first two sections deal with African novels, all published since
1970, most of which are relatively unknown and therefore not readily
accessible. It is hoped that this study will provide an introduction
both to the writers and to their work. To this end the novels have been
discussed in some detail though not losing sight of the central
interest: that of the woman and feminine consciousness.

The third section discusses the works of women writers from the
Caribbean as they relate to the situation of woman in Caribbean society
over the last fifty years. Women's writing in the French Caribbean is a
rich and largely neglected area of West Indian fiction. Many of these
novels have been in print for over twenty years, some considerably
longer; yet few have been widely read, discussed or written about, and
only recently have English translations begun to appear. For purposes of
comparison the novels discussed are restricted to works dealing with the
French Antilles, which, like the West African francophone countries,

were until relatively recently under French colonial rule, although many

parallels and similarities in themes are to be found in Haitian women's
novels.

The final section is concerned with works by both Caribbean and
African women authors which deal with the black woman in Europe and

novels by West Indian women whose central character is the Antillaise

 

living in an African society. Both these groups of novels depict the
woman as being in a situation of exile.

In a study concerned with women's writing, particularly Third World
women's writing several questions arise concerning both content and
form. Because the works are at once women's fiction as well as African
or Caribbean novels, some of the assumptions underlying this study have
to do with feminist as well as sociological criticisms, with the nature
of the African and Caribbean novel as well as women's writing itself.

It is an established fact that literature by women has been
neglected. The fact that women's writing is important and worth studying
seriously, not only for women but for the male as well, is by no means
generally acknowledged in literary circles, long and still the domain of
male critics. Female critics suggest that this is perhaps largely due to
the fact that the spheres traditionally of interest to women, the
“private and personal“ rather than the ”wider domain of political
history," have so far been considered marginal by men; hence women's
texts have never been looked upon as worthy of serious consideration.1
In an important article, "Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observa-
tions on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of Feminist Literary
Criticism," Annette Kolodny suggests “three crucial propositions" which
could usefully be considered in the area of women's writing and lead to

a re-vitalization of certain aspects of literary criticism:

(1) literary history (and with that, the historicity of
literature) is a fiction; (2) insofar as we are taught how to
read, what we engage are not texts but paradigms; and finally,
(3) since the grounds upon which we assign aesthetic value to
texts are never infallible, unchangeable or universal, we must
reexamine not only our aesthetics but, as well, the inherent
biases and assumptions informing thezcritical methods which (in
part) shape our aesthetic responses.

She further argues that the reader (and male critic) who has never
become acquainted with either the “unique literary traditions“ or
“sex-related“ contexts--"historically, the lying-in-room, the parlor,
the nursery, the kitchen, the laundry, and so-on - ...“--out of which
female authors write,

will necessarily lack the capacity to fully interpret the
dialogue or action embedded therein; for, as every good
novelist knows, the meaning of any character's action or
statement is inescapabl§ a function of the specific situation
in which it is embedded.
Kolodny examines the relationship of male critic and female text and
shows the problems which arise when we forget (i) that established
literacy canons are ”of our own making,“ (ii) that they can and need to
be constantly re-evaluated, and (iii) that they cannot necessarily be
applied universally and indiscriminately in all contexts and traditions.
These are exactly the points made by Chinweizu and his co-authors about
the problems which arise when a European or non-African critic (or an
African critic with a “eurocentric' view of literature) attempts to
discuss African literature.4 Interesting parallels exist for example in
the “so-called 'problem' of space and time in the African novel“ as
treated by Charles Larson and other “universalist” critics, discussed

5 and similar criticisms of female

and criticized by Chinweizu,
autobiographical narratives seen by some critics as being 'formless“ or

lacking in coherence.6 Both “problems“ are shown to have arisen from the

critic's misreading/misunderstanding of the author's intent and choice
of literary mode.7 To quote and paraphrase Kolodny, 'men (or in the case
of African literature, non-Africans) will be better readers or
appreciators of women's books (African novels) when they have read more
of them."8
Kolodny speaks of "a growing emphasis in feminist literary study on
the fact of literature as a social institution, embedded not only within
its own literary traditions but also within the particular physical and
mental artifacts of the society from which it comes,“9 and makes the
point that feminist critics argue that “the power relations inscribed in
the form of conventions within our literary inheritance . . . . reify
the encodings of those same power relations in the culture at large."10
The same holds true for much of African literary criticism in its
present form. As Chinweizu puts it:
...because literary forms are socio-historical cultural
products, they, as well as the terms for evaluating
performances guided by them, do tend 53 vary from society to
society and even from period to period.
Basically Chinweizu does not question the statements Larson (or
other eurocentric critics) make about African literature. He does not

dispute that their judgements are “objectively“ true from their
standpoint, but he claims, justifiably, that their standpoint is not the

 

valid stance from which to judge African literature. Chinweizu suggests
that the success or adequacy of a story (its plot, characterization,
structure, etc.) depends upon its purpose, its context and upon what its
primary audience accepts as “normal or proper.“ He states explicitly
that African writers must be judged by African readers and then “the

objections of Westerners, with their alien sensibilities won't

"12 Feminist critics would no doubt share Chinweizu's sentiments

matter.
(substituting “sexist“ for “racist,“ “chauvinist” for "imperialist“ and
"female" for “African“:
With time and effort and a sloughing off of ‘their racist
superiority complexes and imperialist arrogance, they
[non-african-centred] critics might acquire a taste for
whatever (.....) African writlefs and their African audiences
establish as the African norm.

Happily, given the difficulties involved, this study is not
primarily concerned with, and will not attempt to establish, the
literary or aesthetic value of the texts, but rather to examine the view
of woman as it emerges in the fiction. Nevertheless it can be said that
these works by and large “deal illuminatingly and well with matters of
central importance"14 for women of their time and their society. The
novels and prose works included do illuminate and deal (more or less)
well with matters of central importance for African and Afro-Caribbean
women: their past, their history and heritage, their aspirations,
position and roles in the society and, of central importance, their
relationships with others and with themselves.

The majority of the works are autobiographies, fictional or real, or
genres related to the autobiographical form: letters, diary, etc.
Caribbean and African women have played an‘ important part in the
building and survival of their societies and cultures. Yet they have not
so far had much of" a chance, especially African women, to reveal
themselves in writing, to "se raconter.“ Barbara Smith, quoting Alice
Walker, points out how the "political, economic and social restrictions
of slavery and racism have historically stunted the creative lives of

«15

Black women. For historical and cultural reasons African women also

have turned to creative writing only very recently. Thus it is fitting,

as well as natural, that this literature, new and young in its public
form, should begin with women telling their own stories. Feminist
critics have been particularly concerned with the problems of language
and the inadequacy of the system as we know it to articulate the female
self.16 This problem is given added dimensions in the case of Third
World women writing in the language of the former colonizers. Their
texts can indeed be said to tell us about "how we live, how we have been
living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves [and] how our language
has trapped as well as liberated us.“17

The Franc0phone West African or Caribbean woman writer can be seen
in terms of her language as an “assimilée,” a term which originated in
the French colonial policy and which is still in current usage in
historical and sociological writing. The works are often written in
French, which for most of the writers is likely to be a second language,
acquired very early. French-speaking Africans are bilingual in French
and at least one African language--French West Indians in French and
Martinican or Guadeloupean Creole. Certain difficulties arise for the
writers in terms of translating into standard French their familiar,
everyday realities often experienced primarily in their first language,
Wolof or Martinican Creole for example. This difficulty is sometimes
overcome by using images, proverbs, expressions, references to flora,
fauna, articles of clothing, food, etc., from the native culture and
translating them into French. Simone Schwarz-Bart, for example, is par-
ticularly successful at rendering the Creole voice in standard French.
At other times when translation is inadequate or impossible the original
Wolof or Creole word is used in the text, with perhaps an equivalent or

explanation in French offered within the text or in the notes.

West African societies have traditions, histories and a cultural
heritage which are rich, ancient and deeply' embedded. Although her
French education and a rapidly changing social structure (h) create
conflict and present the educated woman with certain problems, for most
of the women in these works their culture, religion and family heritage
are a source of pride and they are firmly anchored in their traditions
even while recognizing the need and importance of adaptability and
change. Several of the novels are set in Senegal, a country deeply
marked by the influence of Islam which Madubuike, in his study of the
Senegalese novel, describes as “one of the key elements providing

resistance to assimilation and change."18

Madubuike's study shows that
from evidence in the Senegalese (male) novel in general “there is far
less assimilation in Senegalese society than is generally thought" and
that whereas some institutions, for example, within the political
structure, education and the economic system, are “more acculturated,“
in other areas the politics of assimilation continues to meet with great
resistance; consequently, in such areas as family structure, marriage,
religion, language, dress which are “less acculturated“ traditional

patterns largely prevail.19

These last areas being more private and
personal and of greater central concern to the individual this finding
is especially significant in terms of the actual degree of assimilation.
This is particularly important in the case of women whose lives (and
works) are dominated by their private and personal worlds. The female
West African novel of French expression tends to bear out this finding.
In most cases the women are deeply attached to their traditional

culture. However, for some, it is a source of friction and even

distress. This is particularly the case in the area of male/female

relationships as explored in the novels of Ba and Fall.

The position of woman in West African societies is extremely complex
and easily misunderstood if looked at from a Western viewpoint. In
Senegalese society, for example, and in Islamic cultures in general
(Senegal is 80% Moslem), women and men have clearly defined and separate
roles, codes of behavior, etc., and are (judged by and expected to
conform to these standards. As Madubuike's work shows, at the private
level the degree of acculturation is far less than in public domains. In
many ways this is desirable and as it should be. However, some women in
the novels find that it is difficult to reconcile 'Westernized or
“educated" (sometimes both terms are synonymous) ideas and consequent
aspirations and behavior with traditional norms for women's roles and
expectations, especially when tradition is conveniently used as a
pretext for selfish, personal ends. This is doubtless a minority view--
the creative artist is often the first to question-~but nonetheless one
presented in the literature and a valid one.20

Sonia Lee, in her study on “The Image of the Woman in the Novels of
Western Africa of French Expression“ (all male writers) states that
these authors were very sympathetic to the problems of the African woman
in the contemporary world, but she found that "les sentiments des
écrivains s'ils sont pour ainsi dire unanimes quant a la femme en tant
que mére, se chargent parfois d'ambiguité lorsqu'il s'agit de considérer
ou plutot de reconsidérer le r61e de la femme dans la société

“21 She also found that in masculine African writing:

contemporaine.
...l'image de la femme est toujours un reflet de son r6le, et
qu'elle n'existe qu'en fonction de ce dernier. De ce fait,
l'image de la femme est en méme temps sociologique et
stéréotypée. De plus, le personnage féminin, a traverszzson
rfile, sert généralement de véhicule aux idées de l'auteur.

In the case of both Caribbean and African women‘s writing, the image of
the woman we have found is, as is to be expected, much more individual-
ized. Moreover, the authors' central concern and focus is the woman
herself. Her traditional r6le is examined and sometimes questioned and
the woman is depicted in a variety of rfiles and settings.

Whereas the African woman sees herself in terms of a firmly estab-
lished tradition, evolving and looking to a future, not without prob-
lems, but full of possibilities, the West Indian woman is presented as
being in a very difficult situation. She is far more pessimistic in many
cases than her African sister. The educated woman especially is alien-
ated and full of complexes. West Indian society was born of the slave
trade. Maryse Condé points out that West Indians have no "mythes
d'origine" as African nations generally do: “Il n'y a pas d'ancétre

..23

fondateur, il n'y a qu'un vaisseau négrier. Because of her particular

historical and cultural reality the Antillaise is torn and haunted by a

 

sense of rootlessness and lack of coherent identity as is her male
counterpart. Discussing the situation in the Caribbean, Condé points out
its complexities:

Finalement, les Antilles sont des creations totalement
artificielles du systéme capitaliste. Le paradoxe, c'est qu'en
fin de compte, né d'une création vraiment artificielle, le
peuple antillais existe. Mais si l'on regarde sa genése on
comprend que ses problémes soient complexes.

The sections dealing with the French Caribbean femme de couleur look at

 

these complex problems and her attempts to come to terms, transcend or
escape them.

The novel form or extended prose narrative has been chosen because
in both the case of Caribbean and African societies it is grounded in

its social context and offers a rewarding vehicle for examining the role

10

and condition of woman. In all the works chosen the main personae are
women. In addition, both the Caribbean and the African novel can be
described as “realistic,“ in the sense that both attempt to represent
accurately and faithfully the authors' vision of existing social
realities of their societies. Maryse Condé says of West Indian woman
writers: "Les romanciéres rendent compte des situations, du vécu des

“25

comunautés, and in An Introduction to the French Caribbean Novel,

 

Ormerod sees the novels as an attempt to represent fictionally

a particular personal vision of the Caribbean social context.
This personal vision may not correspond with that of the
reader; but in every case, the novelist has endeavoured through
metaphor and analogy to communicate to a disparate public the
stgengtg6 and validity of his or her perception of the West
In ies.

Moeroever, in the case of the African (here Senegalese) novel Madubuike
concludes that “the Senegalese novel does not necessarily distort
reality,” and that
the fictional presentations of social realities complement
rather than contradict the observations of sociologists and
essayists (Ml the same subject matter. Indeed, the realign of
the Senegalese nogel lies in the fact that it could be compared
to daily reality.

In Towards a Sociology of the Novel, Lucien Goldmann sees the novel

 

form as the literary transposition of everyday life within a specific

social context.28

This study postulates that interpretations of the self
are greatly influenced by the social context in which they occur.
Literature is among other things a reflection of the ways in which
individuals strive for self-knowledge. This is particularly true (i) of
the autobiographical form and (ii) in a society preoccupied with the
question of identity as Caribbean society is. Roy Pascal points out that

autobiography is “a review of a life from a particular viewpoint in

11

time-~a review in which attention is focused on the self as it interacts

d."29

with the worl In the case of the African novel in general, although

there is also a high incidence of autobiography in African fiction, this

is perhaps less 50.30

Nevertheless, the educated African woman is faced
with many of the same types of dilemma as her West Indian sister,
although her background and reactions are quite different. What she is,
is also to a very large extent a product of her social and historical
context. This study therefore assumes connections between readings of
the self and the society out of which the texts come. The perspective is
at once literary, feminine and West Indian. In the case of both the
Caribbean and African context, but especially as an outsider to West
Africa and therefore particularly conscious of limitations in that area,
attempts have been made as far as possible to inform interpretations and
conclusions drawn from the literature with background reading, but most
of all efforts have been directed to remaining sensitive and faithful to
the authentic voice of the texts.

The view of the woman in francophone West Africa is generally a
positive one. She is presented as being rooted in a rich cultural

heritage of which she is justly proud and as grappling successfully with

the stresses and strains of a fast-changing society. The Antillaise on

 

the other hand is depicted as alienated and exiled from herself and her
society. In her attempts to escape her alienation she makes abortive
journeys to France and to Africa, finally (except in rare cases)
resigning herself to exile or seeking escape in madness or suicide. The

African woman in France, like the Antillaise, is shown to be a victim of

 

prejudice and feelings of rejection. She too is exiled, but fortunately

she can seek comfort in a return to her ancestral homeland. The woman in

12

both Africa and the Caribbean is advocating changes in her society but

in particular she is seeking to come to terms with herself.

13

Notes

 

1 Mary Jean Green, ”Structures of Liberation: Female Experience and
Autobiographical Form in Quebec,“ Yale French Studies, no. 65 (1983), p.
125. Green makes this point and mentions other female critics who hold
this view.

2

ed., The New Feminist Criticign (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), p.
151.

3

4 Chinweizu, Onwuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuike, Toward the

 

 

See Kolodny, p. 155.

Annette Kolodny, "Dancing Through the Mine Field,“ in Showalter, _

 

Decolonization of African Literature, vol. I (Enugu: Fourth Dimension

 

Publishers, 1980). Deborah E. McDowell makes similar points with regard
to black women's writing in New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism"
in Showalter, ed., The New Feminist Criticism (New York: Pantheon Books,
1985). '

5

 

Chinweizu, p. 99.

6 See Green, pp. 125-127.

7 See Kolodny, pp. 153-157 and Chinweizu, pp. 99-111.

8
9

Kolodny, p. 157.

Kolodny, p. 147.

10 Kolodny, p. 147.

11 Chinweizu, p. 98.

12 Chinweizu, p. 123.

13 Chinweizu, pp. 123-124.

14 Chinweizu, p. 195, uses this criterion to describe the success of
Okot p'Bitek's Songs in terms of his contemporary African audience.

15 Alice Walker, “In Search of Our mothers' Gardens", quoted by
Barbara Smith in “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,“ in Showalter
(ed.), The New Feminist Criticism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).

16 See for example Luce Irigaray's "Parler femme.“ In “When our lips
speak together,“ Signs 6, no. 1, 1980, p. 66 and also Elaine Showalter
(ed.), The New Feminist Criticism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).

17
College English 34 (October 1972), quoted by Kolodny, pp. 150-151.

 

 

 

18 Ihechukwu Madubuike, The Senegalese Novel. A Sociological Study of

Adrienne Rich, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,“'

 

the Impact of the Politics of Assimilation (Washington: Three Continents

 

14

Press, 1983), p. 165.

19 See Madubuike, pp. 163-164.

20 Moreover, at the present time Senegal is only about 10% literate,
therefore the number of Senegalese who are “Westernized” is relatively
small.

21 Sonia Lee, "L'Image de la femme dans le roman francophone de
l'Afrique occidentale," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts,
1974, p. 4.

22 Lee, p. 4.

‘23 Jacquey and Hugon, “Entretien avec Maryse Condé,“ Notre Librairie, .
no. 74 (April-June 1974), p. 25.

 

4 Jacquey and Hugon, p. 24.

25 Jacquey and Hugon, p. 25.

26 Ormerod, p. 136.

27 Madubuike, p. 163.

28 Lucien Goldmann, Towards a Sociology of the Novel, trans. Alan
Sheridan (London: Tavistock Publications, 1975), p. 7.

29 Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography, cited by Stephen A. .
Shapiro in “The Dark Continent of Literature: Autfibiograhy.“ Comparative
Literature Studies 5, 1968.

 

 

 

 

30 Chinweizu points out that African novels are often concerned with
the same reality and preoccupations as their “oral antecedents," cf.
Chinweizu pp. 25 ff.

Chapter One
“L'Africaine”

The Woman in African Society--Positive Images

Background

 

In the conclusion to her work on the image of the black woman in
African literature (a work entirely devoted to male writers), Emanci-

Lation féminine et roman africain, Arlette Chemain-Degrange re-states

 

the question which has served to guide her study "...quel r6le l'image
de la femme noire a-t-elle joué dans la littérature africaine? et dans
l'évolution de la société?"1 She concludes that black African literature
is dominated by three types of images or representations of the woman:
“celle de la femne a la peau d‘ébéne et au coeur d'or, orgueil de
l'Afrique; celle de la femme marquee par les souffrances morales ou
physiques de l'esclavage, de la colonisation, des guerres civiles, et
par le surmenage; enfin celle de la travailleuse diligente et active,
force pour l'avenir."2 She notes further that: “Chaque portrait
réapparait périodiquement, selon les besoins de la cause défendue."3

This last remark is significant for it points to the fact that even
in works by novelists and writers like Beti, Oyono and Sembéne who are
sympathetic to the cause of women, the portrait of the woman (like that

of the masculine characters, we must add) is conceived in terms of the

author's thesis, usually a socio—political one. Thus the woman coincides

15

16

with a symbol or a function or plays a specific role in the elaboration
of the author's ideas. The fact is that so far in francophone African
literature: “La fenme noire n'est jamais décrite pour elle-meme.“4 More-
over Chemain-Degrange makes the point that the image of the African
woman in this literature has changed little in the post-independence
era. Independence has not modified the depiction of the woman in the
works of male writers.“En fait, elle demeure identique a ce qu'elle
était précédement. Elle est utilisée selon la méme dichotomie, soit
pour un éloge de la culture négro-africaine ancienne, soit pour l'évoca-
tion de la révolte anti-coloniale."5

This limitation in concept has certain practical literary conse-
quences. First of all, the woman tends to be portrayed only in certain
fixed sets of circumstances. For example, the woman in town is less
often described than her rural counterpart; the education or childhood
of the girl is rarely treated; the problems of the wife or co-wife or
indeed the women in general are barely mentioned except by very few
authors like Beti or Sembéne who are notable exceptions.6 In many cases
the image of the mother, as already mentioned, dominates masculine
portrayals of women. It is generally an idealized portrait, sometimes
coupled with a negative image of a cruel, hated father. Correspondingly,
the portrait of the prostitute is usually seen in the context of an
attack on colonialism or the ills of an increasingly urbanized less
traditional society. Masculine authors tend to describe women and their
behavior but generally do not seek to explore motivation and background.
Even where they do their viewpoint is necessarily that of an outside,
albeit concerned, observer. Conparing the difference in perspective

between Sembéne and Mariama 83 with regard to subjects like woman's

17

liberation, marriage and polygamy, Victor Aire remarks: "Il y a entre
les deux auteurs la méme distance qu'entre le médecin accoucheur et la
parturiente: l'un peut imaginer la douleur de l'autre, mais c'est

“7 Often too the male writer

elle-ci qui la vit dans toutes ces vibres.
betrays the ambivalent attitude towards women conlnon in many African
societies, where there is a dichotomy between the traditional archetypal
image of female pre-eminence (“Mother is Supreme“) and the {actual

8 Thus the

situation of many women, overburdened and subservient to men.

absence of the African woman writer, even more marked in francophone

than ‘Hl anglophone literature, has had serious implications. As Lloyd

Brown points out:
The neglect of the woman as writer in Africa has been an
unfortunate omission because she offers self-images, patterns
of self-analysis, and general insights into the woman's
situation which are ignored by, or are inaccessible to, the
male writer. And these selfAdescriptions provide us with useful
contexts within which to assess the frequently unifonn
generalizations about African womanhood. In other words, the
African woman as writer offers special perspectives which need
to be considered if we are seriously concerned with the
relationship getween African literature and images of the
African woman.

Fortunately, with the emergence of several black francophone women

writers this situation is slowly changing.

The portrayal of the woman in the works of female writers, while
still subject to some of these same limitations, offers, as would be
expected, a much fuller and more nuanced treatment. Many women writers
do not, for example, hold to the shining portraits of themselves
frequently found in some male writers. For one thing the image of the
mother is much less idealized. She is human, flawed, even occasionally
openly criticized for what her daughters see as faults or limitations.

Some mothers are presented as greedy, narrow, self--serving.10 African

18

women writers, while aware of the problems of colonization and
enslavement and conscious of their cultural heritage, are more concerned
with the difficulties which confront the modern African woman in her
day-to-day existence, especially in her relationships with her husband,
but also with her children, friends, sisters and other family members.
Women writers are interested in exploring their pasts, their heritage
and upbringing, not so much as an attempt to glorify Africa, but rather
as a vehicle for understanding the factors which contributed to making
the African woman what she is and especially for helping her to come to
terms with herself and her society. A Nigerian woman writer describes
the imperatives facing the African woman in these terms:

She must clarify her notions of home and family, of freedom and

identity. She "fist, finally, choose her own life, or at least

her own master.

The works of women writers therefore offer us portraits of the
African women, not just as wife, mother, or prostitute, but also in a
variety of other roles and situations. The woman is portrayed at all
stages, fron childhood to old age, and we have an opportunity to look
closely at the lives of girls and women and to seek explanations of
aspects of the woman which hitherto were either neglected or merely
described, but not fully investigated.

According to Charles Larson: ”... in most Third World novels female
characters play lesser roles than their male counterparts--no doubt in
large part because Western (romantic) love is nfissing as a theme. If
women are present in any of these books they tend to be of incidental
importance, functional aspects in an otherwise masculine-oriented
world."12 Larson's remark as we have seen holds true for franc0phone

African fiction prior to 1970, a literature dominated by male writers,

19

although the reason he suggests does not seem to be necessarily valid.
However, in the works of female African writers, both anglophone and
francophone, this is not the case. The works of many black francophone
women prose writers are, or seen to be, largely autobiographical. The
main character in these works is therefore often a woman. In many cases
it is difficult to decide whether a work is a novel or non-fiction,
although as Cheikh Hamidou Kane has pointed out, this is perhaps of no

13 Moreover, although

significance in the context of an African esthetic.
Western (romantic) love is still often largely missing as a theme, as
already noted, women are very important characters in these works. It is
true that in some works there is more consideration given to the
male-female relationship, which in fact dominates in certain cases, for

example, in Mariama 83's two novels, Une si longue lettre and Un chant

 

écarlate. But in general, women simply write about themselves, often in

retrospect.
Sur quoi écrirait une femme qui ne prétend ni a une imagination
débordante ni a un talent d'écrire singulier? Sur elle-méme,
bien sur. Voici donc mon enfance et ma jeunesse telles que je
me les rappelle. Le Sénégal a change en une génération.
Peut-étre valait-ii4la peine de rappeler aux nouvelles pousses
ce que nous fumes.

The African women writers to be discussed here (Ba, Bugul, Diallo,
Fall, Kaya, Mbaye, Ndiaye, Seck), except for BB, born 1929, belong to
the same generation. All were born around 1940 and grew up in pre-
Independence societies of the A.O.F. (Afrique occidentale francaise)
which included Senegal, Guinea, the Sudan and the Ivory Coast. All were
educated in French schools. They therefore share certain common

experiences and a similar basic formation. They are all professional

women, some actively involved in women's organizations, but their work

20

could not be described as militant or explicitly l“feminist,“ although
many of their characters are relatively “liberated“ women and they are
concerned with questions which in Western societies might be termed
“women's issues.“

There is enormous variety in the points of view expressed by the wo—
men selected here for discussion. Some are Optimistic and positive, oth-
ers paint a picture of complex relationships and problems which seem
almost insoluble. The latter share the pessimism of some of their West
Indian sisters but still offer glimmers of hope. In general, all the
works “de-romanticize the image of motherhood as being invariably su-
preme and transcendent" without however questioning the inherent value

of motherhood.15

83's novels, for example, contradict the optimistic im-
age of the liberated woman and the revered wife and mother. Yet the
author herself affirms her belief in the maternal role as the most ful-

filling to her personally if not for all women.16

This belief in the
faithful wife and devoted mother as a feminine ideal is a constant in l
the works. But at the same time the women, Fall and BE especially, plead I
eloquently for the need to re-examine sexual roles and social customs
which hamper and destroy not just women but relationships and ultimately
the society. All the works reflect the tensions created for women by the
conflict between traditional values and Western influences and especial-
ly by the intransigence of powerful elements in the society. For pur-
poses of this study, the works are divided into those which deal with
childhood and adolescence and present mainly positive images, and sec-
ondly those which treat more directly thorny issues--social problems,

marriage, polygamy, changing values-~and which tend to be less

optimistic.

21

Woman, a Positive View: Kaya (Ivory Coast), Diallo, Ndiaye (Senegal)
We shall begin our study with the autobiographical works of Simone
Kaya from the Ivory Coast and two Senegalese writers, Nafissatou Diallo

and Adja Ndiaye, who come from Dakar. Kaya's work Les Danseuses

 

d'Impé-Eya published in 1976 is subtitled “jeunes filles a Abidjan“ and

 

Diallo's De Tiléne au Plateau (1975) also has a subtitle: “une enfance

 

dakaroise.“ Both works therefore deal with childhood, girlhood and
adolescence in an urban milieu. The works are uneven in literary merit.
The three are retrospective examinations by modern professional West
African women of their past, their upbringing, their development and the
evolution of women in their respective societies. All three works have
characteristics which they share in common. Above all, they are all
positive and optimistic. They differ, however, in many fundamental ways,
first in terms of the reality they present: Diallo's family is Moslen,
as is Ndiaye's, Kaya's is Christian. Kaya's work is in many ways less
complete as a sociological document than Diallo's or Ndiaye's books, but
in the context of this study it is more penetrating and significant in
the aspects, incidents, and characters which the author does choose to

present. Les Danseuses d'Impé-Eya is significant because it presents and

 

examines the lives of various écoliéres from diverse backgrounds and

regions of the Ivory Coast who share their lives in the cité indigéne of

 

Treichville. It details their daily occupations, delights, worries,
opinions, attitudes, wonderful dances, and games. But more importantly,

Les Danseuses d'Impé-Eya addresses and raises questions which are of

 

great importance in the evolution of women and of African society in

general. Kaya's book covers three generations: her own, the older

22

generation represented by her mother and aunt, the marvelous Mafitini,
"fileuse de contes,“ both illiterate, and the new generation, seen
through the portrait of her daughters, educated and much more “aware“ as
wonen. Her novel details the evolution of the Ivorian woman and shows
clearly what the “femme évoluée,“ like her society, has sacrificed as
well as gained in the evolutionary process. The narrative form is that
of a sort of “journal intime,“ a form common to many of these works. The
narrator's autobiographical reflections begin (M1 a positive and almost
idealistic note. Her reminiscence is triggered by two incidents, both of
direct relevance to the condition of women in her society.

The book Opens with a doctoral defense at the University of Abidjan.

A young Ivoirienne is about to be presented with the title of “docteur

 

es sciences avec la mention trés honorable.“ (Danseuses, p. 16). The
candidate's calm assurance and self-possession are described with
unconcealed admiration. She is at home in two worlds, the domestic foyer
and the learned, scientific, technological sphere:
Semblant ignorer les regards rivés sur elle, la candidate range
des plantes sur la table. Elle vérifie aussi l'installation
électrique de l'écran de projection et celui du micro dont elle
va se servir. Ses gestes ressemblent a ceux d'une ménagére en
train de mettre la derniére main au plat qu'elle vient
d'achever. . . . Avec sérieux, mais sans jamais se demettre de
sa grace feminine, elle nous divulgue une partie des secrets
qui avaient fait11a puissance d'un petit nombre d'initiés.
(Danseuses, p. 16)
The effect on her African sisters is profound. The narrator notes: “En
effet, nous sommes toutes, a l'occasion de cer diplfime convaincues
d'avoir obtenu le droit a la consid‘ération sociale qui semblait Etre

réservée aux seuls hommes. Pour la premiére fois de leur vie, peut-étre,

 

guelgues-unes ont_§prouvé la fierté d'étre nées filles en Afrigue noire"

 

(Danseuses, p. 16; emphasis added). This young doctor is a source of

23

pride but alsol a model for other African women. By this comment,
explicitly inserted, Kaya suggests that their self-concept is damaged
and negative. Her remarks once again show that many African women do not
coincide with Senghor's positive image of their condition.18
A short paragraph on the first page sums up what seems to epitomize
for the narrator the ideal of the modern African woman, capable of
moving comfortably between two worlds, worlds which for many seem
irreconcilable. The narrator remarks with pleasure and pride:
Madame, notre soeur, qui va solenellement démontrer qu'elle a
atteint les hauts degrés du “savoir des Blancs“! Elle est aussi
simple que lors de cette soirée passée chez des amis communs,
ofi nous avions parlé de la confection des v‘étements de nos
enfants et de la mode féminine du moment, les recettes de
cuisine étant l'objet des autres propos. (Danseuses, p. 15)
Again, the author insists on the same phenomenon. The woman is a product
and synthesis of both traditional African values and Western European
knowledge. She embodies both “feminine“ and “masculine“ qualities. She
represents the answer to the question with which the book ends.
Recalling her departure for France after spending the holidays in her
homeland the young narrator remarks: “...j'ai éprouvé le désagréable

sensation d'étre transportée d'un monde dans un autre. Maisgy avait-il

une autre issue?“ (Danseuses, p. 127, emphasis added). Kaya seems to

 

hold a positive view: for those who have been exposed to the two worlds
the result is not necessarily alienation and loneliness. Mama is torn
between her father's ideals and her mother's, between her love for her
family and her homeland and her longing to recover 'le pensionnat
provencal, avec sa discipline, son ordre, sa sécurité austére, et
peut-étre aussi le joli accent chantant de ses éléves.“ (Danseuses p.

126). But, unlike many of her compatriots and her Caribbean relatives,

24

she is not alienated.
This dilemma recurs frequently as a theme in African fiction. For
many of Kaya's contemporaries who have been educated in French schools,

19 Some

the result of their education is unhappiness and dislocation.
women writers share this pessimism with their male counterparts but
Kaya's portrayal of the young doctor suggests that her position is more
optimistic. Some would hold that the portrait is idealized and
unrealistic. What circumstances are necessary to create such a person?
The book suggests some answers to which we will return later.

The second incident which serves as a springboard for the narrator's
souvenirs is linked to the first and speaks directly to women. The
collective joy experienced by the women in the audience makes her think
of their other African sisters:

celles qui n'ont de temps que pour les corvées d'eau et de bois
mort, quand les travaux des champs leur laissent un moment de
répit. Je revois aussi les femmes des marchés bruyants et
enivrant de conteurs et d'odeurs africaines.

Comme il serait bon que toutes ces femmes connaissent la
joie collective qui réconforte. Et cette idée me conduit 5 ma
fille, ma Mounia, qui a proclamé dans un moment de colére
qu'elle était une femme. Cela a neuf ans! (Danseuses p. 17).

She recognizes the isolation and suffering of rural women, toiling and
overburdened. At the same time that she regrets and deplores the lack of
solidarity and collective identity which will never exist for certain of
her sisters. Mama is aware that for her daughter's generation things
will be different, perhaps better. She is surprised to find in her child
at the tender age of nine a level of awareness which she never had. The
cause of Mounia's anger is a remark made by a male relative, Noibou, to

his brother, who had asked his wife's advice: “... faut pas écouté

femme, est-ce que femme méme gagne téte, femme c'est comme poulet!”

25

(“les fenmes n'ont pas plus de t‘éte que des pouletsl“). The child
indignantly protests to her mother Noibou's comment (Danseuses p. 17).
Mounia's anger is further compounded by her male relative's reaction
which implies that the remark should not concern her: “Mais c'est pas
toi! est-ce que tu es une fenme toi?" To which she replies even more
indignantly, “Bien sfir que je suis une femme, qu'est-ce que je suis
alors?“ (Danseuses p. 17).
Mama reflects on the incident which amuses but also astonishes and
even worries her:
Je me suis demandé si ma fille grandissait tout simplement, ou
si c'était le signe d'un changement profond des temps? Car,
lorsque j'avais son a‘ge j'écoutais avec indifference ce genre
de propos tenu par des homes. J'ai eu envie d'effacer cette
blessure que des esprits retardés infligent encore aux femmes.
J‘ai entrepris de dire a ma fille qu'autrefois, et souvent
encore en Afrique, les choses ne se passaient pas toujours
come chez nous et dans notre entourage inmédiat. Danseuses p.
18)
She is eager to communicate this to her daughter, whom she has to pick
up after school. However, the sight of her children dancing the
traditional Impé-Eya in the schoolyard pulls her up short. She
recognizes that although some things have changed, some things should
remain, although not necessarily exactly the same. Symbolically, now
boys as well as foreigners, little European and Asian girls, are dancing
the Impé-Eya. Note that although the adult narrator now refers to
Noibou's remark as “cette blessure que des esprits retardés infligent
encore aux femmes" and of her desire to efface the injury, she is very
conscious that not so long before, she, like others of her generation,
was not disturbed: 'Lorsque j'avais son age j'écoutais avec indifférence

ce genre de propos tenu par les homes." Kaya looks back over her

childhood and its influences and in the process details the changes in

26

attitudes that have occurred between her mother‘s and her daughter's
generations. The style proclaims and invites the solidarity and progress
of all women, rural and urban, educated and uneducated. Kaya's work is
positive, but she does not disguise or romanticize the lot of women in
her society or their narrow-mindedness, due largely to their traditional
upbringing. Her own mother is depicted objectively. She is very
important in her daughter's life, but it is her father who has really
served to ”raise her daughter's consciousness.“ Her mother's attitudes
are less “progressive.“

Kaya's book is dedicated to her father:

3 mon pere

qui a voulu que ses filles sachent

comme ses fils

lire et écrire.
In the develOpment of the narrator‘s character, the relationship with
both mother and father is crucial. Kaya describes the couple in detail.
This portrayal of the married couple is significant. In Mama's household
it is her father who is an influence for, and the agent of, change in
matters of his daughters' attitudes, upbringing, education and status.
It is he who is mainly responsible for any improvement in "la condition
feminine.“ An incident near the end of the book serves to underline this
situation.

Salimata, a young cousin recently married, runs away from her
husband, Boula, who beats her at the slightest pretext. The husband is
incensed. We must note that in their society husbands have a right and
even a duty to beat their wives; for them, women, like children, need to
be disciplined. Mama's father tried to calm Boula while her mother

lectures Salimata on the duties of a good wife:

Fanta et moi avons eu l'impression que maman parlait autant

27

pour sa cousine que pour nous. “Une femme, a-t-elle dit, quelle
que soit sa force, ne devrait jamais lever la main sur l'homme
auquel ses pere et mére l'ont donnée. Une épouse ne peut lever
le bras que pour se protéger, elle devrait savoir apaiser le
courroux de son maitre en lui demandant pardon a genoux"
(Danseuses p. 101).
This advice is in direct contrast to that of her father who is concerned
with his daughter's future independence and constantly counsels her in
private. “Travaille en classe pour t'élever aux yeux de tous. Je ne veux
pas qu'un jour les hommes te fassent souffrir. Une femme sans
instruction est victime facile“ (Danseuses p. 98). The father realizes
that the first change must be in the mentality of the women. In many of
the novels portrayals of older women make it obvious how narrow-minded
some women are and how necessary this change of attitude it. However,
the reactions of Mama and her cousin Fanta, both educated girls, to
their cousin's plight are ones of revolt:
"Je ne me marierai qu'avec un homme gentil.“
“Si l'honme que les parents choisiront pour moi ne me
plaTt pas, je refuserai de l'épouser."
"Si mon mari osait me battre, je le quitterais." étaient
les phrases que nous lancions aux garcons que notre condition
de femme semblait amuser (Danseuses p. 101).
Moreover Salimata has in fact left her husband. Although as illiterate
as her older cousin she is by no means passive. She has even dared to
strike her husband. She does not share her older cousin's views of her
resigned acceptance of her fate. She declares that she was trying her
best to be a good wife:
Elle effectuait de son mieux tout ce que sa mere et ses tantes
lui avaient appris. (emphasis added) Mais Boula, ici, loin du
village, se montrait quelquefois odieux avec elle. Elle ne
voulait pas se laisser battre comme si elle avait été un fine.

Si Boula ne voulait pas recevoir n'importe quel objet sur la
téte, il n'avait qu'a se tenir tranquille (Danseuses p. 101).

 

 

Salimata has in effect moved away from the position of her mother's

28

generation even without the benefit of a European education. Her shocked
older cousin points out that "S'ils avaient été au village du mari ce

jour-la, Salimata se serait vue chatiée par ses belles-soeurs (emphasis

 

added) qui l'auraient traitée de sorciére, et l'offense aurait touché
son clan entier“ (Danseuses p. 101). However, they are no longer in the
village but in Abidjan. Although the traditional customs of the village
prevail both in Boula and in the older generation of women, who accuse
rather than defend their abused relative, Salimata rebels. She
recognizes that in the village her husband would probably not dare to

treat her that way ("ici, loin du village [emphasis added] il se

 

montrait quelque fois odieux“). Although he has the right to beat her,
in the village he could not exercise it indiscriminately. Thus Kaya
acknowledges both the positive and the negative aspects of traditional
values and customs. The whole work is an attempt to examine the old ways
and the new, and finally to arrive at a vision for establishing this
equilibrium between the old and the new so admirably exemplified in the
young doctor.

Kaya's work contains many divergences from the works of male African
writers. Paradoxically, the woman is more objectively portrayed. The
portrait of the mother, here again, is not idealized, neither is the
portrait of the father typical. He is presented in a very favorable
light, he is enlightened and tolerant. The mother is not a negative
figure, however. She is portrayed as making a very real contribution to
her daughters' education and she is in fact in favor of them being sent
to school. She even discourages their aunt from telling them fantastic
tales to explain natural phenomena: “Il ne faut pas jeter le doute dans

l'esprit de ces enfants sur ce qu'ils apprennent a l'école. Quand elles

1

29

deviendront des femmes et des méres, elles penseront comme nous, méme si
elle vivent avec des Blancs" (Danseuses pp. 27-28). She wants them to
become» évoluées but does .POt cease to strive» ardently to inculcate
traditional womanly skills and values. Their mother is depicted as wann
and reassuring, a positive influence in many ways, but limited because '
of her traditional background and conditioning. The narrator recognizes
on the other hand that her own education also imposes limits, that for
example the younger generation is incapable of telling stories “a la
maniére de notre délicieuse tante“ (p. 104) or dancing as skillfully as
their mothers did. For Kaya what she is she owes in a great part to the
generation of her mother:
Ma maman! J'aimais la regarder s'habilier... Ses gestes lents
et mesurés retenaient toute mon attention de future femme
noire. Ma mére et ses contemporaines ont essayé d'élever leurs
filles et leurs niéces comme elles l'avaient été elles-mémes.
Mais l'école, égayée par les jeux, a faconné elle aussi le
monde des filles noires des rives de la lagune aux origines
diverses (Danseuses p. 29).
The dichotomy between the school and the mother's culture does not seem
however to be a real source of anguish or déchirement for the narrator.
They seem rather to combine as two positive sources which fashion “les

filles noires,“ although not without some pain, some of it directly

related to their condition de femme. The life of a girl is depicted as

 

being much more difficult than that of her brothers. For Les Danseuses

d'Impé-Eya offers insights into this aspect of the world of the African

 

woman and girl not hitherto explored in masculine African literature.
Some of the incidents may at first seem trivial--being comforted after a
storm for example. But this incident provides the occasion for a
description and explanation of how the relationship between the mother

and her daughters develops and is nurtured and also of the problems

 

30

particular to being a girl in a society where girls grow up early and
boys are much more favored.
After being caught in a storm the narrator revels in the joy of
being coddled:
Maman m'avait serrée plusieurs fois contre sa poitrine comme
elle le faisait pour Marie, la derniére-née, encore bébé. Elle
avait retrouvé pour nous les gestes maternels que notre age et
la naissance des petits fréres et soeurs nous avaient ravis....
Maman fut tout entiére a nous, les deux écoliéres; elle nous
dispensa des menus travaux, et ce fut pour moi une vraie féte
d'étre calinée par ma maman. J'aurais aimé qu'elle ffit toujours
ainsi (p. 28).
For male writers the mother is almost always presented under this
aspect. But for girls as well as a maternal presence the mother is also
of necessity a model and an authority figure therefore sometimes
reproving, disapproving, and even severe:
A la maison, les petites et les grandes filles devaient
effectuer des travaux domestiques plus ou moins rébutants. Nous
executions en général ce que les méres nous ordonnaient. Elles
aussi savaient nous infliger quelques chatiments corporels;
cela allait de la simple gifle a la privation d'un repas, en
passant par quelques coups de chicotte ou de baton. Maman
utilisait les cordelettes de cuir chargées de petits sachets de
protection qu'elle portait autour du cou (p. 39).
This correction is designed to make the girls into good wives and
mothers because “MEme devenues grandes dames, si vous étes de mauvaises
cuisiniéres, on refusera vos plats, et c'est une insulte pour une femme.
Je ne veux pas Etre accusée de vous avoir mal eduquée' (p. 99). The
girls grow up in the traditional way. Although the family lives in
Comikro, the quarter of Abidjan set aside for the families of African
government office workers, their life is not much different from the
rest of African township. “Les fillettes faisaient la vaisselle, la
lessive, balayaient la cour et allaient apprendre 3 marchander au

marché“ (p. 32).

31

Mama does not resent her mother's insistence on training her in
these tasks. However, she does make clear that it made life much more
difficult for girls, especially for écoliéres. The fact of going to
school did not dispense them from their household chores whereas their

20 Besides,

brothers were generally free to devote time to their studies.
trying to reconcile her father's and her mother's very different ideas
of what it meant for a girl to be "bien eduquée" was a source of great
strain for the young girl.
Maman tenait a nous apprendre les diverses taches menagéres;
papa voulait nous voir ‘toujours occupées par' notre travail
scolaire. Cette situation me remplissait souvent d'une sourde
colére. Les parents semblaient ignorer que tiraillées de tous
cfités, il nous était difficile d'avoir d'aussi bons résultats
scolaires que les garcons. Nos fréres, méme plus 5965, avaient
des journées de travail moins chargées que nous (p. 42).
However, she adds that they somehow found the time to have fun
regardless (p. 42).
For many male writers the school is the source of alienation not
only from their families but from their society in general. For the

narrator in Danseuses d'Impé-Eya her education separates her from her

 

mother but draws her closer to her father: "Je crois qu'a cause de
l'école, je me suis éloignée chaque jour un peu plus de ma mére" (p.
60). She dreamt of the day when her illiterate mother would be able to
help her with her reading or come to school to speak with the
headmistress. She rejoices that women's associations now make it
possible for grown women to learn to read. Her father, however,
"remplissait fort bien son rble de papa lettré et fonctionnaire, qui se
préoccupait de l'instruction des filles” (p. 60). his opinion of his
daughter's worth is not based on the criteria of his tribe (“épouses

soumises, femmes travailleuses, meres fécondes").21 ”Il disait que ses

32

filles valaient ses garcons. Il n'y avait qu'a comparer les cahiers des
uns des autres“ (p. 98). Their intellectual gifts are important to him.
His ideas are revolutionary in the context of his culture and startling
to women like his wife. Nevertheless he respects his wife's position and
even goes as far as conforming to her expectations as to his behavior as
a father when at home. “Mon pére se faisait volontiers plus distant et
plus sévére a la maison. Etait-ce la coutume qui le voulait? Je le
crois, ma mére y veillait. Les filles devaient rester prés de leur mere.
Ce dont j'étais sure, c'était que dans son bureau, je retrouvais un Papa
merveilleux“ (p. 65). Mama shows clearly the difference between herself
and women of her mother's generation. The possibilities for a freer more
relaxed relationship as evidenced in her relationship with her father, a
father/daughter relationship which her mother could not have tolerated,
points to the hope of a radically different relationship between the
sexes, which should carry over to the male-female relationship in the
younger generation. The fact that her father desires, encourages and
enjoys a freer, more intimate relationship with his daughters as well as
with his sons indicates that Kaya is illustrating the possibility of an
acceptance of this new situation on the part of the male. In fact the
narrator mentions that her father treated her as equal to her brothers.
This is reinforced by significant details. She notes his frequent
assurance that he has confidence in her and that he often told her he
was counting on her. He taught her to speak French very early and even
introduced her to European ways and customs which her mother would have
thought insolent in the circumstances of their own society (p. 65).
Already she is learning to move between worlds.

Nevertheless, regardless of their different viewpoints, the couple

33

is presented as complementary. In spite of the value he places on
education the father understands his wife's aims and desires for her
daughters and encourages her when her efforts at teaching them seem to
bear little fruit. "Papa lui disait alors qu'elle pourrait reprendre ses
cours pendant les vacances....“ (p. 100). The mother on the other hand
despite her fears and anxieties does not long oppose her husband or try
to dissuade him when he decides to send his daughters away to school.
The decision to send his daughters to France, despite his wife's timid
protests, gives rise to INUCh controversy. Many of his friends are
against educating women--mainly out of self-interest but also because
the girls will be doomed to rejection and celibacy, in their society a
frustration of their destiny as women: "Les Africains n'en voudront pas
et les Blancs ne les épouseront pas, a cause de la couleur de leur
peau." But already there are those who see the advantage of having an
educated wife and who admit that times have changed. The narrator
stresses how far things have come. However, the portrait of her parents,
who are so important to her identity, seems to suggest that the narrator
recognizes clearly the contribution both have made. Her educated father
and her illiterate mother are a unified couple. The father is perhaps
idealized but their relationship indicates that if each respects the
other such marriages can work. The bitter conflict detailed in Okot

p'Bitek's Song of Lawino, Song of 0col, where an assimilé and his

 

 

illiterate traditional wife hurl insults at each other, does not need to
occur. But both partners need to make accomodations to recognize that
both points of view have validity. Social roles need to be examined and
re-defined.

If we extend the portrayal of this married couple to represent as it

34

were the marriage of Africa and EurOpe, of the traditional and the
modern we see in this coupling of practical and mythical knowledge, with
intellectual, analytical scientific knowledge, Kaya's hope for the
future of the African woman and African society in general. Kaya does
not deny the possibility of alienation or the dangers inherent in trying

to reconcile these two opposing worlds.22

But she questions whether
there is any other way out besides flexibility and adaptability.
("Y-a-t-il une autre issue?") The three generations of women depicted
show a definite progression in this regard. Adaptability is possible and
can be positive. Mafifini, their “tante conteuse“ representative of the
imaginative and mythical, adapts and evolves: she acquires a taste for
the cinema and regales her nieces and nephews with stories from the
movies. “Cette tante montrait autant de talent pour nous raconter les
films importés d'Europe que pour nous dire les légendes africaines"
(Danseuses p. 106). Their aunt, however, is careful to protect them from
certain kinds of films. She is selective in her acceptance of what
Europe has to offer. Moreover, the girls' sojourn in Europe allows them
to realize and to reassure their mothers that "Chez les Blancs il y
avait aussi des croyances de bonnes fenmes" and that their European
sisters, some of whom love to scrub and sew, are not so different from
them after all.

Moreover, while the girls are conscious that: “L'école était un lieu
00 le savoir acquis différait souvent de ce que nous apprenaient nos
mamans" this is not presented as a source of anguish. They continue to
be delighted and fascinated both by Mafitini's stories and by the new

explanations of things acquired from their course books and school

lessons (Danseuses, p. 23). It is as if the two different contradictory

35

worlds complement and fulfill each other: “Nous comparions volontiers le
contenu des livres avec les proverbes, les contes et l'egendes qu'en
famille on racontait dans les cours, les soirs de clair de lune, ou a
l'intérieur autour d'un feu, d'une lampe 5 huile, ou d'une lampe tempéte
quand il pleuvait la nuit" (Danseuses, p. 22). This ability to encompass
both worlds and to respect and benefit from them both is partly ex-
plained by the narrator's family background and especially' by the
character of her father who seems to have succeeded in reconciling
contradictory tendencies by picking out what for him is positive and
beneficial in each. He is Christian, yet devoted to tradition.
"Cependant, malgré la religion chrétienne, nos parents avaient conserve
le culte que notre tribu vouait aux ancétres et aux morts“ (Danseuses,
p. 45). He wants his children to be free of “certaines croyances ou
superstitions" (p. 45) in order to be educated, yet Mama says "Mon pére
avait le plus grand respect pour notre totem" (p. 46), a seeming
paradox. Mama's father was not born in his IEEQ or ancestral village.
However, his respect for tradition and his attachment to the ways and
customs of his people Inade him take his children on an important
"pélerinage aux sources“ as his own father had done before him. This
journey allowed the narrator to learn about her origins, a heritage and
customs which to her were strange and fascinating: "Pour nous, enfants
de Comikro, dits 'nés en brousse', ces histoires de coutumes de notre
_fa§g nous paraissaient quelquefois aussi anciennes que la vie des
Gaulois, les ancétres des Frangais, dont parlait notre livre d'histoire"
(p. 71).

The life of the village in the savannah in the north is fascinating

in its novelty and crucial to Mama's understanding of her heritage. For

36

three months the family lives the life of the village. The children are
as happy there as they are in the city and are surprised at their
village cousins' fierce sense of pride. "...pour eux nous étions de

pauvres enfants qui n'avaient pas encore recu la bonne education

 

(emphasis added) de la maison de leurs péres“ (p. 78). Life is hard but
full. The women cultivate vegetables and peanut fields, spend long hours
preparing dishes and weaving cloth. There are restrictions: girls cannot
leave their village, they cannot take part in certain games; they can
guard the flocks and cattle but may not ride the horses or donkeys. The
girls from the city are initiated into the tribe as "futures jeunes
mariées qui quitteraient le village et qui par leur conduite d'épouses
soumises, de femmes travailleuses et de méres fécondes, montreraient
combien les originaires de notre terre étaient des gens d'honneur"
(Danseuses p. 83). It is this firm anchor and sense of belonging which

Ken, the heroine of Le Baobab Fou seems to lack.

 

If her portrait of her father seems at times unrealistic and
idealized and if her belief in the possibility of marriage between
traditional and the rational appears naive, Kaya maintains credibility
and her optimism is convincing. Perhaps because she understands that
“les interdits les plus risibles aujourd'hui ont leur explication dans
un événement qui s'est passé chez, les ascendants d'une famille“
(Danseuses p. 46). Kaya is able to present the traditional elements as
valid without imbuing them with the symbolic or mystical aspects of some
of her male counterparts. These traditional elements are preserved and
handed down largely by her mother “Ma mére a appris a ses filles a se
soigner avec certaines plantes et a connaitre la valeur d'un bijou, ou

méme les propriétés quasi-surnaturelles d'un objet ou d'un geste ou d'un

37

salut" (Danseuses p. 46). Kaya insists also on the solidarity which
existed between families in their ancestral villages and which is
carried over to the African township (Danseuses pp. 68-69).

The young scholars going Off to France are offered some advice: It
is a wonderful Opportunity but “il ne fallait pas oublier les parents,
le quartier, le pays et la race" (p. 107). It is her knowledge and
ability to heed this advice which make of the new docteur-és-science a
different individual from the tragic young African woman portrayed in

Ken Bugul's Le Baobab Fou which we will discuss later in this study. Let

 

us now pass on to the other two autobiographical works, Ndiaye's 9211135 A,

de Cheville first of all.

 

Collier de Cheville reconstructs with a woman's eye the everyday

 

life of pre-war Dakar. The preparation of food, the wearing of perfume,
clothes, jewelry, their meaning and value in the life of a community,
are all painstakingly recounted. Written in the third person the
narrative style is familiar, colloquial, that of a narrator relating her
souvenirs to a friendly, eager, audience. But Adja Ndeye Boury Ndiaye's

Collier de Cheville is not only the story of a family and Of the

 

everyday life in Dakar described in minute and exact detail. It
questions many traditions and offers the portrait of a very strong
woman, the remarkable I'tante Lika.“ Lika is the dominant figure in her
household and in the work. Married at 15 to Idrissa, a woodworker and
cabinetmaker, she is still childless at 30. Tiny and feminine, Lika
wears around her ankle a mysterious anklet of red beads (the “collier”
of the title) which intrigues her family' but. which she refuses to
explain even to the end. When her sister-in-law dies in childbirth the
family decides that “la Lika d'Idrissa," as she is designated, a

38

significant phrase, is the most suitable person to come to her brother's
aid until he can choose a new wife. Her brother in turn dies soon
afterwards, and Lika assumes the care and responsibility for his two
surviving children, Rokhaya and Mamadou. Her husband is forced to come
to live in his in-laws' house, much against his will, because such a
situation is threatening to his manhood: “son autorité et ses aises s'en
ressentaient“ (Collier p. 24).23 The couple are unusual.

The narrator explains that in Wolof the term for husband, “borom
ker,“ means “propriétaire immobilier" and Idrissa's complex is
understandable as he is not under his own roof. The man should always be
master in his home. The relationship between the couple is based on
traditional bonds but it is different in that it was Idrissa himself and
not his family who chose Lika. It is Obvious that he loves his wife. The
author seems to indicate here that romantic love and personal preference
take precedence over traditiOnal customs. At his parents' urging Idrissa
had in fact taken over two other wives who gave him children but he
repudiated them both in favor of childless Lika. Although his pride
suffers both from Lika's being childless and from having to live in his
in-laws' house, Idrissa and Lika are happy together. He is quiet and
reserved, almost morose, devoted to his woodwork and his Moslem
religion. Lika, on the other hand, is practical and outgoing. It is she
who runs the household, looks after the children, cooks, weaves, sews,
embroiders. She has her own money for she makes “akara,” delicious bean

fritters, to sell to her neighbors. Like Yama in Fall's Le revenant,

 

although in principle subservient to her husband, Lika asserts and
maintains her independence. She is unusually self-willed for a wife of

her time and culture. She refuses to give in to her husband when he

39

demands that she strip her bedroom walls Of her family photos. “Lika
refusa tout net" (Collier p. 25). She is enterprising. It is she who
builds up and maintains good relations with their neighbors so her
husband will have enough work (Collier p. 21). When he reproaches her
for not having children of her own, his wife to his astonishment answers
him back. He reacts with typical male horror at the affront: “Ah ca!
quel toupet, quelle audace! Idrissa faillit en tomber a la renverse"
(Collier p. 26), yet he puts up with it. Moreover, in defiance she dares
to tell him that she has had not children of her own because she has so
far wanted none, a position unacceptable and unheard of in her
community. She begs God to help her to have a child in order to prove
her point and to sustain the challenge she has made to Idrissa. She .
finally becomes a mother at 37--an age when many of her contemporaries
are already grandparents. (Perhaps a concession on the author's part?)
She has two more children at 38 and at 40. Her own children imitate
their cousins and call her “tante.“ the fact that she is known only as
“tante“ is significant perhaps Of her independence and special position
for as Lika herself says “Une tante ca se respecte" (p. 130). Lika, like
Fall's Yama, is a strong, intelligent woman, who controls her own life,
although she is married. Both Offer comments on the possibilities for
women within their communities and family structure.

Ndiaye's book gives many insights into the rearing and socialization
of boys and girls in her society and into the nature of the male-female
relationship. The work leads to a greater understanding Of the complex-
ities facing both men and women in any attempt to redefine their rela-
tionships. From the beginning boys are favored in order to ensure that

they will be in fact stronger and intellectually superior and therefore

40

better able to exercise their authority: girl babies are breast-fed for
24 months but boys for no longer than 18 months, as the narrator ex-
plains: “au-dela de un an et demi, l'enfant qui continue a téter risque
d'étre faible et un peu dégourdi" (Collier p. 26), a risk which one can
only run when the baby is a girl! The narrator comments further: ”Dés le
sevrage donc, le petit garcon est privilégié par rapport 3 la fille, il
s'adonnera a temps a une nourriture consistante et diversifiée. Il dOit
devenir plus fort physiquement, et plus intelligent que sa future
compagne sur laquelle il exercera mieux sa suprématie“ (Collier p. 2).
The society demands that the man should be superior.

The desirability of male superiority is embedded in the folklore.
Lika tells her children and niece and nephew the story Of Sass, "la
jeune fille rapide" who although beautiful could not find a husband.
“Tellement véloce dans n'importe quoi qu'elle puisse entreprendre, que
tous les hommes de son village en étaient complexés. Ils évitaient méme
de la rencontrer" (Collier p. 60). Her despairing parents organize a
contest but Sass remains unbeaten and therefore unmarried. One day quite
by chance she meets a hunter who proves to be more rapid than she is.
"Depuis lors, tous les hommes de son village ont pu souffler. Elle avait
trouvé son maitre..." (Collier p. 62). The superior prowess of this

young girl threatens to upset the calm of the whole village. The story

passes on this lesson. Girls must therefore be kept from being too fastl

or too intelligent or too educated. Anything which will make them
superior is taboo. Idrissa insists that his girls must not go beyond
primary school: “'11 ne faut point leur donner des ailes, elles s'en
serviraientl'“ he says (Collier p. 2). Accordingly, his niece Rokhaya

stops going to school as soon as she has passed her “certificat

l

\

41

d'études,“ at 12. Moreover soon afterwards, in order to indicate that
she is of marriageable age, her aunt stops shaving her head.24‘

Ndiaye gives details of the procedures for courtship describing
specifically the pleasure the prospective suitors get from being served
something to drink, preferably water, for “ce n'était pas qu'on leur

servirait a boire qui avait de l'importance, mais plutOt de voir l'objet

de leur convoitise, leur dulcinée s'agenouiller devant eux déja

 

asservie“ (emphasis added; Collier p. 56). The woman always kneels to
serve the man. The privileged position of the man is clearly underlined.
Idrissa's Opinions and behavior therefore only reflect the
prevailing norms in his society. His own parents had objected to Lika
and did not expect the marriage to last because “Ce sont des femmes de
téte qu'il y a dans cette famille! Des femmes qui décident ne font pas
de bonnes épouses" (Collier p. 23). Idrissa tries to ensure that his own
daughters and niece will make good wives, that is, subservient ones, for
"les femmes, méme d'age avancé, s'agenouillaient toujours devant les
hommes, soit pour les saluer ou pour les remercier ou pour les servir"
(Collier p. 5).
Moreover women are not free to decide their own future. When Rokhaya
will not make up her mind among her suitors her uncle
...jugea que la situation n'avait que trop duré. Il "donna"
Rokhaya comme troisiéme épouse a l'un de ses neveux.
Rokhaya fut encore plus expéditive~ que Pa Driss. Elle
divorca l'année suivante, aprés avoir accouché d'un garcon...
(Collier p. 57)
The narrator's language and her quotation marks around "donna“ suggest
Ndiaye's point of view. Pa Driss's right to “give“ his niece is called

into question. She implies that his action and dispatch are

Objectionable. His niece proves to be “plus expéditive" however. She

42

disposes of her husband and remarries the man of her choice, a former
suitor. Rokhaya shows herself to be like her aunt, independent and “une
femme de téte.“ Besides, as noted before, according to the narrator it
was Idrissa himself who chose Lika and their marriage, relationship, and
household are certainly not typical. However, the relationship is
portrayed as happy and successful despite its being out of tune with
many Of the society's norms.

We recall that Lika is independent, childless for nearly 20 years,
they live in her parents' house and yet Idrissa in spite Of “15.2EQEE
Apggprg and initial discomfort comes to accept the situation and to live
with it happily. In spite of the fact that Lika is portrayed as
uneducated, superstitious and in many ways very traditional, her acts Of

defiance and self-assertion show that this Senégalaise has a mind of her

 

own. She insists that even the girls learn to read and write French. She
goes to a Catholic requiem mass, incurring her husband's displeasure.
“Musulman fervent comme il était, cette conduite de Lika le mit hors de
lui“ (Collier p. 45). Lika however stoutly defends her action “Je ne
vois rien d'autre dans une église qu'une maison de Dieu; et puis ... une
fois n'est pas coutume!“ (Collier p. 45).

Ndiaye's portrait of Lika shows her to be not only sure of herself
and independent but questioning, more “aware“ than her husband. In the
context of her upbringing and her society, she is unusually liberated.

The incidents presented in Collier de Cheville and Lika's behavior

 

and attitudes call into question the prevailing norms in her society,
especially with regard to the status of women and sexual roles. However,
there is an obvious omission. Although Lika's household is Moslem and

she had to bear the pain Of two co-épouses the question Of polygamy is

43

not discussed in Collier de Cheville. In fact Lika advises her nephew,

 

Doudou, that Moslem marriage practice allows him to make a bad first
choice with impunity, for unlike his Christian companions he is not
bound to a monogamous union. Thus she gives tacit approval to the
practice. There are instances Of women who return hone after being
divorced, briefly mentioned in passing, but the situation of the
repudiated wife or of her children is not touched on. Such occurrences
seem to have been fairly common. Rokhaya leaves the child Of her first
marriage at home with her aunt when she gets married for the second
time. This also seems to have been an accepted practice as it is merely
mentioned, not debated or conmented on.25

The situation of the married woman as presented by these works is

somewhat ambiguous. Polygamy as an issue does not arise either in

Nafissatou Diallo's De Tiléne au Plateau, although the household is

 

Moslem and most of the men live with two or more wives. Safi's

grandmother is one of two co-épouses and at her father's death we find

 

out that he has three wives. Even when he takes a second wife “une jeune

femme" the attitude of the young narrator is one of matter-Of-fact

acceptance of a normal situation. She finds Out about his marriage fran

her grandmother and remarks that she had noticed his frequent visits to

St. Louis:
Il y passait des week-ends, et quand il y allait, il prenait un
soin particulier de sa personne, s'habillant alors 5 rendre
jaloux un jeune homme de 20 ans. Il ne rentrait de ses
voyages que le lundi, parfois le dimanche dans la nuit. C'est
en réponse 5 mes questions que grand-mere finalement m'apprit
le mariage et me montra la photo d'une jeune femme, sa belle-
fille (De Tiléne p. 5).

This same situation is treated quite differently by other writers. It is

difficult to read this passage in the light Of Mariama 83's Une si

44

longue lettre, or of the moving scene in Aminata Sow Fall's La Gréve des

 

 

Bittu where Mour anounces to his wife, Lolli, that he is going to take a
second wife, and not to imagine an anguished wife. However, Safi does
not condemn, reproach or even criticize her father. If her step-mother
suffers as a result of the new co-épouse Safi is not aware Of it. She
mentions that the young woman never comes to see them but continues to
live in St. Louis although she Often sends greetings. Safi's final
comment on the situation, "Je devais la connaitre et l'apprécier plus
tard,“ (p. 75) certainly contains no hint of resentment against this
young woman. It is perhaps because Safi's own mother is dead and she is
being brought up by her grandmother that the child has this attitude.
Her grandmother is herself a co-épouse and seems to be completely at
ease with her situation. She lives with her husband and her co-épouse,
they each have separate apartments and tasks, and there is no mention of
jealousy or rivalry between them. It is perhaps a function Of her age
and conditioning. Still it is Odd that, although so many aspects of the
feminine condition are discussed in the work, poiygamy as a source of
friction or suffering for the woman does- not come up. Safi, however,
makes it clear later on that her own marriage is a love-match, to a man
of her own choosing, and all her attitudes and actions lead one to
suspect she would certainly not tolerate a co-épous . (She breaks with
her first fiance because he ignores her and flirts with her friends at a
party, a situation which she finds intolerable.) She also reiterates on
several occasions that she finds many traditional beliefs and customs
restrictive and unreasonable and remarks that times have changed.
Perhaps in the context of her society and her respect for her father any

more explicit condemnation is not possible. Although the matter Of

45

polygamy is perhaps skirted, the work does address many other issues of
direct relevance to women.

De Tiléne au Plateau is the story of a family but also and above all

 

of an individual woman, Safi, and of what influences and experiences
made her what she is. The title refers to the family's move from the
African quarter of Tiléne to the Plateau, the enclave of Europeans and
Of a few select Africans, most of whom, like Safi's father, work for the
government. It also symbolizes an evolution, a move away from tradition-
al values and a journey Of development on the part Of the young nar-
rator, from self-willed child to mature and competent young
professional, from dependency through rebellion to a measure Of self-
fulfillment. In traditional African literature, such as the _ggnte§
already mentioned above, there are no individuals but rather types, and
what is foremost is the good of the group. We have already noted also
that in much African fiction this tradition has largely prevailed, and
“characterization,“ in the EurOpean sense, especially where female
characters are concerned, is Often of minor importance. Diallo's work,

therefore, although an autobiographical récit du vécu, has more in

 

common with novels in the Western tradition as far as the development of
a character is concerned and represents a departure from the trend in

26 Diallo in fact states her

most francophone African literature.
intention to break with tradition in writing her book.

In De Tiléne au Plateau not only do we see things through Safi's

 

eyes, but the consciousness of the main persona, and the effect that
events, peOple, and places have on her are Of foremost concern. The
focus is on Safi. Diallo's own words are revealing. She makes the point

that she is an ordinary woman writing about ordinary peOple and adds:

46

“'Ecrire un livre pour dire qu'on a aimé Pére et Grand-MEre? La belle

nouvelle! J'espére avoir fait un peu plus: avoir été au-delé des tabous

 

de silencer qui régnent sur* nos emotions (emphasis added; De ‘Tiléne

 

p. 132). Diallo has in fact succeeded in her intention. Earlier in the
book Safi remarks that in her society displaying one's emotions openly
is frowned upon, even if these emotions are positive ones like affection
and love. Her spirit rebels: "En general, l'affection restait enfouie
dans nos coeurs; on n'osait la dévoiler sous peine de passer pour mal
élevé, occidentalisé. Je maudissais dans man for intérieur notre
éducation, sa sévérité, ses componctions, ses tabous? (De Tiléne p. 62).
This attitude perhaps partly accounts for the absence of introspective
writing in much African fiction and Diallo's own reaction points to some
of the differences in her book. Safi does examine and articulate in
detail very intimate thoughts and feelings about things which affect her
deeply even to the extent of breaking traditional taboos. She describes,
for example, her reactions to harsh treatment of pregnant schoolmates,
to her father's illness and death and her anger at the behavior Of the
people who come to her father's funeral, behavior* which, although
harmful and "indecent," she is powerless to prevent: “Je ne pouvais
intervenir, étant trop jeune, et méme mes ainés ne pouvaient le faire
sans passer pour des 'cas particuliers'.“ (De Tiléne p. 130).27 As in
Kaya and in Ndiaye, and like other women writers, Diallo recognizes
tradition as being extremely powerful. However, Diallo, through Safi in
the narrative, is not afraid to question and even to Openly criticize
traditional values and practices. Safi is in many ways a revolutionary
character. She is in fact the first girl in the family whom her

grandfather “allowed“ to go to school. All her cousins are jealous of

47

her. The work abounds in such small but significant details. In the
course Of Safi's reminiscences we are exposed to many female figures:

young girls, sisters, cousins, schoolgirls, écoliéres, colégiennes,

 

 

lycéennes, teachers, aunts, belles-soeurs, filles-meres, grandmothers.

 

The relationship and interaction between these different girls and women
is described in detail and Offers valuable insights into the real lives
and experiences of women.28

Safi first grows up in a large house in Tiléne. The family is
well-off and somewhat “occidentalisée.” They are allowed to have
parties, for example, to listen to records and to dance. This is
important--her father is a strict Moslem, but open to outside
influences. Her grandmother is the dominant figure in her life. Her
Older sister Fatou, her “petite mére,“ is also very important to her
development. Thus we have many types Of central female characters. As in
Ndiaye's and Kaya's works we read about the typically feminine world--Of
various types Of food, dress, perfume, hairstyles, etc., but Diallo
gives insights and explanations not found in the other works. We learn,

for example, that only certain women wore EurOpean clothes. Long dresses

or pagnes were de rigueur for the strict Moslem women. The girls at the

 

”Collége,“ for example, wore short skirts, straightened their hair, wore

make-up, indications of their liberation and "progress."29

Note that 1
“progress" and liberation are perceived wholly in terms Of external
(Western) characteristics and indicated by adopting Western modes Of1
dress and behavior. One of Safi's friends had once been elected “Miss \\
Gorée." (She was, however, a Catholic, not a Moslem girl. Moslems '
adhered to stricter conduct.) Only certain professions were Open to

women--they could become secretaries, nurses, teachers or midwives, like

48

the author. However, to think of becoming an airline hostess, “ce métier
éprouvé et scandaleux qui interdisait le mariage" (De Tiléne p. 108) for

most Senégalaises was out of question. It is a measure of her

 

independent-mindedness that being an airline hostess was the only thing
that interested Safi at a certain point! She abandons the idea only
because her father is very ill.

Diallo Offers insights into questions not dealt with in male African
fiction-~the preoccupations and lives of’ adolescent, girls; attitudes
towards sex and pregnancy, and most significantly, the treatment meted
out to those unfortunate girls who become pregnant in a society where
modesty and virginity are prime values. Safi describes the life of the
girls who form gangs and fight, tease lepers, steal mangoes, have ren-
dezvous and conduct little love affairs unknown to their parents. Al-
though the adults are so reticent to talk about such things that when
her married sister becomes pregnant her indisposition is explained away
“par pudeur“ as being due to “la grippe,“ there are instances Of unmar-
ried mothers. In fact, three of her classmates in “troisiéme” are preg-
nant “a quelques jours de l'examen du Brévet." The girls are talked
about and their teacher makes life very hard for them and lectures their
classmates “portes et volets clos.” But interestingly, they are not
forced to leave school and in fact Safi comments that the unfortunate
girls react by studying hard and succeed “brilliantly" in their exams.
The narrator's own attitude to these girls is extremely sympathetic. She
also describes the pathetic plight of her cousin, a “fille-mére“ at a
wedding, where the Older women are celebrating the virginity of the
bride which has brought honor to the family while upbraiding the “fille-

mere" with bitter remarks:

..— ._
_ .-.-.....M

49

La téte baissée, recroquevillée dans son coin, elle supportait
l'assaut. J'avais pitié d'elle. Je unaudissais ces vieilles
femmes s'acharnant sur une personne qui n'était ni leur fille
ni leur parente, qui n'avait pas de compte a leur rendre. Il en
était ainsi dans les cérémonies de mariage et mieux valait pour
les {illes-méres s'abstenir de ces cérémonies (De Tiléne
p. 70 .

 

These Older women and "tantes" represent a special group.

Older women are one of the powerful factors for maintaining the
traditions and the status quO. They are resistant to change, easily
scandalize and are scandalized. The “tantes“ and "belles-soeurs" (titles
which designate several categories of female blood relatives and in-
laws) are forces to be reckoned with, and the traditions recognize and

perpetuate this.30

The money and presents given to a bride, for example,
are largely divided between the female relatives. Any young man seeking
favor in a family can dO so by means of gifts of money to the aunts, who
will in turn press his suit. They are presented, as in other works (cf.
Aminata Fall), as narrow-minded and somewhat selfish, not just in the
jealous protection of family honor, but also when it comes to the good
of 'their- own relative, the future bride: “La générosité était pour
elles, aprés la naissance, la qualité primordiale des gendres. Elles ne
se souciaient guére de leurs qualités morales ou de leur niveau 1
intellectuel“ (De Tiléne p. 106). The aunts make it their duty to see i
that the good of the family is upheld, which Often means sacrificing the
individual's happiness, most Often that of a woman, since men are freer
and more in control Of their destinies. Safi's grandmother and her
sister Fatou are different in this regard as, although conscious of the
family's name, they seek most Safi's own good and happiness. Safi is

very aware Of the situation Of women in her society where family honor

is crucial, yet so easily betrayed. Family honor is intimately bound up

50

with age-Old traditions of valiant warriors and virtuous maidens. The
worst disgrace for a family was a cowardly youth or a girl who brought
dishonor by her conduct.

Et on y croyait, en ce temps-la, a l'honneur: celui du nom de
la familie, du clan. Et ce n'était pas une vertu d'importation,
quelque chose d'appris dans les livres; cela venait de beaucoup
plus loin. Nos contes et nos légendes étaient pleins de filles
chastes, de querriers héroiques, de méres nobles jusqu'a la
mort (De Tiléne p. 88).

A girl's honor resides in her modesty and above all in her
virginity. Thus Safi's grandmother is adamant, she warns her that now
that she is “une vraie jeune fille" she has to be especially careful:

Tu n'es plus une enfant depuis que tu as tes régles. Méfie-toi!
Fais trés attention. Lors de tes menstrues, n'approche sous
aucun prétexte les garcons! Eloigne-toi d'eux comme de la

peste. Leur “odeur” méme pourrait te rendre enceinte. Ce serait
la honte et le déshonneur et j'en mourrais (De Tiléne p. 77).

 

Her father too is conscious Of family honor and is almost obsessive in
his attitude to his daughters~and their relations with the Opposite sex.
Safi notes, for example, that her indulgent father is unreasonable only
on one point: when it comes to his daughter's free association with
boys, he cannot be persuaded, it is forbidden. He almost kills her,
beating her mercilessly, when he sees her kissing her boyfriend in the
street. He tells her clearly: "Fille méprisable, tu nous a déshonorés"
(p. 89). Explicitly we are told it is not because Safi is endangering
her own future but because she has disgraced her family. Even to a
loving father a daughter must be sacrificed to family honor: "Qu'elle
meure! C'est ce qu'elle mérite." A father seeks to protect the family
honor by safeguarding his own daughters, yet many Older men exploit
innocent young girls. Safi herself is being honorably courted by an

older man while still at the lycée and she describes the popularity Of

51

the student-midwives with unscrupulous men out for a good time:
Les week-ends et jours de fétes, les voitures défilaient devant
le portail, et des querelles mettaient publiquement aux prises
des maris et leurs épouses informées de leurs frasques.

Oui, c'était un monde de tentation surtout pour les jeunes
filles de la brousse qui brusquement se trouvaient en presence
d'hommes “généreux”. Beaucoup d'entre elles, sans refléchir,
s'engageaient dans des situations sans issue. Heureusement pour
moi que j'étais liée et je craignais beaucoup les “qu'en
dira-t-on" (De Tiléne p. 115)

In this situation both wife and sweetheart are being exploited.

As has been said so often before, this society is structured to
favor the male. The father, uncle, or elder brother who is head of the
family is all powerfull and has certain obligations. Being responsible
for the girls in the family they are subject to him, he must protect
them, but can dispose Of them as he wishes. Handed over to her husband
the woman then becomes subject to him. The woman's place is properly at
home, subordinate to her husband: "L'homme en avant, la femme au foyer"
(p. 42). She derives all her value and worth from her husband and in the
sight Of the male, hence the high premium on virginity. Thus from early
the girls vie for the attentions Of the young men of promise. It is
especially prestigious to have a fiance who is studying in France.
Personal preference and romantic love are not of major importance when
it comes to marriage. Even Safi's friends are against her when she wants
to break off her engagement to a suitable match ”just because“ she has
fallen in love. They find her impossible and cannot understand her
behavior. Even to the younger generation honor and position come before
love.

Safi's own development is enhanced by a strong, determined and re-

bellious nature seconded by positive relationships with her sister and

her grandmother, who console and sustain her in a broken love affair,

52

“une vraie lumiére, stable, gentille. Energique et douce, elle me guida
a travers ce qui fut un vrai réapprentissage de la vie (De Tiléne
p. 91). But, as in the case of Kaya's heroine, it is her relationship
with her father which is the source of her identity and possibility for
liberation. It is only because he permits it that she is allowed to
break the mold. (Just as her grandfather permitted her, the first girl,
to go to school). Her liberation is largely the result of her own ef-
forts but without her father's approval, or at least lack of Opposition,
change would be much more difficult. We is the center Of their universe
”notre lumiére" (De Tiléne, p. 132) and literally directs their lives.
Safi respects and adores her father but recognizes that many Of his
attitudes are wrong:
Lucide, je le condamnais non seulement pour cette violence
meurtriére vis-a-vis de moi, mais pour ses attitudes
fondamentales elles-mémes vis-a-vis des problémes de la vie. Je
voulais vivre et trouvais le chemin barré» de restrictions.
J'avais entrepris d'aimer et il voulait noyer mon amour dans ce
qu'il appelait l'honneur (De Tiléne, p. 90).
Despite her love of her religion and her regard for her father's wishes

she makes her own decisions. She is able to free herself in a way that

the Older generation, her aunts, belles-soeurs, grandmother and even

 

some Of her friends cannot. She thinks for herself but would prefer
approval, does not want to Offend. At the end of the work as she is
leaving for France her grandmother symbolically “frees her" as she bids
her farewell: "Nous nous regardames longuement, puis elle me fit de la
main le geste qui me libérait: 'Va avec la paix!‘ dit-elle“ (De Tiléne
p. 133). She craves her grandmother's blessing and approval. Similarly,
Safi's relationship with her father is ambiguous and extremely complex

and reflects the ambivalent relationship Of many young African women to

53

their societies. Safi explains her dilemma:

Je me rebellai. Mon amour-propre se souvenait de cette
correction OD j'avais été rouée pire qu'une b‘éte, come un
objet, un tapis, et les battements de mon coeur se
précipitaient de révolte.

Pourtant, si je souffrais d'avoir été humiliée, je
souffrais aussi pour pére. Comprenne qui voudra, ou qui pourra.
J'étais malheureuse, malade presque, d'avoir fait perdre a cet
home grave le contr‘Ole de lui-méme. Je souffrais de l'avoir
fait souffrir, car il faut qu'il eOt été profondément blessé
(De Tiléne p. 90).

The three novels by Diallo, Kaya and Ndiaye treat aspects Of women's
lives hitherto unmentioned and largely inaccessible to the male writer.
Though mainly positive and optimistic, they do not present idealized
images Of African women or Of motherhood. They are characterized by
realistic portrayals of the daily lives Of women: the struggle and toil
Of rural women; the problems and temptations Of the 1young, urban,
evoluée, with her ambitions and sometimes false notions Of liberation
which leave her Open to unscrupulous men; the harsh censure of unmarried
motherhood; the differences in roles and attitudes between generations
Of women and the friction created in their relationships with each other
as women. In the larger context of biography, the works are concerned
with "women's issues" and lay the ground for works which are more
explicit attempts to “raise consciousness.“ The African woman is shown
rebelling, doing things and making choices which were not Open to her
before. But at the same time this way of life does violence to her and
to some of her relationships. Her rebellion is a source of anguish if
others close to her cannot or will not approve Of her new concept of

herself and her relationships. Animata Sow Fall and Mariama 83's novels

address these issues more explicitly and directly.

54
Notes

1 Chemain-Degrange, Arlette, Emancipation-feminine et roman
africain, p. 347.

2

 

Chemain-Degrange, p. 347.

3 Chemain-Degrange, p. 347, emphasis added.

4 Chemain-Degrange, p. 23.

5 Chemain-Degrange, p. 18.

6 Victor Aire calls Sembéne "sans doute le premier écrivain
féministe africain." Aire, Victor 0. rev. of Une si longue lettre, by
Mariama B3, Canadian Journal of African Studies, vOT. 16, no. 2, 1982,
p. 636.

7

 

 

Aire, p. 636.

8 For a fuller discussion of this point in anglophone African
literature, see Lloyd W. Brown's article “The African Woman as Writer" ,
in Canadian Journal of African Studies, vol. ix, no. 3, 1975, pp.
493-501.

9

 

Brown, p. 495.

10 See for example Binetou's mother in 83's Une si longue lettre.

 

11 Buchi Emecheta, The Slave Girl (New York: George Braziller,
1977), p. 179, quoted by Brenda F. Berrian in “African Women as seen in
the Works Of Flora Nwapa and Ama Ata Aidoo,“ College Language
Association 25, no. 3 (March 1982), p. 339.

 

 

 

'2 Charles R. Larson, The Novel in the Third World, p. 134.

13 Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Preface to Simone Kaya's Les Danseuses
d'Impé-Eya, p. 9, 1976.

14 Nafissatou Diallo, De Tiléne au Plateau, une enfance dakaroise _
(Dakar-Abidjan: Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1975). All further
references occur in the text and are indicated as De Tiléne.

 

 

 

15 Brown, p. 496.

16 Mariama BE, Interview with Barbara Harrell-Bond, American
Universities Field Staff Reports, 1981, no. 10, Africa, p. 2.

 

17 Simone Kaya, Les danseuses d'Impé-Eya: jeunes filles a Abidjan
(Inades: Abidjan, 1976), p. 16. All further references appear in the
text and are indicated as Danseuses.

55

18 ”Contrary to what is Often thought today the African woman does
not need to be liberated. She has been free for many thousands of
years," Senghor, Lépold, Sédar, Prose and Poetpy, ed. and trans. by John
Reed and Clive Wake quoted by Brown, p. 493.

19 Cf. for example, ken Bugul's Le baobab fou or Cheikh Hamidou
Kane's L'aventure ambigue.

20 Similarly Gnagna in Collier de Cheville is assigned‘domestic
duties on her only days at home-~her days OTf from her job at the
hospital.

21 This description or variations of it recurs Often in black
women's fiction, cf. Condé, Une saison 5 Rihata, description of Zek's
ideal woman, p. 37.

22 Tinga "l'ancien tirailleur" whose true stories about France
fascinate the school-girls is mad, not doubt as a result of his voyages
to Europe.

23 Ndiaye, Adja Ndeye Boury, Collier de cheville (Dakar: Nouvelles
Editions Africaines, 1983), p. 24. All further reféFences appear in the
text and are indicated as Collier.

24 Little girls' heads, Ndiaye tells us, are partly shaved until
puberty; the pattern of the tonsure being determined by one's family
name.

25 Although Simone Kaya mentions the plight of children in
patrilinear communities whose divorced mothers must leave them behind to
be cared for by step-mothers.

2" See Chinweizu's discussion Of characterization in African and
European novels in Chinweizu, Nowuchekwa Jemie and Ihechukwu Madubuke,
Toward the Decolonization Of African Literature (Enugu: Fourth Dimension

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publishers, 1980), pp. 113ff.

27 Mariama 83 also treats these situations similarly and in some
depth in her two novels.

28 E.g., one grandmother is simply "Mame" the other ”Mame Soda"
indicative of the narrator's special closeness with the first.

29 Mariama B3 mentions that such a woman in her generation was known
somewhat disparagingly as “une courte robe,“ Une si longue lettre,
p. 30.

30 See Assane Sylla, La philosophie morale des Wolof (Dakar:
Sankore, 1978).

 

 

Chapter Two
"L'Evoluée"
The Woman in Contemporary African Society--Negative Aspects--

Mariama BE, Aminata Sow Fall

 

The male-female relationship,_changing status and attitudes Of women,

the problem of polygamy: Mariama BS

 

Mariama 83's and Aminata Sow Fall's novels are set in modern post-
independence Senegal and focus on problems which concern women in a
society where traditional attitudes and women's aspirations have yet to
be reconciled, even within the women themselves. Both writers have

particular appeal to women. In 83's novels, Une si longue lettre (1980)

 

and Un chant écarlate (1981), woman's unhappiness is shown to be the

 

direct result of her mate's egotistical and irresponsible behavior,
behavior sanctioned by the society's mores, and even in many instances
accepted by the women themselves. (83's heroines have been described as
“victims.“) This is also true Of certain characters in Fall's novels

(Lolli in La gréve des Battu 1976 , Sada's wife in Le revenant 1980 ).

 

 

But Fall especially sees the question of women's rights and status in
more universal terms. It is the society's values which need to be
examined. Women, in Fall's novels, must accept responsibility for their
lives. They are also guilty because Often they do nothing to change
these values.Both BE and Fall show women, especially Older women, who

because Of their restricted upbringing and limited vision are largely

56

57

responsible for their own and other women's unhappiness. Sometimes women
even set out deliberately to cause this unhappiness. Through the
portrayal of the male and of this older generation of women who
stubbornly adhere to retrograde destructive values 83 and Fall indict
their own society and society as a whole. Beyond “women's issues“ the
works, especially Fall's novels, have a wider context. Fall, on the
surface, approaches closest to what might be described as explicitly
feminist, militant literature. Yet her works have much larger
implications for the society in general. They are modern folk-tales. She
addresses questions of fundamental concern in any community: such as
poverty and privilege, exploitation and basic human rights. We will
examine first Bi's novels.

Central to Une si longue lettre is the male-female relationship, the

 

potentially pernicious effects of polygamy, and the ability Of the
rejected woman to come to terms with her situation, pick up the pieces
and re-create her identity in a new way. The two central characters,
Aissatou and Ramatoulaye, represent two different viewpoints and two
different accomodations to the same situation. The book takes the form {fl
of a letter, but is really a sort of “journal intime.“ Ramatoulaye, a
recently widowed schoolteacher replies to a letter from her friend ‘
Aissatou, an interpreter in the diplomatic service Of her country. In
her letter Ramatoulaye reminisces about their former marriages. Each had
married a kind, responsible, educated husband who subsequently took a
second younger wife. Aissatou had rebelled. She left her husband, took
her boy-chidren with her, continued her studies and joined the
diplomatic corps. Ramatoulaye accepted her situation with resignation

and anquish. Despite her children's urging she refused to leave her

58

husband. Weighed down with the financial and parental responsibilities
for twelve children, she accepts her lot philosophically and struggles
to cope. Her lucidity and new independence represent however a silent
revolt. Modou, Ramatoulaye's husband, seemingly forgetful of all sense
Of responsibility and of twenty-five years Of a good, happy marriage,
deserts his wife and children. Ignoring Moslem precepts he carelessly
squanders money on his new wife and her family. Ramatoulaye is left
alone to support her children emotionally and financially.

Some years later Modou dies suddenly of a heart-attack. Writing to
her friend, Ramatoulaye reflects on her life and her society. Unlike her
daughters, Ramatoulaye, 88's narrator, was firmly attached to certain
social and religious precepts. She says “Mon coeur s'accorde aux
exigences religieuses. Nourrie, dés l'enfance, a leurs sources rigides,
je crois que je ne faillirai pas“ (Lettge, p. 18). Nevertheless, in her
generation she had been a pioneer, in many ways breaking new ground for
African womanhood and suffering because Of it: “Car, premiéres
pionniéres de la promotion de la femme africaine, nous étions peu
nombreuses. Des hommes nous taxaient d'écervelées. D'autres nous
désignaient comme des diablesses. Mais beaucoup voulaient nous posséder“
(1.53353, p. 26). The women Of her generation were the first to be
educated in European schools and therefore westernized. They were known
as "courte robe" (LESLIE- p. 30) and regarded with suspicion. Their
husbands were considered “progressive" to have married such women.
Theirs was an era Of ferment and new beginnings: “Ecartelés entre le
passé et le présent, nous déplorions les 'suintements' qui ne
nunqueraient pas.... Nous dénombrions les pertes possibles. Mais nous

sentions que plus rien ne serait come avant. Nous étions pleins de

59

nostalgie, mais résolument progressistes“ (Lettrg, p. 32). The new
society, however, had not lived up to their expectations or fulfilled
their Optimistic hopes: “Combien de réves avions-nous alimentés
désespérément, qui auraient pu se concretiser en bonheur durable et que
nous avons dégus pour en embrasser d'autres qui ont piteusement éclaté
comme bulles de savon, nous laissant la main vide?“ (£33553, p. 26).
Ramatoulaye recalls in terms reminiscent Of her European teacher that
her schoolmates from all over West Africa saw themselves as having “un
destin 'hors du commun' (....) Nous étions de véritables soeurs
destinées a la m§me mission émancipatrice' (£35553, p. 27). Their
husbands seem to have shared their idealistic vision. The society she
describes had already changed in some ways, however, in general, men
were unwilling or unable to relinquish their privileged position.

BE accuses the male and squarely places the blame at his feet. His
selfishness is destructive.1 Modou is weak and vain. His behavior
destroys not only his first wife's happiness but also that of Binetou,
his second wife. She is a mere child, his daughter's friend, an
intelligent girl with a potentially brilliant future ahead of her.
Ramatoulaye has nothing but sympathy for her young cO-épous . Binetou is
portrayed as a victim first Of all of her mother's desires to escape a
life Of poverty: "Que peut une enfant devant une mére en furie, qui
hurle sa faim et sa soif de vivre?“ (Lgtgpe, p. 60). The man is seen as
the dispenser Of favors and happiness. Material gain over and over int?
these works seems to be a motivating force, especially in the Older
generation Of women. As with Yaye Khady in Un chant écarlate, Binetou's
mother has suffered and now sees the means to end her suffering, even if

it is at the expense of her daughter's future happiness. The circle of

6O

exploitation perpetuates itself.

Binetou is also a victim of Modou's unscrupulous attentions. She has
tried to resist him but Ramatoulaye comments: “Elle ne connaissait pas
la puissante volonté de Modou, sa tenacité devant l'obstacle, son
orgueil de vaincre, la résistance inspirant de nouveaux assauts 5 chaque
échec“ (Lgttge, p. 60). Modou relentlessly pursues his own satisfaction,
betraying his wife's trust and that of his daughter and her friend, whom
he Offers to accompany home (“because it is late“), like a solicitous
father. It is a situation raised before in African fiction: the older
man exploiting the young woman and destroying his family life at the
same time.2

Once again in this work we see a variety of female characters, some
of whom we have encountered before. Aissatou's mother-in-law, Tante
Nabou, is a proud princess from the Sine who cannot accept her son's
marriage to a woman of a lower caste, a “fille de forgeron.“ Tante Nabou
is representative of the Older generation, she is jealous of her status
and relishes the privileges it accords her. She carefully plots her
revenge and forces her weak son to take his young cousin as a second
wife, tot the detriment of his first marriage: ”Ah, pour certains,
l'honneur et le chagrin d'une bijoutiére sont moindres, bien moindres
que l'honneur et le chagrin d'une Guelewar (noble)“ (Lettge, p. 49). If
B3 does not challenge the fundamental hierarchical structures of her
society, with her portrait of Tante Nabou she shows the logical tragic
consequences when aristocratic pride and egocentric behavior pit one

3 B3 also denounces the abuse Of religious customs

woman against another.
Which Diallo attacked in De Tiléne au Plateau. The women who come to

Modou's funeral are described as greedy and selfish. Instead of bringing

61

solace and material comfort as in the Old days, they strip the household
of all they can find and go away with no thought for the welfare Of the
bereaved family. These women are hypocritical parasites whose lives are
directed by custom and empty ritual. Ramatoulaye however does not
discount all traditional values, just the abuse of them.

A positive figure in the Older generation is Ramatoulaye's dead
grandmother whose traditional wisdom and knowledge Of human nature are
passed on to her grandchild in the fonn of sayings and axioms. When she
has difficulties dealing with her children her grandmother's advice
comes back to her aid in the form of these remembered folk sayings.
Thus, like Diallo's Tante Mafitini, B3 argues for “selective
modernisation.“ African woman is in crisis in all of her traditional
roles: as wife, mother, daughter-in-law, “tantes.“ The religious and
social constraints are on the woman, not on the man. Women are bound by

”4 TO

what B3 refers to as ”yesterday's chains as well as today's chains.
cope she must redefine herself choosing carefully between Old and new,
but this presents many problems. B3 points out that as wife, she
conceives her role differently but she now comes up against the fact
that the man has not changed. He has inherited a certain image of
marriage from his upbringing and his inherited ideas conflict with
woman's new vision of what marriage could be like. This is a situation
which recurs in the second novel and also in Fall's work. Although the
woman is not seeking to destroy everythig from the past, the man must
abandon a part of his power and privileges and compromise. 83's
portraits of Modou and of Mawdo Fall make the point that these men are

not villains. They are responsible professionals and for a time, caring

husbands. But the existence of polygamy which 83 describes as

62

"5 means that there is always the

"legalizing a man's escapades,
possibility that the man may take another wife. This is officially
sanctioned by the society and the religion. Even responsible “good" men
like Modou and Mawdo succumb to the temptation. Therefore, the trust
between husband and wife is affected. The nature of the inarriage
relationship is defined by polygamy because all the woman's efforts are
directed at pleasing her husband whereas he is not obliged to
reciprocate. Moreover, man has been conditoned by his background to
expect that women will be virtual slaves. Before women were educated it
was possible for them to accept this and even find a certain measure of
happiness. But for an educated woman, like Daba, for example, this is
impossible. Hence the conflict. 85 Obviously believes that all women
would rather be married and seems to consider this their destiny and

fulfillment.6

She finds her friend's independence and behavior difficult
to understand and impossible to emulate, but she recognizes that in many
ways women must change.

Ramatoulaye has difficulty with her daughters; as a mother she is
forced to examine and try to re-define her role. 85 makes the point,
illustrated by Kaya, that in effect the school and the new society come

7 In her traditional role, the mother

between the mother and the child.
is the transmitter of the values Of the culture and the main source of
knowledge and education for her children. But in the new situation she
does not perform the same role and the basis of her authority is shaken.
The mother's upbringing and education have not equipped her to deal with
the changing mppgs and values. An illiterate mother cannot participate

in the process of her child's schooling. But even an educated mother

like Ramatoulaye is at a loss in certain situations. She is shocked to

63

find her daughters smoke and wear trousers. She reluctantly accepts the
trousers but forbids them to smoke, however, they secretly defy her. The
children, traditionally subject to the mother's authority have also
changed. Girls are no longer docile. This situation is compounded by the
absence of the father from the home and his irresponsible example. When
her daughter becomes pregnant, however, Ramatoulaye struggles with her
horror and manages to overcome her initial reaction and to understand
and comfort her daughter. She does not reject or condemn her as
tradition demands, but reaches out to her in support and compassion.
Once again B3 stresses the need for compromise, flexibility and for
selective change on the part of women as well as men. It is necessary to
abandon some traditional customs, chief among them polygamy, because in
fact if not in the abstract, it destroys conjugal love, and at the same
time to reject certain “modern“ ideas.

The Daba/Abou couple exemplifies the ideal modern marriage. Daba is
“liberated“: she is educated, articulate, practical. Her views on
marriage are different from her mother's. She believes it is a
reciprocal union, for the benefit of both spouses, to be dissolved by
either if it no longer satisfies. Her husband, fortunately, shares her
views. He even cooks! He affirms: “Daba est ma femme. Elle n'est pas mon

esclave, ni ma servante" (Lettre, p. 107). The couple argues for the

_ ”...-*— — ...-.... —- ~

. ...-.mp6“

coexistence Of a new, more equitable social order. But such couples in ;

the context Of the book are rare. And Ramatoulaye sees the dangers
inherent in her daughter's freer attitude. The question remains “Le
modernisme ne peut donc étre sans s'accompagner de la dégradation des
moeurs?“ (Lettre, p. 112).

The image of woman in crisis is completed by the portrayal Of the

64

suffering daughter-in-law, Aissatou, and especially by the story of
Jacqueline. The case of Jacqueline pre-figures that Of Mireille in Up

chant écarlate. Jacqueline suffers both at the hands of her husband and

 

at the hands of her mother-in-law. She is not a European but she is seen

as an outsider and ostracized, almost destroyed. She is an Ivoirienne

 

married to a Senegalese. As a black West African she should have had no
difficulty integrating: “Jacqueline voulait bien se sénégaliser, mais
les moqueries arrétaient en elle toute volonté de coopération. On
l'appelait 'gnac' ('broussarde,' country girl) et elle avait fini par
percer le contenu de ce sobriquet qui la révoltait“.(Lettpg, p. 64). The
society is hostile to outsiders whether from a different caste, region,
or culture.8 Jacqueline's mother-in-law is especially cruel, while her
husband spends his time chasing women and makes no attempt to hide his
adventures. Deprived of all support and encouragement, Jacqueline
becomes ill. Her illness is not diagnosed for a long time. Luckily, she
finally finds a doctor who recognizes her problem as depression and
gives her good advice: 'Il faut réagir, sortir, vous trouver des raisons
de vivre. Prenez courage. Lentement, vous triompherez“ (Lettge, p. 68).
Ramatoulaye and Jacqueline refuse to be crushed by their situations.
They take positive measures and fight back. Although she still believes
in marriage as the ideal, Ramatoulaye rejects her Older brother-in-law's
hand as well as the Offer Of a man who has always loved her because she
cannot return his love, but also because he already has a wife. She
prefers to live alone with her children. Although, unlike Aissatou's,
hers is not an active revolt, it is still a step toward liberation. We
must note that it is not only the man who is criticized, but also women,

notably, Older women, whose own restricted upbringings result in their

65

narrow, selfish, and intolerant behavior. Although the woman's suffering
is directly tied to man's self-indulgence, it is the whole social system
which is at fault. Primarily, however, the woman is not seeking a
different Official status but her own fulfillment and happiness. In her
second novel B3 addresses this quesiton both in her own society and in
the context of Western culture.
Like Ramatoulaye, Mireille, the heroine of On chant écarlate is a~
victim of her husband's egoism and selfish sensuality. She also suffers
from the prejudices and cruel intolerance both Of her own society and
that of her husband's. Mireille is French, the daughter Of French
aristocrats stationed in Dakar. Her father is a diplomat who affects
liberal views but, as his daughter discovers to her bitter
disillusionment, is really a bigot. She is studying at the university in
Dakar and falls in love with an African. Her parents are horrified that
she could be acquainted with “ca“ as they contemptuously designate the
photograph of her beloved. Mireille reasons with them, to no avail.
Bitterly, she accuses her father:
Pourquoi as-tu cédé a man désir d'étudier ici? Pour' moi,
certes, mais aussi pour ton image de marque. Cela fait bien, la
fille d'un diplomate étudiante a l'Université du pays 06
resident ses parents. Cela fait “idées généreuses", “Options
avancées", tant éie termes cries avec force, qui ne recouvrent
aucune grandeur.

Mireille is immediately sent back to France. She remains faithful to

Ousmane however and when they finally marry, years later, disowned by

her family, she returns to Africa.

But prejudice is not peculiar to France as Mireille finds to her

great unhappiness. Despite her sincere efforts to adapt, like Jacqueline

in Une si longue lettre, she is rejected by her in-laws. For them she is

 

66

never more than “la Toubab" (the white woman), relegated, as Ousmane
was, to being less than a person. Moreover, her mother-in-law, Yaye

Khady, cannot accept losing her son to a stranger. Just as Mawdo Fall's

mother in Une si longue lettre resents her son's having chosen a S

 

daughter-in-law against her will, and plots to get her own back, Yaye ;

Khady refuses to reciprocate Mireille's efforts to subdue her own
prejudices and to seek a compromise. Yaye Khady is not content until her
son has in effect abandoned Mireille and their métis son and founded a
new foyer with a young, sensual, attractive, but uneducated négress .
Mireille is caught between her own disgust for the ways Of her adopted
society and the rejection of her in-laws. But it is her husband's
neglect and infidelity that finally causes her to lose her reason. B5
perhaps places exaggerated importance on the physical attributes Of
Ouleymatou, the young wife. It is consistent with her view Of the male.

Like Modou Fall in Une si longue lettre, Ousmane is portrayed as

 

being motivated primarily by his sensuality and by his desires for
sense-satisfaction. His instincts and drives make him selfish and
deprive him of any conscience or reason. He refuses to listen to his
sister and rejects his friend's reproving counsel. His own pleasure is
all that counts. Ousmane is a slave to his animality, as was Modou Fall.
His first meeting with Mireille is described in terms of a physical
encounter. His thoughts of her are always recorded in sense images: she
is "sa belle,“ "sa blonde,“ when he thinks of her: “La forme blanche
l'envahissait“ (Chant, p. 25). Their love-affair is intensely physical.
When he goes back over their relationship at the end of the book his
memories Of her are all sensual, as are his thoughts of Ouleymatou, his

second wife:

u-rbfi-vw-numu—mq.-n

67

Ouelle puissance dans la pensée humaine pour résumer toute une
vie dans la hate de quelques secondes! Son voyage de noces dans
cet hOtel de montagne chauffé par les grosses b‘uches d'une
cheminée ancienne! Ses premiéres nuits avec Mireille, une fate
en roses: rose des rondeurs des seins, strié de bleu jailli du
désordre des dentelles, rose violacé de la chemise de nuit et
toutes les rougeurs nuancées que le jeu de ses doigts peignait
sur la nudité laiteuse de la chair! L'éclatement de son coeur!
Ses sens gorges d'un bonheur d'une profonde intensité! La
quotidienneté exaspérante avait enveloppé d'oubli couleurs et
sensations... Ouleymatou ressurgit, symphonie d'ombres
apaisantes sur ses quetes brOlantes, Odeur enivrante de farine
de mil, échappée des mortiers de son enfance, canari a
l'équilibre parfait dans ses mains de potier? Toute une vie
dans la fuite de quelques secondes! (p. 247)
B3 seems to suggest here that on the part of man, his attachment to his
wife is no more than physical attraction. She is a sex object to be used
and discarded at will. Faced with the death of their child and his
wife's madness, Ousmane belatedly recovers some sense of guilt and shame
at what he has done to this woman who loves him. Ousmane at last sees
clearly that he has been selfish and unreasonable and he attributes his
behavior to madness: "La folie seule expliquait son aveuglement et ses
actes" (Chant, p. 246). Ousmane had been content to neglect his wife and
son to the point of making her unbalanced. He convinced himself that she
would never find out. 83, once again, as in the case of the husbands in
her first work, accuses the male of callous self-indulgence, gross
irresponsibility and self-delusion. In an interview 83 makes the point
that although she does not believe that the male is capable Of sexual
fidelity, because of his physiology, what. matters is “fidelity' of
affection, fidelity of sentiment that he can have love for the home and

respect for his wife."10

The woman who suffers here is white,
symbolically extending the suffering Of the woman beyond the limits of

Senegalese society. Un chant écarlate is not as successful a work as

 

B‘a"s first, but the points it makes are similar. The narrow self-

68

interest and prejudices of societies and individuals both threaten and
destroy.

The work is not entirely pessimistic however. The character of

Soukeyna, Ousmane's sister, is an indication of the potential for

friendship and solidarity between women. Soukeyna takes her sister-
in-law's side and defies her mother whom she openly accuses of egoism
and intolerance. Soukeyna visits and sustains Mireille. She consciously

rejects the traditional prejudices of her society. Yaye Khady is a

figure Of traditional, narrow-minded intolerance, as are Mireille'si:

parents, whereas Soukeyna is a plea for toleration and understanding a

new order. She tells her mother "Tu la rejettes sans la connaitre"
(Chant, p. 229) echoing the very words Mireille had used to her parents
about Ousmane. When her mother tells her that she is ashamed of her
grandson ("a la peau métisée“) Soukeyna replies that such a phenomenon
is no longer extraordinary. But Soukeyna's voice is an isolated one. Her
attempts are frustrated by the intransigence of her society and her
brother's irresponsibility. Nevertheless she is different from her
mother's generation, even if her brother is not. 83 is objective in her
portrayal Of Yaye Khady. Her selfishness and cruel treatment of her
daughter-in-law are excused in terms of the Old woman's own difficult
life. She is a victim, like so many others of her generation, of her
upbringing and experiences:
Yaye Khady pleurait. Et la pensée, laboreusement,
cheminait, fortifiée et réconfortée par sa traversée de la
“vie". “Mais tout de méme: comment Ousmane avait-il pu oublier
mon visage en sueur, oublier mes fatigues, oublier notre
tendresse? Cette femme me reléguera-t-elle done a jamais dans
les cuisines?"
Ouelle différence entre une bru Négresse et Toubab! Une

négresse connait et accepte les droits de la belle-mire (Chant,
p. 110).

l

I

69

The lot of women like Yaye Khady is not a happy one and their lives are
extremely restricted:

Yaye Khady ne» demandait au destin qu'un repos. mérité.
Comme toutes les méres, elle avait connu les terribles nuits de
veille ou l'instinct seul diagnostique les poussées dentaires,
les fiévres précédant les maladies infantiles qui se disputent
la vie du bébé. Elle avait eu ses entrées chez les guérisseurs,
accompagnées de paiement en boubous ou en pagnes, a défaut
d'argent. Les longues queues des dispensaires? Elle les avait
pratiquées des l'aube pour voir trés t‘o‘t la doctoresse et
ensuite faire son marché et sa cuisine.

Elle méritait une prompte reléve. Beaucoup de fenmes de
son age, 5 cause de la présence de leur belle-fille, n'avaient
plus que le souci de se laisser vivre agréablement. Elles se
mouvaient dans la paresse et l'encens. Leur bru les servait,
dans leur chambre, tout leur tombait du ciel: la meilleure part
des repas, le linge repassé, les draps de lit journellement
renouvelés. L'oisiveté convenait a leur age. La médisance
trompait leur ennui. La direction des cérémonies familiales
comblait leur inactivité. Certaines belles-méres se
consacraient 5 Dieu et tuaient le temps en bitissant leur
au-dela: la Mosquée les accueillait a la priére du Vendredi,
parfumées, dans des déploiements de vétements et chiles blancs,
le chapelet 5 la main.

“Assurément, affirma t-elle, un des sommets de la vie
d'une femme est dans le choix d'une belle-fille“ (pp. 111-112).

The image of woman, mother, is far from idealized. BS is realistic.
There are women like Aissatou, Mireille and Soukeyna but in the face of
the selfishness of the male and the intolerance of societies their
chances of happiness and fulfillment are greatly reduced. 83 explains
that she chooses to write about a mixed couple in which the wife is
white: “Because here in Senegal, it is the woman who is given into
marriage and belongs to the husband's family. It is not the same thing
with a man.... Thus the problem Of a white wife is more interesting from
the point Of view of the mentality Of the man's mother, and from the

..11 She makes the point that in a mixed

point Of view of society.
marriage where the man is white: “If he does what the family expects him

to do on the material level and on the level of understanding there are

70

not many problems."12 In other words, the man is freer, less subject to
the demands and restrictions of family and society which hamper and
confine women. As it is the woman who is the main transmitter Of the
traditional values, it is up to the mother to inculcate in her son new
values which will help him to relate to his wife in a new way. The
individual mentality must change before the society can improve. This is
especially crucial in the case of the woman. Fall's works explore these

possibilities.

Restructuring society--destrpying the stereotypes--Aminata Sow Fall

 

In her first two novels, Le revenant and La gréve des Battu, Aminata

 

 

Sow Fall deals with several problems which beset her society, notably
the condition Of the poor and disadvantaged. She denounces the
materialism of the new post-colonial society, the excessive reliance on
superstition, and the lack of conmunication between generations and
between spouses. She solidly confronts the vexing question of polygamy.
The chief protagonist in both novels is a man, and the chauvinist values
Of the society appear in bold relief when filtered through masculine
eyes and sensibilities, seen from the point of view of the dominant
male, self-centered and arrogant. It becomes clear what the less

fortunate in the society--women and the poor (constantly linked

together)--are up against. Although the protagonist in each novel is a 1
man, the characters which are most fully developed are mainly women:

Tante Ngone, Yama, Mame Aissa, her aunt, Héléne, in Le revenant, Lolli, l

 

Sine, Sagar, Salla Niang in La gréve des Battu.

 

Bakar, the male protagonist of Le revenant, is for the most part a '

 

sympathetic character. He has characteristics more likely to be

1
I

71

considered proper to women in his society. He is an "underdog.“ He grows
up in a very poor quarter of the city. The family lives in a hovel,
“baraque OD nous sommes tous engouffrés, OD un rideau cache le lit, 00
l'on est oblige de tout fourrer: linge, ustensiles de cuisine, paniers a

13 We see the situation of the woman objectified through his

poissons."
view. His mother is at once the real breadwinner and his father's slave.
Bakar is very conscious of the sacrifices his mother makes for the
family. It is largely through her efforts alone that they are able to
live. She gets up before daylight to go to the beach to buy fish which
she sells to make a living. Bakar's father is a cabinetmaker but days go
by without his making any money for lack of work. Bakar loves his mother
dearly, he has never forgotten one occasion when after having been
misused and ill-treated by her husband she greets him with her usual
respect:
Bakar assistait muet a la scene, et deux larmes jalonnérent ses
joues et il n'oublia jamais ce jour. Il se rappelait que le
lendemain et bien d'autres jours, aprés, il avait vu sa mere,
comme tous les matins aprés la priére, se présenter devant son
seigneur et maitre, le saluer avec génuflexions. Mais celui-ci
n'avait méme pas daigné répondre, ce qui n'empéchait pas tante

Ngone de répéter toujours les m‘émes gestes (Le revenant, p.
76).

 

Bakar does not comment on the bahavior of his parents, neither does the
author. But the scene speaks for itself. Bakar does not blame his father
or find his mother's behavior strange. “En observant le dévouement,
l'effacement de cette femme, Bakar se sentait un peu coupable de n'avoir
pas été en mesure de récompenser en partie tous les sacrifices qu'elle a

faits pour l'élever, lui et ses soeurs” (Le revenant, p. 74). Her

 

behavior does not surprise, it only increases his gratitude and his love

for her: “Comment payer cette mere infatigable, soumise, discréte? Elle

72

ne veut rien pour elle, tout pour nous. S'il existe ici-bas une justice,

elle sera des plus récompensées!" (Le revenant, pp. 21-22). Bakar also

 

loves his sisters dearly but he chafes under the authority of his
strong-willed older sister: "Garcon choyé et conscient de la supériorité
que lui conférait son sexe, Bakar n'acceptait pas toujours de gaiété de
coeur l'autorité de Yama. Mais aprés tout, disait-il, elle est l'ainée

et il est normal que nous la respections“ (Le revenant, p. 23). Bakar is

 

respectful, thoughtful and affectionate but despite his sensitive
nature, very much conditioned by the traditions of his society which he
does not question. In fact he is very pleased that his wife-to-be is
from a traditional household:

-- Voila qui est réconfortant, se dit-il. Une maison OD il
y a de l'ordre. Maintenant les choses ont tellement évolué, les
mentalités si reconverties, que l'on est surpris lorsque l'on
voit que quelques parents veillent encore a la bonne reputation
de leur progeniture.

Les traditions avaient regu un coup de poignard et ce que
Bakar' déplorait le plus dans cet état. de fait, c'était la
dépravation des moeurs et sa consequence nécessaire: la
dégradation de la femme. La honte ne tuait plus. La femme, en
déchirant le voile de mystére qui l'avait recouverte depuis
l'aube des temps, avait en méme temps détruit sa propre valeur.
D'or elle était devenue simple métal, bravant les scandales les
plus sordides. Ce n'était pas sans nostalgie que Bakar' se
répétait un refrain qu'il entendait souvent chanter par sa mere
et dont il avait retenu ce vers:

Ban gatia nangoo dee (Pas la honte, plutOt la mort) (Le
revenant, p. 31).

 

Thus Bakar mimics the language and value system of his society. In the
olden days women had mystery, "pudeur," “réticence.” The passage is
haevily ironic--Bakar subscribes to the very value system which will
destroy him later on and it is only his personal suffering and tragedy
which disabuses him of his clichés and stereotyped view of things and
bring him to a realization of the emptiness of these traditions. Even

so, it is only a partial awareness based on his own need. He suffers

- ._...__.———- ‘-“-"
. pr"

73

very deeply when his sister, who cannot accept the shame he has brought
on the family (he has been to prison for fraud) repudiates him. When
Bakar denounces his sister bitterly as ”une sale arriviste, une maudite
complexée qui a honte de moi et qui me juge indigne de paraTtre devant

la bande de son mari, qui n'est composée que de vauriens! (Le revenant,

 

p. 84), he sees no inconsistency in his position. He deplores the fact
that ”le monde d'aujourd'hui est bouleversé . . . Non seulement

bouleversé, mais pourri" (Le revenant, p. 87).

 

Yet it is the very traditions that he admires that bring about his
unhappiness. It is his wife's upbringing which keeps her from sharing
with her husband the unhappiness and pressures she is suffering at home.
Fall's depiction of Mame Aissa is revealing. She loves her husband and
visits him regularly in prision but cannot share her suffering with him.
He notices her reserve but does not ask her what is the matter. He finds*
her reticence admirable, a quality which he loves and which he finds isé
becoming, but rare, in modern women. Mame Aissa cannot bring herself to 1
tell him her plight: her relatives want her to leave him. She finally
succumbs to family pressure and asks him fur a divorce. Bakar's pride
prevents him from questioning her motives. They love each other but once
again lack of communication destroys their chances of happiness. It is
this lack of communication due to male pride and feminine submission and
reticence which stand condemned in the old order and in society in
general.

Fall contrasts two worlds clearly in her portraits of women,
especially the two women with whom Bakar finds happiness, Mame Aissa and
Hélene. Mame Aissa is a traditional girl. She is described as being like

a princess. Bakar's encounter with her is like a sequence from a folk

74

tale: “Un jour qu'il allait prendre l'air comme a l'accoutumée au bord
de la mer, il rencontra une charmante jeune fille qui coincait une
calebasse entre l'aisselle et l'avant-bras" (Le revenant, p. 29). He
comes back to the same spot for a month hOping to see her and finally
she reappears: "C'était elle. C'étaient ces m‘émes sourcils noirs qui
semblaient Etre dessinés au crayon et que pourtant aucun fard n'avait d0
dégrader jusque-la, c'étaient ces mémes yeux dont la sclérotique était
aussi blanche que le lait, le méme cou plissé qui rappelle la douceur et

la pureté des bébés bien nourris“ (Le revenant, pp. 29-30). Mame Aissa's .

 

tone is marked by “la timidité et la retenue,“ when he speaks to her ”la 1

jeune fille hésita, par pudeur" (Le revenant, p. 30). For Bakar,

 

Timidité, retenue, pudeur are all desirable qualities in a woman.

 

 

Ironically, these same qualities are the cause of the breakdown in
communication between them and lead to their' separation and Inutual
unhappiness:

Chaque fois qu'elle quittait la maison de ses parents pour
aller voir son mari, elle emportait la ferme décision de
s'ouvrir a celui-ci sur tout ce qu'elle endurait. Mais des
qu'elle franchissait le seuil de la prison on eut dit que toute
volonté de se confier s'enfuyait. L'éducation a l'étrange
pouvoir de modeler l'individu selon des normes inviolables et
de le rendre quasi impiussant dans toute tentative de se
libérer de ces names. 11 eut fallu une volonté de fer, un
courage herculéen. Mais Mame Aissa était femme, il n'était donc
pas question pour elle d‘assumerilibrement ses actes. (Emphasis
added) Elle Etait conditionnée par un milieu 0D toute tentative
de libération Etait considéré come un scandale, come une
trahison. C'est pourquoi, inconsciemment, elle ne pouvait
jamais parler a son mari: 'Ce n'est pas decent que je lui parle
des problémes que j'ai avec ma famille. D'abord cela pourrait
le faire souffrir, ensuite cela pourrait me déprécier a ses
yeux'" (Le revenant, p. 63).

 

The courtship is conducted with due decorum and regard for tradition.
Indeed Bakar admires his father-in-law because: "A le voir on ne pouvait

pas douter qu'il avait de la poigne. Il semblait faire partie de ceux

75

qui ont toujours le dernier mot chez eux" (p. 32). Bakar marries Mame
Aissa and in spite of the cautions and warnings Of his friend Sada, he
gets caught up in a round of wild spending which he claims is to make
his wife happy, but which mainly serves only to impress his in-laws and
acquaintances. Bakar, up until then the model employee, is sent to
prison for fraud and it is only then that he becomes aware of his true
situation: "Il pensa a sa famille, a sa feimie, a sa petite Bigue et
réalisa qu'il n'avait été qu'un jouet ballotté absurdement au gré des
caprices d'un milieu et que maintenant il était seul a assumer les
responsabilités" (p. 49).

Bakar's prise de conscience permits him to be able to appreciate

 

Héléne, a young girl from a different milieu. His journey to awareness
begun in prison crystallizes when he is rejected by his sister Yama, who
represents the new society where material success has made possible
excesses of display which underscore the new values. In the new society
characterized by show and display, financial success replaces the old
traditions of family name and honor. Materialism is the new value. Yama
is a product of the poverty of her childhood. “Yama aimait le faste et
la renommée, c'était sa seule revanche sur le passe . . .” (p. 40). She
sees through the society but ends up being caught up in its values to
such an extent that she is transformed into the monster her brother
denounces. She becomes selfish, vain and cruel. Scenes of a christening
and of Yama's party to celebrate “son tour“ (simply, “her turn to give a
party") are marked by excess of luxury, spending and a super-abundance
of material things which contrast sharply with the world from which she
came, the world which Héléne inhabits. We note, however, that Bakar

himself was once guilty of similar conduct and that when men behave that

76

way it is condoned, whereas in a woman, such as Yama, it is considered
an aberration.

In an attempt to relive his childhood, which Bakar now considers the
happiest days of his life, he goes back to revisit the house where he
lived. There he meets Helene. The description mirrors but contrasts
sharply with that of Mame Aissa. Héléne is not idealized, but solid,
down-to-earth, and flawed. She is over-painted and somewhat “tarty”:

Elle était trés grande, un peu servie en chair et avait le
teint assez foncé. Elle portait un pagne en legos multicolore
et un corsage transparent qui laissait voir son soutien gorge.
Elle aborda Bakar sans autre formalité, en lui tenant la main.

--Baay, tu cherches quelqu'un?

Bakar fut frappé par sa spontanéité, remarqua trés
rapidement l'outrance de son fard. L'énorme quantité de poudre
qu'elle s'était mise au visage, ses yeux exagérément
peinturlures, l'odeur forte du parfum a bon marché qui vous
fouettait les narines a la premiére approche, tout la faisait
ressembler a un personnage de cirque (Le revenant, p. 90).

 

Hélene's spontaneity and easy candor are clearly contrasted with Mame '
Aisssa's timidity, reticence, ppgep_. She is not the sort of woman that
the old Bakar could have appreciated except for one purpose. She gives
the impression of being a prostitute but when she “seizes him and drags
him inside“ Bakar notices how clean her room is. The walls are covered
with pictures of movie stars and cover-girls cut out of magazines.
Héléne (she even has a French name) is one of a new generation of girls,
a seasonal worker who has come to the city to work to support her
family. She looks cheap but in reality Bakar discovers she is
hardworking, honest, and respectable. In a sequence similar to his
month-long wait for Mame Aissa he returns to the house where Héléene
lives but he cannot find her. In this workers' quarter the people are
wary of strangers and reluctant to give any information which might get

a fellow-worker into trouble. Bakar becomes impatient: "Il s'était rendu

77

compte brusquement qu'il lui fallait cofite que coOte retrouver Héléne .
. . L'image d'Héléne la souriante, douce, simple, spontanee, était la,
et ne le l‘a‘chait plus, et grandissait au fur et a mesure qu'il
attendait." He does find her, through the aid of a young man who also
represents the new generation of urban youth who break with tradition
and have their own aspirations: Bakar “apprit que son guide travaillait
dans une usine de confection, prenait des cours du soir au Lycée
Delafosse et révait d'aller en France pour se perfectionner“ (Le
revenant, p. 94).

With her portraits of Yama, Héléne and Mame Aissa, Fall destroys
feminine and societal sterotypes often found in male fiction. The
reticent, modest young girl so prized by Bakar's culture has in her own
personality the seeds of her future unhappiness; the prostitute figure
is a normal wholesome girl; Yama asserts her independence and behaves H
like a man in a man's world. The condemnation she incurs serves to call’
into question the values of a materialistic, bourgeois society as well
as to challenge the unquestioning acceptance of male superiority and
privilege. It is through Héléne that Bakar is able to discover that
poverty and departure from traditional 992253 does not necessarily mean

moral degradation and unhappiness. He recovers a certain joie de vivre.

 

His relationship with Hélene is characterized by a freedom and

spontaneity which he did not enjoy with Mame Aissa. It is a friendship ‘

«h...
,s.- _—.——-"‘ Qt...“-

/ 1: .
” .. ..

rather than a romantic liaison. When he offers to marry her, Héléne
/"” ”...... ..- - - -2- . ..--

refuses because she has already been promised to someone in her village
and she must obey. She too is bound by tradition, but Héléne's view of
marriage is not completely the traditional one of the subjection of the

woman: "Ma mére dit que l'amour ce n'est pas seulement le plaisir pour

78

un homme de rencontrer une femme et vice-versa. L'amour c'est le bonheur
de lutter et de vaincre ensemble (emphasis added), de tenir un foyer, de
voir vivre une famille. --C'est vrai, ce sont de sages, vos parents“ (pg
revenant, p. 100), replies Bakar. Fall further develops these themes in

La gréve des Battu

 

Here, once again, women's problems and women's rights are used as a
vehicle fOr “raising consciousness“ about larger issues. ”Dire que Lg
revenant et La gréve parlent avant tout aux femmes, c'est selon l'idée
que l'on se fait de féminisme, les limiter ou les ouvrir. Les
protagonistes de ces deux livres, Bakar et Mour, sont des hommes;
pourtant, leurs entrées en scéne ne se font jamais sans la presence ou
le regard d'un personnage féminin. Chaque question soulevée entraTne
n14

avec elle le sujet de la femme.

Indeed, in La greve des Battu there is hardly a scene where a female

 

character is not present. Most often the woman serves to play a
contrasting role--often ironic--because although on the surface the
woman seens to be the one who is weak, impractical, unreasonable, the
author lets us experience for ourselves the reality of the situation
(often underlining it with a commentary). The true situation thus
becomes clear. A striking example of this occurs when Keba, a fonction-
_n_a_i_pi_a who is obsessed with ridding the city of beggars, has been
confronted by his secretary who poses fundamental if rhetorical
questions which turn out to prove only too relevant later on. Here is
how the narrator describes Keba's reaction to his secretary Sagar Diouf:

Sagar Diouf l'a encore mis hors de lui-méme (he knows deep down

she is right) mais il se retient volontairement de la traiter

de tous les noms. “Sagar n'est pas méchante, bien au contraire.

. . . Mais les problemes sérieux.lui échappent . . . comme a ma

feime. . . . Les fennes s'intéressent davantage aux choses
superficielles . . . il faut qu'on leur apprenne a étre

”
'1

A V... '4

79

responsable. . . . Ce n'est qu'une question d'éducation....
Belles toilettes, cérémonies grandioses, futilité. . . . Non,
ca ne doit pas continuer comme ca. . .. . Mais il y a aussi que
certains hommes n'aiment pas les femmes de téte, comme on dit;
elles menacent leur hégémonie. Celles qui ne se posent aucune
question et n'en posent pas, voila ce qu'il faut a ces
orgueilleux qui jouent avec leurs femmes comme avec une
poup‘ee.. Sagar ressenble bien a une poupée, avec ses joues a
fossettes. Elle est belle comme une poupée. . . . Jelpe sais
pas ce qui a poussé son mari a la laisser tomber. . . .
One could accuse Fall of being too obviously didactic in this heavily
ironic passage especially in the light of her comment in the preceding
paragraph that ”Keba ne répond pas; il n'aime pas chercher des réponses
a ces questions: il préfére les éluder, car la véritable affaire pour
lui est de dégager les voies de circulation pour exécuter l'ordre de ses
chefs et de se quérir de cette nausée que provoque en lui la vue des
mendiants“ (La gréve, p. 23). But the point is well taken nonetheless.
It is Keba who is interested in superficial things, without asking
himself about the consequences and the deeper values underlying these
actions. It is Keba who remarks critically that men want wives who look 1
like dolls so they can be their playthings and then turns around to
wonder why Sagar's husband has abandoned her when “elle est belle comme a
une poupée.“ He is blissfully unaware of the irony in his remark.

In the novel women are consistently identified with the beggars by
the juxtaposition Of incidents and scenes which highlight the common
elements in their struggles. There is a continual movement between two
worlds and two points of view: the weak vs. the strong (the camp of the
beggars, Ch. 2, is contrasted with the office of the rifleurs, Ch. 3),
the masculine vs. the feminine, the point of view of the woman (Lolli,

Sine, Sagar, wife, secretary) with that of the man (Keba, Mour).

Moreover, most Of the time there is a renversement, a bouleversement Of

 

 

80

the nonmal order of things as in the example above. For as it turns out
it is the weak who are strong and the rich who need the poor. La gréve
des Battu: the title itself is a contradiction in terms, for the Battu
are beggars and how can those who have no jobs, no status, no
importance, who are as the subtitle says "le déchets humains" go on
strike? What possible purpose could such an act serve? Besides, who else
could it hurt but the Battu themselves? ”Nous ne sommes pas des chiens“
(La gréve, p. 31). This refrain comes back over and over again. Each
segment of the society, including woman, is crying out to be recognized
as human: "un étre a part entiére, ayant des droits et des devoirs" (Lg
_g£§!g, p. 42).

The novel depicts strong, practical women who endure despite i
obstacles. Notable among these is Salla Niang, former “bonne a tout
faire.“ It is Salla Niang, “femme d'expériences," now "véritable femme
d'affaires“ who organizes the Battu in spite of the objections of the
weaker members of the group (all men) who are ready to despair and to
give in. Salla's husband appreciates his wife's qualities, he does not
mind that gossips say that he is weak and that it is Salla “qui porte le :
pantalon.“ It is noteworthy that the people who hold this opinion are E
m: "les comméres du quartier." In fact it is the women, usually
older women, who, sadly, once again work hardest to maintain the gtgtpg 3
_gpp which oppresses them.

In this novel Fall addresses directly the question of polygamy. The
pages where Mour announces to Lolli, the night before his marriage, that
he is about to take a second wife are among the most vivid and moving in
the book. Lolli cannot imagine what her husband has to tell her. She

takes her position as spouse for granted. Her hnpatience with the

81

compliments he is paying her, her naive anxiety for him as he fails to
get to the point: “Ou'est-il? Que t'arrive-t-il? Tu as des histoires?"
(La gréve, p. 39). Her concern for_hi§ welfare poignantly underlines her
complete shock and devastation when she finally realizes she is to have
a co-épous . Fall's narrator describes Mour's reaction to his wife's
outburst and refrains from commenting. Indeed there is no need to. His
reactions speak for themselves--he has come to appreciate his wife's
qualities and feels some fear and remorse for what he is about to do,
but his masculine pride triumphs and he tells her cruelly: "--Aprés
tout, poursuit-il, réfléchis, n'est-ce pas moi qui te nourris et
t'entretiens? Et dis-moi quel est le contrat qui me lie et qui m'empeche
de prendre une seconde épouse...?" (p. 44). For once Lolli forgets about
her traditional upbringing: “Lolli s'en fiche.... Elle s'en moque. Elle
a perdue contrOle parce qu'elle pouvait s'attendre a tout, sauf a cela.“
She speaks passionately for all women, for all rejected spouses when she
replies "Le contrat de l'honnéteté, de la reconnaissance" (Le gréve, p.
44). At first she rebels because she knows things are different now:
“Mais maintenant 'les temps ont change, mon gars'“ (Le gréve, p. 42).
Lolli knows about the women's liberation movement. Her daughter Raabi
discusses polygamy, which she opposes, with her friends. But for Lolli,
her revolt is only short-lived: "apres la révolte la résignation." She
does not have the courage to break with the traditions which entrap her.
Her daughter encourages her to force her father to choose but she

cannot. The situation parallels that of Ramatoulaye in Une si longue

 

lettre. She accepts the situation. Mour does not understand "Ouelle
mouche l'a donc piquée pour qu'elle se mette dans cet état et qu'elle

parle a présent a son époux comme elle aurait parle au plus detestable

82

des individus?“ (La gréve, p. 45). The narrator responds “La mouche de
l'eSpOir décu plus que celle de l'endoctrinement” (La greve, p. 45).
Lolli is powerless to change her situation, but the success of the
beggars' strike Offers some hope. Women, the underdogs, are becoming
aware of their power.

Here we see documented the difference between the generations. From

the generation of Mame Aissa's aunts in Le revenant to Lolli's there has

 

been a change, an increased awareness. Lolli is secure (she thinks) and
she does not consider the possibility of her husband's taking a second
wife. She had put up with his "escapades" in the early years. Twice she
even had to wake up neighbors to take her to have a baby. But little by
little Mour had come to respect her. She now had hope, believing that in
maturity she had won out. Faced with the threat of a co-épouse she
revolts, the thought is repugnant ~to her. Her revolt, even though
short-lived, is a positive sign:

Lolli s'était ouvert les yeux en fréquentant le monde. Elle
avait vu que les fennes n'acceptent plus d'étre considerées
comme de simples objets et engageaient une lutte énergique pour
leur Emancipation; partout, a la radio, dans les meetings, dans
les ceremonies familiales, elles clamaient qu'au point de vue
juridique, elles avaient les mémes droits que les hommes; que
bien sOr elles ne disputaient pas a l'homme sa situation de
chef de famille, mais qu'il était nécessaire que l'homme ffit
conscient que la femme est un étre a part entiére, ayant des
droits et des devoirs. Elles voulaient le plein épanouissement
de la femme dans un cadre familial ou, en responsables, elles
auraient aussi leur mot a dire. Elles avaient d'ailleurs réussi
en partie, puisqu'une loi avait été votée, qui interdisait
d‘esormais a l'honme de se lever un beau matin de mauvaise
humeur et pour un rien, de dire a sa femme: “Prends tes
bagages, va-t'en chez toi“. Meme si la répudiée n'avait pas un
chez soi, elle quittait le domicile conjugal, y laissait a
contre-coeur ses enfants qui étaient considérés comme le bien
de l'homme, et allait a l'aventure chez de lointains parents,
des amis ou des connaissances (La gréve, p. 43).

In a generation women had won certain legal rights but the conquest of

83

the mind, the personal revolt, was still to come. Lolli, like
Ramatoulaye, accepts her situation but her daughter and her co-épouse,
Sine, representatives of the new, more emancipated, womanhood have had a

radical change of attitude. Raabi, like Daba in Une si longue lettre,

 

rejects even this reluctant resignation. Sine's comment to her husband
at the end of the book represents the fullness of the revolt.

Sine smokes, wears trousers, outward signs of her liberation, and
she obliges Hour to marry her or leave her free to "try her chances.“
She tells him "Je suis ton épouse, traite-moi comme ton épouse!
Vraiment, Mour, tu dois déchanter si tu crois que j'accepterai que tu me
traites comme un vulgaire objet! Monsieur disparait des jours et quand
il réapparait, c'est pour me donner des ordres! Ah non, Mour. Va faire
cela a ta Lolli, moi je ne suis pas un mouton!" (La gréve, p. 126). Sine
will not put up with behavior which her co-wife is forced to accept and
which the wonan of her mother's generation would consider acceptable,
even normal. Her words announce a new era for women, as does Salla's
call to the beggars: "Maintenant mes amis, l'heure du choix a sonné:
mener une vie de chien, étre poursuivi, traqué et matraqué, ou vivre en
_ppmmg| (emphasis added) (La gréve, p. 53). The double-entendre has
particular resonances for the women in her society as well as universal
relevance. The down-trodden (women as well as beggars) must recognize
that they have a choice--acceptance or revolt. Mour falls for a young
girl who is modern, évoluée, precisely because he is not like the
traditional woman, but he does not want to give up his old privileges.
Unless he is forced to, he will not change. If the beggars/women do not
protest, things will never change for them. Women (the beggars) need to

recognize their importance, their worth. Salla's words again have a

84

special appeal to women. The beggars (like Lolli) are sorry for Mour and
want to give in and do what he asks, but Salla insists: “Quoi? Il n'en
est pas question, il n'en est nullement question! Parce qu'il nous a
jeté son argent, on doit céder a sa volonté! Non!“ (La gréve, p. 128).
Now this is exactly the argument Mour used to Lolli ("N'est-ce pas moi
qui te nourris qui t'entretiens?" when he tried to tell her she should
accept a co-wife (La gréve, p. 44).

Lolli is powerless to change her situation because even though she
knows Mour is wrong she has been conditioned to accept his irresponsible
behavior. But the beggars' success offers hope for women too. Because he
gives her money, he believes he has absolute right over her. The revolt
of his second wife, Sine, however, has forced him to consider pg:
feelings--a new awakening of awareness on his part. “Aprés la dispute,
au moment 00 il prenait sa place dans la camionette... il s'était dit
qu'il n'aurait pas d0 s'absenter le temps de son 'tour.‘ 'Pour une femme
c'est quand méme vexant ... il s'était reproché aussi de ne lui avoir
donné aucune explication“ La gréve, p. 129). It is not a question of
advocating the abolition of polygamy but a plea for fairness and
justice: giving each wife the consideration she deserves and is accorded
by law. Mour still does not fully understand Sine's position or
recognize his own vulnerability. He concludes that the misunderstandings
between them are due to the age difference and decides it is up to him
as the elder partner to be more flexible. But it is a beginning. With
Sine, because 0f.h2£ insistence (“Je suis une personne et non un bout de
bois,“ La gréve, p. 126). he is ready to make some concessions 'dans la
mesure OD celles-ci ne nuisent pas a son autorité et ne portent pas

atteinte a sa respectabilité" (La gréve, p. 129). But if Mour is a

85

symbol Of his bourgeois, male-dominated society, his encounter with the
Battu has grave portents: he will discover that it is possible for the
weak, if they come together, to defeat the strong. The male is
vulnerable. The solidarity of the weak can make them strong. Social
change is possible but it is difficult and slow. That is the message of
the book.

Mariama B5, tragically, died in 1982. Aminata Sow Fall continues to
write. A third novel, L'Appel des Arénes, was published in 1982. Both

 

novelists address social injustices and present women in the context of
the complexities of their societies and the African woman's own
ambiguous, sonetimes confused, aspirations and attitudes. Like Kaya,
Diallo and Ndiaye, they portray women more realistically than their male
counterparts--they are sympathetic but more objective. Their women are
not symbols for transcendent ideals. If Fall does often use her
characters to illustrate a theme with fixed, universal applications they
are still neither stereotyped nor romanticized. Compared to the novels
discussed in the earlier section their works are more complex, perhaps
more pessimistic. Sone of the aspirations and hopes of 83's
pre-independence generation have faded in the post-colonial, some would
say neo-colonial, Senegal. Although wonan still does not occupy "the
first place“ in Africa as Senghor affirms, her position is much less

restricted, more ambiguous, but also more open-ended.

86

Notes

1 Femi Ojo-Ade accuses B5 of characterizing the male as "a monster"
"a sexual beast" (Femi Ojo-Ade, "Still a Victim? Mariama Bi's Une si
longue lettre,“ African Literature Today, 12, 1982). 85's portrayal is
in fact much more nuancéd and more damning. She shows man as weak and
vain, therefore vulnerable.

2

 

 

See for example Sembéne Ousmane's tragic Vehi Ciosane.

 

3 OjO-Ade is justified in pointing out that while Ramatoulaye
openly condemns Mawdo Fall, her attitude to his mother is less
judgmental. However, the tone and asides are clearly disapproving Of
Nabou's attitudes (Ojo-Ade, p. 75).

Barbara Harrell-Bond, Interview with Mariama 85, American
Universities Field Reports, 1981, no. 10, Africa, p. 2.

5

 

Barbara Harrell-Bond, p. 10.

6 Mariama BE, Une si longue lettre, p. 61. “Je comptais les femmes
connues, abandonnées ou divorcées de ma generation. J'en connaissais
dont le reste de jeunesse florissante avait pu conquérir un homme
valable qui alliait situation et prestance et qu l'on jugeait 'mieux,
cent fois mieux que le partant'. La misere qui était le lot de ces
femmes regressait a l'envahissement de leur bonheur neuf qui changeait
leur vie, arrondissait leurs joues, rendait brillants leurs yeux. J'en
connaissais qui avaient perdu tout espoir de renouvellement et que la
solitude avait mises trés tOt sous terre.“

 

7 See Simone Kaya, Les Danseuses d'Impé-Eya, p. 60. “Je crois qu'a
cause de l'école je me suis éToignEe chaque jour un peu plus de ma
mére."

8 A similar situation is treated by Condé and Vieyra where the
Antillaise in Africa is ostracized and ridiculed. See Ch. IV of this
study.

9 B5, Mariama, Un chant ecarlate, pp. 44-45. all further references
to this work are contained within the text and indicated as Chant.

10

 

 

 

Harrell-Bond, p. 10.

11 Harrell-Bond, p. 12.
12 Harrell-Bond, p. 12.
13

Aminata Sow Fall, Le revenant, p. 24. All further references are

 

87

contained within the text.

1" Trinh T. Minh-ha, “Aminata Sow Fall et l'espace du don," The
French Review, vol. LV, no. 6, May 1982, p. 785.

15 Aminata Sow Fall, La gréve des Battu, pp. 23-24. All further
references are contained within‘the text and indicated as La grév .

 

 

Chapter Three
“L'Antillaise”

The Garden and the Journey: Women in French Caribbean Literature.

"Mon avenir s'arr‘éte a notre village et aux
alentours, la grande ville me fait peur". (Myriam
Warner-Vieyra le Quimboiseur l'avait dit..., p. 21.)

 

Woman as Writer

 

Writing by women in the francophone Caribbean, although also largely
neglected by critics and scholars alike until relatively recently, has a
much longer history than feminine writing in francophone West Africa.
Whereas the novels discussed in the first two sections of this study all
appeared in print after 1970, the earlier prose works by women from the
francophone Caribbean appeared before the end of the nineteenth century.
One of the earliest studies of the life of a woman in the French

Antilles, Yvette, histoire d'une jeune creole, was published in Paris in

 

1880. Since that time women novelists from Haiti, as well as from the

French d§partements of Martinique and Guadeloupe, have continued to tell

 

the stories of women from their societies. One of the most striking
characteristics of the works of these novelists is the autobiographical
element, a characteristic shared with their West African counterparts.
Although Thérése de Betzon, author of Yvette,Ahistoire d'une jeune
_g[§glg, was probably white (Eggple originally was a term used to

designate a white European born in the West Indies), the wonen to be

88

89

discussed in these chapters are all femmes de couleur. All would be
officially considered "black" in a North American context but in the
context of their own societies they range, like the heroines of their

novels, over a wide and complexly designated color spectrum: négresses,

 

mulatresses, chabinesL cfipresses, femmes a peau de sapotille, a peau

1 As the variety and the number of terms referring to

d'acajou, etc.
different skin shades or color types suggest, the question of color is
one which was and is of crucial importance in these colonial and
post-colonial societies. This preoccupation is evident 'hi the
literature. Color is a dominant theme in these works: color linked to
class distinction and divisions, blackness as a source of anguish and
alienation, skin color seen as the cause of social advancement or
Oppression, color at the root of the rejection of self or of others.

The novels which fonn the basis of this study on French Caribbean

writing are written in standard French (as already noted). Their authors

are Martinican or Guadeloupean, femmes de couleur. They are all

 

educated. French is their language of formal instruction. Their mother
tongue, if not in every case their “mother's tongue,“ is more properly

2 These factors are extremely significant. A Martinican or

stage.
Guadeloupean woman who is educated (and the fact of writing in French
already clearly points to a fairly sophisticated level of education) is
of necessity and de facto an assimilée by formation, conditioning,
education and up-bringing, if not by continuing and conscious choice of
identity.

“Assimilation,” as indicated in an earlier section, was an explicit

French colonial policy which sought to make of the educated inhabitant

of the colonized territory a French citizen in every sense of the word.

9O

Assimilation had serious social and psychological consequences because
it demanded that one discard one's identity in so far as it differed
from "French" identity, defined in tenms of language and culture, and of
white, European, metropolitan values. These consequences, dire enough in
French West Africa, had added repercussions in the Caribbean where the
Haitian, Martinican or Guadeloupean, previously uprooted and deprived of
his/her original (African) culture, already suffered from ambivalent
(and, for the majority, Often negative) emotions with regard to identity
and sense of self. Hence, questions of education in the broadest sense
Of the term, language, color, and of course identity, become of para-
mount importance in this literature. Mayotte Capécia was made famous by
Fanon (perhaps unjustly singled out) as the epitome of alienation, be-

cause of her novel La négresse blanche (1950).3 Michéle Lacrosil, whose

 

two novels Sapotille et le serin d'argile (1960) and Cajou (1961), tell
the stories of colored women severely alienated because of their color,

4 And, although

has been described as a ”novelist with a color complex.“
it is dangerous to confuse the novelist with the narrator or the persona
in the novel, there are obviously strong connections in terms of the
value system out of which they come, even if the author is rejecting
that system (as is clearly the case with some of the later novelists in
particular). If the earlier writers in particular seem overly concerned,
even obsessed, with matters of race and color, it is perhaps but a
reflection of their society's prevailing preoccupations and values
already vividly elaborated by the male writers of the négritude movement

such as Césaire and Damas, preoccupations still very dominant in

Caribbean literature both anglOphone and francophone even now, fifty

years post-négritud .

91

For purposes of convenience the writers will be considered in two
groups, groupings which however greatly overlap in tenms of publication
dates and influences as well as themes (see Appendix A). The “earlier
generation of writers“ refers to writers born pre-193O and the "later
generation" to women born mainly in the '30s, most of whom are still
writing or recently published. Because West Indian literature is
intimately linked to and deeply marked by its historical and
sociological context, it is important to review the historical and
social background of the writers.

All the women grew up in the French-speaking Caribbean, were
educated in local "French" schools and in many instances at universities
in France. Many of them, from both generations, also lived and travelled
widely in France and West Africa. Most spent the greater part of their
adult lives outside the West Indies. During the colonial period there
was a constant movement of the educated black pOpulation between the

5 This movement largely

Caribbean, France and French African territories.
continued until the independence of the former French African terri-
tories in the '60s. Many of the women from the West Indies found
themselves in West Africa via the métropole either as teachers, civil
servants or wives of French Africans, often fellow students encountered

"6 Among the contemporary women writers, a greater

in the "hexagon.
number are originally from Guadeloupe than from Martinique, which is not
true of male writers--a detail perhaps not without significance, as
Guadeloupe is generally seen as more militantly nationalistic and as
leaning more towards independence (understandably; for example, more

property in Guadeloupe is in the hands of overseas owners than is true

of Martinique) while Martinican society with a larger EurOpean, white,

92

population is still largely directed towards the métrOpol . Many of the
writers were at one time or another actively involved with women's
organizations and groups concerned with reform in the role and status of
women.7

The literature of franCOphone Caribbean women is in many ways a
direct mirror image of their society and reflects the ways in which many
women, especially educated colored women, see or saw themselves in that
society. It is a literature of confinement and alienation rather than a
literature of revolt. Caribbean women's writing up to the present cannot
be said to be militantly "feminist" in that it does not depict, openly
advocate, or point to the possibility of a change in the status or

8 However , the

situation of women, seen mainly as negative.
preoccupations of the writing in many cases point to the necessity for
change and are feminist in the wider sense of having to do primarily
with women's lives. The works speak of the feminine condition: of
women's every-day existence, of how they live, think and see themselves
and their place in their societies. These works make a significant
contribution especially with regard to the position and image of the
educated woman. In general, the picture that emerges is very
pessimistic. Although many of the writers in the study work in more than
one genre: poetry, theatre, as well as prose, here the discussion will

be confined to prose works only: essays, short stories, novels and

récits, including both roman and récit du vécu, fiction and "true life

 

story."
A perusal of a bibliography of prose works by women in Caribbean
literature immediately reveals several telling details (see Appendix A).

It becomes apparent from the titles that many of the works are names

93

and/or statements of identity: the names of, or for, women: Yvette,

Claire-Solange, Eme africaine; La négresse blanche; Fille d'HaTti;

 

 

 

 

Sapotille; Cajou (the heroine's nickname); Juletane. At times the titles

 

are first person statements of identity or problem: Je suis

martiniquaise; Mon examen de blanc. The first feature to emerge even

 

 

from a cursory examination of the works themselves is a preoccupation
with identity translated into the literary fonm of the biographical or
autobiographical narrative. In the case of almost every single Caribbean
woman writer there is at least one work, often more than one, in this
form. The first person narrative, with a female narrative voice (usually
the narrator is a women telling her own story) predominates. As in the
case of African women's writing many of the works are fictional
biographies, the majority autobiographies, or autobiographical
narratives, in the form of letters, journals or diaries. In many cases
the narrator makes explicit as the reason for writing the fact that the
act of writing gives consolation, relief, or simply a sense of coming to
terms and attempting to c0pe with a reality which has become, or is
becoming, increasingly intolerable.

In a talk on black American woman's fiction, Gloria Hull, a black
American woman scholar, made the point that although there are a number
of autobiographies by black American women, diaries (real, not fic-
tional) are rare. She also suggested that this is because it takes a
certain "sense of self" to keep a diary, whereas the autobiography

"9 These

allows the writer to present to the world the “finished product.
two factors are relevant here. As the titles of the works mentioned
above indicate, these novels are stories of the lives of women, women

asserting their identities in the terms they choose. “Je suis

94

martiniquaise," (Je suis) fille d'Haiti,“ (Je suis) une jeune créole"

are clearly statements of identity. Claire-Solange, ime africaine, the

 

story of a'young métisse taken on a journey to France by her white
father, implies by the titles a conscious rejection of European identity
(and of her West Indian_gp§ple identity as well). Her name may be French
but her innermost being is African. The title expresses a dichotomy
which is even more strikingly captured in the title of Mayotte Capécia's

work: La négresse blanche. The title is a play on and suggestive of the

 

expression "négresse rouge"--a term for a lighter skinned (“red")
negress. Unlike Claire-Solange, who identifies with her African

heritage, the protagonist of La négresse blanche, the négresse, Mayotte,

 

simply yearns to be either black or white, but preferably white. The
title sums up a duality which is indicative of an almost schiZOphrenic
identity crisis-- a yearning for whiteness and for white values-~which

is unresolved and the title encapsulates the ambiguity of La négresse

 

blanche.

The idea of the “finished product" is significant also because in
French Caribbean writing, it seems that the women look at what they have
become and feel forced to go back and try to reconstruct and understand
the process, the experiences, influences, which have brought them to
where they are. In most cases where they are is not always where they
set out to go or want to be. Moreover, often they feel hopelessly
trapped. Images of futile journeys, entrapment and dreams betrayed
characterize their plight in the novels.

“J'avais choisi une route large et fleurie elle s'était transformée
en ‘etroit sentier, plein d'emb‘uches; mais je devais poursuivre mon

chemin, n'ayant pas d'autre» choix possible ...," remarks Zétou ‘the

95

tragic heroine of Miriam Warner-Vieyra's Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit

....10 Her statement sums up the experience and the fate of many another

 

Antillean heroine. The women in these works are haunted by a deep sense
of failure, of dislocation and alienation. Like Cesaire's gpgvgs, they
see themselves as cut off, isolated wrecks cast up and run aground far
from their charted course. Or, in Schwarz-Bart's terms, they are little
fish who have lost their' “nageoires“--the stabilizing element which
enables them to stay upright and afloat in the currents of the vast
ocean or river of life. In Schwarz-Bart's imagery they are. like
“baleines echouées.“11

The fonm of the novels mirrors the state of mind and predicament of
the protagonist/narrator. The narrative structure is similar in what are
otherwise somethmes very different novels. Many of the narratives are
told in flashback. Thus we are confronted at once with the end product,
the predicament, the narration begins at the end of the road and looks
back. There is a constant juxtaposition of time where the narrator/
protagonist seems to be attempting to reconstruct the past in order to
understand, explain, and establish connections between this past and its
significance in tenms of the situation in which she finds herself. This

seemingly fragmented narration has been associated with l'écriture

Ajémipipe. This is true for example of Lacrosil's Sapotille ou le serin

 

d'argile, 1960, of Schwarz-Bart's Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes,

1967, as well as of Manicom's Mon examen de blanc. Condé's Une Saison 3

 

Rihata, 1981, and Heremakhonon, 1976, and Vieyra's two novels, _Eg

 

Quimboiseur l'avait dit, 1980, and Juletane, 1982. In each case the

 

situation is usually tragic, circumscribed, in some cases more dire than

a predicament. For there are ways out Of a predicament, but many of the

96

protagonists in these novels see themselves as having no way out, they

are caught in a situation sans issue, they are up against the wall.

 

Their situation translates itself metaphorically into images of enclosed
spaces: a room, a house, a cabin, a boat, a hole or well, 3.22222E’ an
enclosed garden, or expresses itself by withdrawal into a dream world, a
preoccupation with the life of the imagination, a retreat within oneself
in order to shut out external reality.

The themes in the novels all have to do with this tragic situation
which on the personal level is imarked by frustration, ambivalence,
ambiguity, self-hatred, feelings of rejection and of the impossibility
of reconciling conflicting parts of the self. it is the identity crisis,
or “quest,“ common to male West Indian writing, anglophone and franco-
phone alike , but perhaps even more acute in the case of the French
Caribbean woman who is an assimilée. Indeed one critic claims that all
writing by franCOphone West Indian women can be seen as “an identity

t."12 Unlike male Caribbean fiction, however, this quest usually

ques
ends in withdrawal and/or flight/evasion rather than confrontation and
breaking out. It is relevant here to briefly discuss time and space in
the novels, especially in terms of the journey and the enclosed space.
The develOpment of Caribbean women's fiction can be seen in terms of
two elements which occur frequently in the works: the journey and the
enclosed space, images which belong to Césaire's poetic universe and
which recur frequently in Caribbean literature. The space is both
positive and negative, a trap as well as a protective enclosure. The
journey is the “triple“ journey of Edward Brathwaite's poetry, akin to

1.13

Césaire's journey in Cahier d'un retour au pays nata In the infamous

 

"Middle Passage," (the voyage from Africa to the West Indies) in fact,

97

both images coalesce: the slaveship or négrier becomes the simultaneous

embodiment of incarceration and uprootedness, d'eracinement. The African

 

is stripped of his or her identity and becomes the E933 or négresse,
trapped in the color Of their skin, from which henceforth they derive
their only identity in the eyes of their new society. It is at once a
physical and psychological journey, the journey of a homeless peOple who
have three homelands: the Caribbean, EurOpe and Africa, of a people
deprived of their identity who have a triple heritage, African, European
and Antillean. The writings are journals, records of this journey in
reverse away from and then back to the Caribbean and into the self. Like
the_§ghiep, the writings of these women novelists are a means of coming
to terms with the self and of finding "one's own space." Caribbean
women's novels are primarily concerned with what Césaire calls:
The peculiarity of "our place in the world" which isn't to be
confused with anybody else's. The peculiarity of our problems
which aren't to be reduced to subordinate fonms of any other
problem. The peculiarity of our history, lafAed with terrible
misfortunes which belong to no other history.
Césaire was referring to French West Indians in general, but the
same also holds true for women's experiences, women's existence, women's
place in the world, which can best and most truly be expressed by women.

Hence the importance, especially for Caribbean women, of Caribbean

women's fiction.

98

France, the métropole

Haiti
West Africa

 

Antilles francaises <‘ “Guinée”

Figure of the journey: physical, sentimental

Historically, as well as spatially and chronologically, the fields
Of action in the novels begin in the West Indies, move to Europe
(France) then to West Africa and finally back to the Caribbean.

Lacrosil's three novels for example follow this pattern: Sapotille et le

 

serin d'argile, 1960, is set in Guadeloupe and on a ship bound for

 

France; Cajou, 1961, tells of a young woman's life in Paris and her

memories of the West Indies and with Demain Jab-Herma, 1967, we are back

 

in the Caribbean. Chronologically, the earlier novels (or within a given
novel the early years) occur in the Caribbean. Some of the earliest

novels, for example, La négresse blanche (set in Martinique in the

 

19405), Ega's Le temps des madras (published in 1966 but dealing with

 

Ega's childhood), or Capécia's Je suis martiniquaise, are set in the

 

West Indies. Some, mostly the later novels, take place mainly in France,
for example: Le quimboiseur l'avait dit, Cajou, Mon examen de blanc or

Lettres a une Noire (Ega, 1978), while others, like Heremakhonon, Une

 

saison a Rihata or Juletane, are concerned with the experiences Of an

 

antillaise heroine who has come to West Africa by way of France and

 

yearns to go back to her homeland in the Caribbean. Through the fields

99

of action of the novels therefore, the three geographical and psycho-
logical spaces are explored in terms of a personal history. The result
in most cases is alienation and rejection. So, whereas in certain types
of fiction journey is often journey as initiation, in the case of the
female writers journey becomes journey as alienation.15

We find recorded in the diaries both the physical journey to France
or to Africa, and the corresponding emotional, psychological, inward
journey, which in many cases leads to madness or the complete annihi-
lation of self in suicide or death. At the beginning (chronologically
the end) of the novels we see a character who is generally isolated both
from her immediate surroundings, her homeland or society and from the
self. This isolation or withdrawal from reality or from a hostile,
unsatisfying world, expresses itself metaphorically in terms of an
enclosed space. In some cases the women choose to restrict themselves

and limit their world to this familiar, controllable environment. Thus

Marie-Héléne (Une Saison 5 Rihata) rarely leaves her bedroom, furnished

 

with pieces which remind her of her childhood home in Guadeloupe.
Lacrosil's Sapotille spends most of her time on board ship confined to
her cabin, looking through the porthole, and Cajou is reluctant to leave
her dingy room high up in an old building in Paris except to go to the
safe familiar universe of the laboratory where she works as a chemist.
Even Manicom's relatively liberated Or. Madévie Ramimoutou is always
seen either in her “cube" where she feels safe or in the confined space
of the operating theater where she functions efficiently as an anesthe-
tist but has difficulty relating as an individual both to other
Antillais from whom she is cut off and to her white co-workers. She too

is characteristically depicted looking out the window, most often to the

100

airport, which links Guadeloupe to Paris and Madévie to her lost unhappy
love affair. In other cases the heroines' confinement is forced--a harsh
physical representation of their social and psychological alienation.
Vieyra's Juletane "la folle," is first locked in her room and eventually

ends her life Zétou in Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit confined in a mental

 

hospital. Trapped, both are victims of a cruel fate, brought about by
the betrayal of loved ones and their deluded ambitions. Both choose to
retreat into madness and seek escape through willingly embracing death
seen as a sort of dark bottomless pit which paradoxically will lead to

ultimate deliverance. Mariotte, the vieille négresse Of Schwarz-Bart's

 

earlier Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes, ends her days confined,

 

lonely, and destitute in an old people's home in Paris. Only in
Schwarz-Bart's later novels does the enclosed space have positive
resonances. (Significantly too in -these works, négresse becomes a
positive term.)

Many of the features which characterize Caribbean women's fiction
are linked to the autobiographical form and are expressed in terms of
these two metaphors of the journey (flight, escape) and the enclosed 3*.
space (isolation, alienation, incarceration). A fuller discussion of
several novels will illustrate some of these characteristics and high-
light the different images of women. First of all, the focus in this
literature is naturally on the woman. Secondly, the works are marked by
their pessimism. The woman is seen, as already noted, as being in an
impossible situation. HOpelessness faces not only woman, but also the
male and society in the Caribbean in general. An associated
characteristic of the literature therefore, related and giving rise to

its pessimism, is alienation. The women are alienated from themselves,

101

from men, and from their society. Their alienation is bound up with
feelings of rejection and expresses itself in negative mother and father
figures: a rejection both of their natural parents and a rejection of
the past in terms of their history, expressed as disillusionment with
Europe, the mother or fatherland ("la mére - patrie"), as well as
disappointment with Africa, the mythical motherland. The women's
alienation and feelings of rejection lead them to try to find ways of
escape but they find there is no real escape, only withdrawal from
reality leading to a desire for death, suicide, or madness. The women
Often see themselves as victims, victims of a hostile environment and
victims of their history and heritage. Hence the importance of the past.
The past is linked to their identity and their alienation is often a
result of historical factors--family history and the history of their
society. In this history which began with the Middle Passage the
question of race and color is crucial. The social structure inherited
from the days Of slavery and the hierarchy of the plantation, based
mainly on color, left an indelible mark on Caribbean society.

The matter of race and color is explored fully and treated mainly as
a source of anguish and conflict. Especially in the earlier novels, the
question of color revolves around a rejection of blackness, accompanied

as in La negrésse blanche, by a desire to be “blanchie"--a wishing for
n16

 

what Fanon calls “lactification. It is basically a rejection of self.
The repudiation of Europe and the demythification of Africa present in
the later novels also express themselves in a rejection of motherhood
and an emphasis on sterility or indifference rather than an embracing of
the maternal role. Many women in the later novels do not want, or do not

have, children. If they do have children, they do not perform the usual

102

mothering role. Negative mother figures thus reflect both alienation and
pessimism. Maternity is often a sign of optimism and hope, whereas
sterility is linked to alienation, rejection and hopelessness. This
portrayal of motherhood is also a refusal Of the stereotyped maternal
role, a role assigned and valued mainly by the male. All these features
are in fact linked to the question of the women's identity as women, as
black women, and as black women in West Indian society. These themes are
interwoven threads which interrelate and blur and are in turn expressed
in the narrative form, where the narrative voice, the central
consciousness or the persona in the novels is nearly always a woman, a

femme de couleur.

 

As we have already stated, the biographical or autobiographical
_£§glt predominates. It takes different fonms: the journal, diary,
letters, retrospective narration. Clarisse Zimra says that Caribbean
women's literature is a "literature of catharsis" which seeks to
exorcise the black woman's "predicament": being born black and female in
a world dominated by white and male values.17 The connection with the
French policy of assimilation is obvious. If one is black creole-
speaking, educated, alienation is the inevitable result.18 The
alienation and sense of isolation shared by men is more extreme in women
who see themselves as doubly exploited. As Zimra points out, a close

reading of La négresse blanche shows a much more complex situation than

 

that suggested by Fanon's analysis of Mayotte Cap‘ecia's position. Zimra
points out specifically that women see themselves as “sexual pawns
passing from the ownership of one race to that of the other. Relations
between colored women and men of any color remain those between masters

and slaves."19 In the novels, however, there is a progression chrono-

103

logically between Capécia and Condé in the degree of feminine conscious-
ness and in the gradual integration of’ self} In the later' novels,
although the woman is still for the most part alienated, she is less
alienated and much more aware in Manicom than in Capécia. Moreover, her

alienation is born of a desire to change the status quo. Condé's

 

heroines are less pessimistic and self-hating than Lacrosil's. Capécia's
women are completely alienated. Lacrosil's only slightly less so. In
both cases the source of their alienation is the conflict engendered by
an education/upbringing which has cut them Off from their society and
led them to despise one part of themselves and their heredity. Capécia's
protagonists as well as Lacrosil's take refuge in flight, withdrawal
from a world perceived as hostile and threatening. Ormerod points out
that in the nineteenth century French West Indies “Most mulattos
passionately desired to dissociate themselves from the black part of
their ancestry and be identified only with the white part, and the women
among them commonly preferred to be a white man's mistress than to marry
another mulatto. The notion of the advantages of a light skin, inherent
in the ranking system of plantation life, was thus ineradicably
implanted in Caribbean social structure. (...) Alienation, a poor
self-image in relation to whites and a disdainful attitude to darker
skin shades were thus common features of the free coloured caste....“20
These attitudes continue to operate in the twentieth century Antillean
society of the novels and help the reader to accept as realistic the
complexes and pressures Capécia's heroines suffer from and seek to
escape.

In the case of Isaure, Capécia's heroine in La négresse blanche, her

 

ambiguity, ambivalence and déchirement are particularly acute. Her

 

104

”nature,“ sympathies and instinct are portrayed (albeit stereotyped) as
coming from her black blood, but she has been conditioned to be “white."
The predicament is common to all sectors of educated West Indian
society. But in the case of French West Indians who strove towards
assimilation the dilemma was particularly acute. Their education
consciously and deliberately cut them off from their own environment,
the creole environment, and from their cultural experiences, especially
those experiences with residual African cultural expressions, ways of
interpreting phenomena, their language, etc. Thus “le quimbois,"
“voudou” or “black" magic in the novels is often used as a symbol of
this repressed and outlawed African heritage. Although many of the
characters have recourse to guimbois, especially in difficult or hope-
less situations, they do so in secret and sometimes with reluctance,
embarassment and shame. Isaure, “la négresse blanche" and Zétou in _L_e_

Quimboiseur l'avait dit, as well as Lacrosil's and Schwarz-Bart's

 

heroines, all have faith in and dealings with guimbois. Schwarz-Bart's
heroines are the only ones who openly embrace and celebrate this part of

their life.

The black woman: Mayotte Capécia, Michele Lacrosil

 

Mayotte Capécia's heroine, Mayotte, of Je suis martiniquaise, has

 

been discussed at length by Fanon who sees her and her creator as the
epitome of alienation. From an analysis of the novel he concludes:
“Mayotte Capécia (the author) is barred from herself."21 Fanon makes no
distinction between Mayotte as author and Mayotte the persona in the
novel. Be that as it may, Fanon himself shows elsewhere in the same

chapter of his book that Mayotte's obsession with whiteness is a

105

reflection of a preoccupation common in the Martinican society of the

time.22

Mayotte sees her blackness as the source of her hardships in
life. She quite unselfconsciously, with extremely naive candor,

expresses her desire to ”be completely white" (Je suis martiniquaise, p.

 

59). This desire brings with it an unquestioning acceptance and valuing
of whiteness (she can and will only love a white man, simply because he
is white), and consequently a rejection of her own blackness, a total
negation and hatred of self. But although it is true that, as Fanon
says, Capécia is pessimistic about Martinique: "Mayotte Capécia has
definitely turned her back on her country. In both her books only one
course is left for her heroines: to go away,"23 Capécia's protagonists
are by no means unique. The same can be said of most Antillean heroines
at some point in their lives: Lacrosil's, Manicom's, Vieyra's, Condé's
protagonists all flee from the West Indies and some of them discover too
late, their imistake. Moreover, the protagonist in Capécia's second,

later, novel La négresse blanche, is significantly less unquestioning in

 

her acceptance of all things white as superior and desirable and much
more consciously analytical about her values. From one work to the
other, the character's if not necessarily the author's position has
become less cut and dried.

As the title suggests the dominating theme in the novel is that of

race and color. Isaure, the négresse blanche, is not free, in fact she

 

is caught in a bind. She is a victim of heredity and history. She has
been conditioned by her mother, who, abandoned by her white lover and
left with his child, nevertheless inculcates in her daughter “ce respect

des blancs," which now imprisons Isaure (La négresse blanche, p. 13).

 

She longs to rid herself of the feeling, but cannot. The novel is set in

106

Fort-de-France in the 40s. It is wartime Martinique. The town is
"occupied" by the French fleet, which, instead of bringing food for the

starving Martiniquais, has taken away and exploited their women. The

 

situation at the beginning of the novel is significant. It is symbolic
of Isaure's psychological incarceration. She is locked in a room, her
own bar, with three white men: two officers and a sailor. Fiercely
proud, financially independent, she is nevertheless a prisoner of her
fears and prejudices. Outside the door, in the night, are the £295.22
whom she claims to despise and fear. They have come in pursuit of the
sailor who has been with one of their women. Isaure also says she
despises the white men and feels the affairs of Martinicans do not
concern them, but she is powerless to act. Her despair and frustration
are great. She passionately puts the point of view of the wronged and
outraged black male while at the same time expressing her scorn and
hatred fOr him. She bars the door so that the officers cannot go into
the street to what she fears will be their death. Yet the end of the
chapter is telling. Of her own accord, Isaure suddenly does what she has
all along been terrified of and has forbidden the white men to do: she

snatches open the door--"elle s'était jetée dans la nuit" (La n'egresse

 

blanche, p. 15). The full impact of this seemingly inexplicable,
unexpected action has been well prepared. Isaure is several times
described as "nerveuse," even "terrorisée." She does not herself
understand her action or motive. "Etait-ce la revanche de ce sang que

depuis son enfance elle tentait d'étouffer?" (La Négresse blanche, p.

 

18). Although Cap‘ecia's suggested explanation deprecates Isaure's black
ancestry and treats it in terms Of negative clichés, her heroine is

forced to admit its importance in her identity. Isaure's situation is

107

one of tragic déchirement. History repeated itself. At 17 she became the

 

lover of a page (a rich Martinican white) whose family quickly sends him
away (to China!). He leaves her with a baby. Isaure however, unlike her
mother, is very conscious of her situation and faces it lucidly. She
cannot undo her mother's conditioning, further compounded by the results
of this first sexual encounter:
C'était vrai, elle n'avait jamais eu d'amant noir. Peut-étre
uniquement parce que le premier, qui l'avait prise a dix-sept
ans était un blanc. Un premier amant oriente une vie. Cela
aurait pu étre tout différent. Le mariage avec un noir, cela ne
vaudrait-il mieux que le concubinage avec un blanc? Les
enfants, du moins, n'auraient pas été des batards. (Lg négresse
blanche, p. 12).
Isaure still despises blacks whom she calls ”les sales négres," yet she
is drawn to them “comme une mangouste fascinée par le serpent." Whether
or not Capécia herself holds these views, the narrator here mimics
stereotyped social attitudes of her society. The male sexual stereotype,
the weak white man and the virile black, is reflected in her portrayal
of the_p§k§ and the typical Martinican. She characterizes the sang-mélé
and the E922 as hot-blooded, instinctual, "earthy,“ more subject to
passions and baser drives--in short, more "animal." Despite her own
ancestry Isaure sees the black man as inferior. Her characterization of
both the métisse and the black woman are also stereotyped. Yet Isaure's
position is not identical to that of Mayotte in Je suis Martiniguaise.
Although in some ways more tragic, Isaure's situation is seen in more
complex terms. Her position is more ambivalent.
Isaure's relationship with both black and white men is one of scorn,
hate and terror. As Zimra has pointed out, she cannot relate positively

to either. She despises the white men she is forced to cater to in her

bar, yet she cannot help herself. She does not allow herself to mix with

108

blacks--she will not even serve them in her establishment. Capécia's
work is of limited literary and artistic merit. Her psychological
explanations and character studies are exaggerated, clichés, reminiscent
of retrograde (although still prevalent) attitudes and popular, romantic
fiction. But as a record of a woman growing up in the first half of the
century in the French Caribbean it provides valuable documentation and
insights.

The situation at the beginning of the novel (the whites within, the
blacks outside, the métisse of her own choosing locked in with the
whites, yet uncomfortable and longing to burst out of her own self-
imposed prison) metaphorically expresses not only the position of the

femme de couleur but also the conflict in the Caribbean society which is

 

physically and psychologically embodied in the person of Isaure. As the

narrator remarks, “Enfin, tout, chez elle, méme son accent et ses gestes

24

était métissé" (La négresse blanche, p. 9). Isaure is torn. In

 

addition, as foreshadowed by her role in the opening chapter, the woman
is both a source of hostility and the gO-between between two groups of
hostile males. Having temporarily abandoned their black husbands and
lovers the women in Capécia's wartime Fort-de-France are totally
involved with the visiting French sailors. Woman is shown to be the main
point of contact/buffer/source of friction between the two groups which
otherwise have very little to do with each other. As a result, the woman
is doubly exploited and victimized--by the white man who uses and
abandons her, and by her own man who resents having to share her with
the French sailor. It is perhaps of course a situation of imutual
exploitation. Capécia depicts the women as choosing to accept the

situation because of its material advantages. But life is hard and they

109

must fight to survive.

Isaure's self-hatred is clearly shown to be the result of her life
situation and upbringing. She, too, is fighting for survival and
independence. She is financially independent and psychologically she
does manage to achieve a very limited imeasurei of freedom. In her
relationship with Daniel (a cowardly, selfish Frenchman) she is
suppressing her natural feelings and desires. She finally manages to
liberate herself: she deliberately ends the relationship. Although her
next relationship is still with a white man, he is described in more
positive terms. He is in fact sympathetic to the cause of the blacks. He
defies his family and marries Isaure.

Capécia's view Of male-female relations in her society and her
portrayal of relationships between blacks and whites, while still Open
to serious criticism and somewhat simplistic, is much more ambiguous and
complex in this second novel. Although Isaure does not manage to rid
herself of her prejudices and she hates the poor black workers who have
killed her white husband, depicted as innocent, she! does at times
recognize and put the case for her fellow blacks. She condemns the p§5§§
for their cruel exploitation of blacks and for their snobbery. In the
context of the time and her conditioning it is perhaps realistically as
far as a woman like Isaure could go.

Capécia attracted Fanon's condemnation for unashamedly voicing
sentiments through her characters which are to be found in other works
as well, although given less credence. Isaure herself reflects on her
awakening consciousness: “Elle était mécontente, angoissée. (...) Elle

"25

me pouvait plus se borner a servir les békés. Although at the end of

the novel Isaure's "solution“ is flight--a voyage to France which she

110

does not really want to undertake--Isaure recognizes that it is her own
lie or falsehood (”mensonge") which is the cause of her predicament. (To
avenge herself at the expense of her mother-in-law who disapproves of
her, Isaure has said she is carrying her husband's child.) But
"mensonge" must be understood here in a much wider sense than that
individual, particular lie. It is a metaphor for Isaure's condition, the

condition of the black or mulatto assimilé.

Michéle Lacrosil

 

Capécia depicts the woman in the West Indies as alienated from her
society because of her color and background, but also because of her
sex. Especially in the earlier works, as already mentioned, women are
seen very much as sexual objects. This is the case with Lacrosil's

heroine Sapotille, in Sapotille et le serin d'argile. In this novel too

 

color is a dominant factor in the woman's life and way of seeing and
defining herself.

Sapotille (her name, her identity, derives from her color, her
"jolie peau de sapotille") despises herself: a consequence of her

26 She is black but she has been sent to a

alienating education.
boarding-schodl for the daughters of rich mulattoes and pékgs because
her mother wants her to have "une education convenable.“ The nuns
cruelly mock her ambition to be a lawyer and treat her harshly. She is
in love with a mulatto who toys with her affections and abandons her,
using as an excuse family pressures. She marries a black man, who,
himself a victim of his society's prejudices, beats and ill-treats her.

She loses her child. Sapotille's story begins and ends with the young

woman setting off for France where she hopes to escape the complexes and

111

restrictions of her native Guadeloupe. The novel is set on board a ship
where the woman is confined to her cabin. The space in the novel is
compartmentalized and stratified. The divisions on board mirror the
divisions in Caribbean society. Sapotille has chosen to take with her
significant objects from her past, a tin cup, the clay canary--objects
identified with her past humiliation. She refused to leave behind that
which she is seeking to flee and forget. It quickly becomes clear to the
reader that Sapotille is also largely responsible for her own situation.
She drags around with her symbolically and psychologically the seeds of
her own self-destruction. The boat is not a means,of escape, but her
prison. France one realizes will solve nothing. Sapotille's naively
ironic remarks at the end of the narrative (“Les Francais ignorent le
compartimentage de la société antillaise, les interdits d'une classe a
l'autre. J'ai toujours aimé leur pays; je ne le connais pas encore, mais

“27) already point clearly to future

je sais que c'est ma patrie
disillusionment and unhappiness.

Whereas for Césaire in the final analysis the situation in the
Antilles is rotten to the core and has to be destroyed, the reaction of
the women is to try, as Césaire did initially, to leave it behind. But
there is no escape. In France, the predicament remains--as it does in
Africa for Vieyra and Condé's West Indian heroines. They have carried
their insecurities, complexes and unrealized hOpes with them. These
women do not seek as Césaire's poet did to change their society. For
them, with the exception of Manicom's heroine and Schwarz-Bart's
Lougandor women, the situation is impossible. Schwarz-Bart's heroines

alone are able to transcend their environment, accept hardships and even

blossom in their ascribed place in the world. Significantly, Télumée and

112

her grandmother never leave their island and rarely venture far from
their homes. They stay in their circumscribed protected and protective
space. They too make a journey but it is a journey inward, a journey of
initiation, to an integration of self, never a physical journey. Whereas
Césaire's protagonist journeys from crushed submissiveness to open
revolt the protagonists in female Caribbean writing remain largely
passive whatever their geographical or social milieu.

Lacrosil's second novel, £3192, confirms that only the setting has
changed. Cajou and Sapotille are basically aspects of the same self.
Cajou has changed her name from Monica. Her new name in her own words
symbolizes “ma propre ambiguité.“ The word “cajou” from “acajou” means
"cashew," both fruit and nut, but also means ”mahogany"--a precious wood
used for carvings and like “Sapotille" a way of designating skin color.
The dual nature of the fruit/nut seems to Cajou particularly appropriate
to her nature and identity. Her white lover wants to marry her, her
director has named her "chef de travaux” in the laboratory where she
works. But Cajou cannot accept either love or recognition because she is
estranged from herself. Her “solution" is suicide. Cajou in EurOpe,

educated and accepted, copes no better than Sapotille did in Martinique.

The mulatto woman: Maryse Condé

 

In her two novels, Heremakhonon,and Une saison a Rihata, Maryse

 

 

Condé offers a portrait of the typical middle class Antillaise.28 Both
Veronica Mercier and Marie-HéIEne are attractive, *well-educated and
above all portrayed as intellectually gifted and independent-minded
women. Their aspirations and views contrast sharply' with those put

forward by society as the ideal Antillaise bourgeoise who is expected to

 

113

be basically passive and portrayed by Condé as a sort of stereotyped

heroine of imported romantic fiction. The narrator in Heremakhonon

 

remarks that women in her circle believe that “real women" must have
hay-fever, allergies, in short, must be weak, or as romantic novels
would say “delicate.“ Their concept of themselves is in keeping with the
roles and status imposed upon women by Antillean middle-class values and
against which Veronica revolts. Veronica's rebellion however is doomed
to fail as the means she chooses to liberate herself are ironically the
source of a further enslavement. Veronica longs to free herself from the
limitations imposed on a woman by her society. In her desire to be free
she mistakenly imagines she can achieve this freedom through a liaison
with Jean Marie de Roseval, son of a wealthy creole family. Veronica
swears that she was attracted to Jean Marie not because of his name or
his color but because he is "free." However, we recognize a scenario and
a phenomenon not unlike that of many earlier novels. It can be argued

that Capécia's Martiniguaises, Isaure and Mayotte, and Lacrosil's

 

heroines are guilty of the same misconceptions. They all make the same
basic error. They believe that by association or identification with one
who is perceived as having the qualities they desire (beauty, freedom,
independence, security, whiteness, lack of constraint or whatever else
they. see their lovers as possessing) they can somehow acquire these

29 In each case, the object of

attributes and change their situation.
their desire is a male in a class which is perceived as being socially
superior. Veronica, like Lacrosil's and Capécia's heroines, flees, first
to Paris and eventually to Africa, as did many other West Indian women,

30

not just in the novels but in real life also. Tragically, in

Veronica's case, as in most other cases, her conflicts and her dilemma

114

remain unresolved. Their fault lies in failing to see that they need to
change themselves, their orientation, values, aims, not their external
circumstances.

Veronica's response to the demands of her society is open rebellion
and flight. In her later novel Condé shows that despite attempts to
rebel, the values of Antillean creole society are hard to shake. In Up;

saison a Rihata, Marie-Helene, too, had spent a rebellious, idealistic

 

youth in Paris. In her student days she was filled with the exuberant
enthusiasm of a militant left-wing intellectual. She rejected the path
laid down for women and exemplified by her mother--a cultivated,
potentially independent and strong, sensitive woman: yet victimized by
social convention and by her husband, described significantly in these
disdainfully pejorative tenms by his daughter: "un négre mal équarri...
un négre, négre quoi! (...) un homme vulgaire et bien dans sa peau“
(Rihgtg, p. 26). However, having abandoned her studies and a potentially
brilliant career to marry an African on the rebound, after a tragic love
affair which caused the suicide Of her sister, Marie-Héléne in Africa
seems to be more and more drawn to those middle-class values of her
childhood that she had once rejected. She nostalgically, and it seems
proudly, recalls her mother, Alix des Ruisseaux, “cette femme fiére et
délaissée,” who maintained her independence after being abandoned by her
husband by selling her embroidery. Her daughter who “avait toujours haT
les travaux d'aiguille,“ now pregnant with her sixth child, “s'efforcait
maladroitement de tracer au point de tige le mot 'bébé'. Ou' aurait dit
sa mére devant ces points inégaux, marqués de toute son impatience et de
sa frustration?“ (p. 77). Marie-Héléne, middle-aged, identifies more and

more with her mother whom she sees as a victim of a cruel, insensitive,

115

husband. Marie-Héléne blames her father, unjustifiably it seems, for her
mother's premature death. Alix des Ruisseaux is compared to
Marie-Héléne's African mother-in-law whom she despises. Alix is the
personification of "refined" bourgeois values. Her sin is to have loved
"un négre." She is from a very old creole family, landowners: one of her
ancestors, a much anthologized poet, wrote sonnets: "Alix avait été
élevée dans le respect de toutes les valeurs qui font de la mulatraille
ce qu'elle est" (Rihata, p. 26).

Marie-Héléne grew up partly in this rarefied genteel bourgeois world
where “Les dames en robe de soie, comme Alix, tenant par la main des
fillettes en robe d'organza comme elle-meme, s'extasiaient sur la
finesse et l'originalité des broderies et payaient de petites fortunes
pour une paire de napperons" (Ripgtg, p. 77). How far from the Antilles
it is this side of her heritage which she embraces nostalgically. She
completely rejects the legacy of her father who "aimait le rhum sec dans
les verres, les rires et plaisanteries gras, les négresses a peau
veloutée au sexe sans mystére" (m, p. 76) and whom she cannot
forgive (or understand) for having married her mother.

Although she does not fully recognize or acknowledge it,
Marie-Helene is conditioned by her outmoded upbringing which is
responsible for her inability to relate to her children or to assert
herself and face the difficulties and demands of everyday living in an
ordinary world. Her role model and her idol is her mother, whom she
remembers as "silencieuse, solitaire": “Alix appartenaient a une
génération de femmes qui ne se confiaient pas. Surtout a leurs enfants.
Et Marie-Héléne n'avait jamais pu que diviner" (31995.39 p. 76). She

admires her mother's stoicism and silent martyrdom but it is a silence

116

which has dire repercussions in her own maternal role. Marie-Héléne and
her sister are brought up as family possessions, treasured and regarded
with pride like ”bijoux“ or “propriétés familiales“ (Rihata, p. 80).
Marie-Héléne the older one is especially coddled because she is not only
intelligent but has long, straight, hair. Her sister, a “chabine” is
less fussed over: "...on déplorait vivement ses cheveux tellement courts
et crépus. Leur grand-mere soupirait: - Heureusement, tu as une belle
peau et de beaux yeux... Entendez par la une peau presque blanche et des
yeux gris!" (gihggg, p. 80). Not content with her long, straight hair,
Marie-Héléne even confesses she wished for eyes like her sister's. Un-
consciously it is these deeply-ingrained artificial values which Marie-
Héléne reflects when she cannot come to terms with the realities of her
everyday hum-drum existence, just as she could not face a world of
compromise or accept responsibility for her selfish actions which caused
her sister's death.

The Antillean middle class is portrayed as living in a false, fairy-
tale world of borrowed values and imported manners where there are
strict rules for behavior and rigid taboos. But the influence of this
world is very tenacious. Zimra points out that the mulatto heroine is a
fitting metaphor for the “surviving colonial condition“ in the French

31

Antilles. André Schwarz-Bart's figure of the mad mulatto with one blue

and one brown eye in La mulatresse Solitude is another haunting portrait

 

of this tragic situation.32 To break these taboos is to court disaster,
moreso for a woman. Alix des Ruisseaux suffers as much from having loved
a black man who imarries and then discards her as does Lacrosil's
Sapotille for aspiring to a mulatto. In both cases their real problem is

due to false values which inhibit and destroy them. The society is

117

harsh. Women especially must know their place, channel their affections
correctly, and limit their ambition no matter how gifted they may be.
Consciously or subtly they are taught and internalize these values, and
they find they cannot simply discard them. The nuns ridiculed Sapotille
for wanting to be a lawyer. Much later the protagonist of Vieyra's _l_._e_

guimboiseur l'avait dit declares that if, like her sister, just as

 

intelligent, but less ambitious, she had been content to stay in her
tiny native village, her story would have had a happy, rather than a
tragic, ending. Indeed the novel carries a warning in the form of a
cautionary epigraph: "La 00 la confiance te mene, .ta force me te fait
pas sortir (proverbe antillais)." It is also a theme of Vieyra's second

novel Juletane, set in Africa.

Social roles: mother, wife, grandmother

 

Condé's novels are pessimistic in their portrayal of Antillean
bourgeois society. Her father figures are particularly negative.

Veronica's father, en bon bourgeois, denounces his daughter in the

 

harshest tenms and Marie-HélEne's although not a status-conscious
mulatto, is described as irresponsible, pleasure-seeking and mainly
characterized by his absence. The black father in Capécia's Je suis

martiniquaise had similar traits but is a more sympathetic character.

 

However, it is the mother who is largely responsible for the
transmission of values, and as such she is particularly censured. In
male fiction the maternal fgure is most often, almost always in fact,
positive. Not so in the case of Caribbean women's fiction. The most
damaging depiction of a negative mother figure can be found in Vieyra's

Le quimboiseur l'avait dit. Zétou's mother, a figure of the light-

 

118

skinned petit bourgeois class, has abandoned her husband and children

 

and run off with a white man. In her mind she left the stifling
atmosphere of her native village to seek a better, more rewarding, life
in France. Her daughter, the narrator, does not entirely condemn her
actions. However, the mother's false values, degradation and tragedy
have completely dehumanized her to the point where she becomes a
Caricature of an "unnatural mother.” Ironically, it is Zetou's desire to
widen her horizons which paves the way for her own exploitation. In
France she is betrayed and exploited by her mother. Both are victims of
their desire to escape their island village which they consider limited
and limiting. The mother/daughter relationship as well as that of the
father and daughter is depicted as being unsatisfactory. The life of the
couple is also portrayed in negative terms.

In many of the novels the portrait which we get of the wife is most
Often that of the middle-class woman taken for granted and neglected by
her husband as he devotes himself to his work and/or to his own
enjoyment and amorous adventures. Most of the time the reader first sees
the wife in the person of the heroine's mother. This is the case of

Mayotte's family in Je suis martiniqpaise and it is also the position

 

Conde's heroine Marie-Héléne describes with regard to her own mother.
(The relationship between Marie-HélEne and her own husband will be
discussed in a later section.) In general, the image of the black West
Indian male as husband and father is very negative and perhaps
understandably the role of wife is not put forward as a desired or

valued one. In Sapotille et le serin d'argile where the narrative is

 

concerned directly with the life of the married couple the situtation is

most unpleasant. BenOit, Sapotille's black husband, beats her and

119

Sapotille, who does not really love her husband anyway, almost proves to
be a willing victim. Sapotille says of their marriage: “C'était raté.
BenOit s'acharnait en vain a me coincer dans le moule de son idéal; il
voulait d'une épouse soumise, aimante et terrifiée, et je n'arrivais pas
a réunir les trois conditions en méme temps. Le pire grief de Benoit,
c'était que je 'ne le craignais pas assez'."34 Lacrosil suggests that
both individuals are warped by their experiences. Beno‘it, having been
humiliated by others, can only feel like a man by victimizing his wife.
"Il attendait mes larmes comme une rehabilitation."35 One hopes that
such extreme cases are an exaggeration, but the main point Lacrosil
seems to be making is that both men and women are victims of an unjust
society and an oppressive past.

In contrast to the Benoit/Sapotille couple we have Schwarz-Bart's

portrayal of Toussine and Jérémie's life together in Pluie et vent sur

Télumée Miracle. As a wife Toussine is cherished and within the tiny

 

circumscribed space of their cottage and garden in the country hamlet
Toussine "s'épanouissait." For a brief interlude Telumée also enjoys the
contentment of a wife until her luck turns and her man is taken from
her. These couples, however, are rural, peasant families and even within
their own community they are the Objects of jealousy among their

neighbors who are envious of their prosperity and good fortune.

120

Positive Images: Simone Schwarz-Bart

 

“...car qu'est-ce qu'une femme?
... un néant, disaient-ils, tan-
dis que Toussine était tout au
contraire un morceau de monde, un
pays tout entier, un panache de
négresse, la barque la voile et
le vent car elle ne s'était pas
hal))ituée au malheur" (Pluie, p.
27

While Schwarz-Bart's novels have some elements in common with the

work of other Caribbean women writers (Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle

 

focuses on women, and is an autobiographical, non-linear narrative for
example) her work is more marked by its unique qualities. In Ti-Jean
l'Horizon Schwarz-Bart's narrator makes it explicit that her concept of
her island is at variance with those who consider it "sans importance“
or “insignifiante.” Although Fond-Zombi is a tiny hamlet on a tiny
island, a speck on the map, it is not a land with no past and no
history. Moreover, it is not necessary to look overseas to Europe or to
Africa to find a sense of worth. Unfortunately, as the narrator
recognizes, most of the people there see themselves as “créatures de

“36 It

sable et de vent” as if “surgis de nulle part, pour n'étre rien.
is this image which Schwarz-Bart's heroines resolutely struggle to
reject as they assert their power to "dominate their horse" and to
remain upright and afloat in the waters of life.

Often in Caribbean literature landscape is a key to character. The
plaine/morne distinction can be found in the works of writers such as
Césaire, Glissant. In Schwarz-Bart this distinction is clear. In Ti-Jean
L'Horizon the “gems d'En haut," who live like Telumée's grandmother on

the other side of the Bridge of Beyond, are distinguished from their

fellow men. They are and see themselves as superior. Their sense of

121

superiority comes from a sure sense of self founded on a knowledge of
their history as descendants of slaves who revolted. What Schwarz-Bart
attempts to do is to give back to the peasant his lost worth. The
narrators says of these men: "Ils ne se tourmentaient comme ceux du
village, ni s'interrogeaient pas sur la couleur de leurs boyaux;
savaient, savaient qu'un sang noble courait dans leurs veines, celui des
braves qui avaient construit ces mémes cases rondes et blanchies a la

chaux."37

The “gens d'En-haut“ are a breed set apart. They are strong
because they have kept intact their link with the past. They have so far
been able to resist "la magie de la plaine" which attracts and destroys.
Until the fatal day of the arrival of the “route goudronnée.“

In Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle the Lougandor women are also a

 

race set apart. They too belong to the mpppe, the hill-country, source
of myth, mystery and secret sustenance. They are uncorrupted by the
destructive attitudes of the plain. The men and women around them see
life in negative terms and have lost all hope. The vision the black man
has of himself is clearly negative. As Beverley Ormerod points out “The
tragic consciousness of past misery and degradation is linked in the
novel with a widespread tendency to self-doubt and self-deprecation."38
Yet the Lounandor women have a strong sense of self, a belief in their
ability to endure. They "do not make a habit of sorrow." Although life
is hard it must not get the better of them. The view of woman is very
positive. Woman is seen not only as having the power to survive and to
resist adversity but in so doing, she can save not only herself, but
also those around here. When Toussine, overcome by sorrow, almost loses

her mind her household slowly disintegrates. When she recovers ”elle les

ressuscitait" (Pluie, p. 27). The novel, as Ormerod says, "promises

122

salvation through individual courage and celebrates the role of women in
the Caribbean struggle for survival."39

Télumée is an old woman looking back over her life. The novel takes
the form of her reminiscences. It is rambling, fluid, lyrical, in
keeping with the musings and memories of an old lady. In the text we are
presented with the history of the Lougandor women and in particular with
the life of Télumée herself and that of her grandmother, Toussine,
renamed "Reine-sans-nom" for her wonderful ability to triumph over life,
just as Télumée is given the name “Miracle.“ Télumée's life mirrors that
of her grandmother by whom she is nurtured and valued. Toussine is the
“significant other“ in her grand-daughter's life. As in many Caribbean
families Télumée is raised by her grandmother who treasures her and
initiates her into the alternative world of magic, myth, and legend. The
texts offers portraits of the women at different stages--the child, the
woman, the grandmother, and more importantly, contrasts the lives of the
Lougandors with those of the average women around them. “Ces femmes
n'avaient rien dans la vie, quelques planches sur quatre-roches et le
défilé des hommes sur leur ventre" ([1213, p. 27). Télumée, by
contrast, is taught to be a proud, “petite négresse,“ and her education,
unlike the formal schooling of village children, is in the truths and
values of folk wisdom. In the text there is a revalorizing of terms
("négresse" for example), of many metaphors used negatively in other

Caribbean women writers as images of evasion or entrapment: the room,

the garden, the closed space, the dream. The closed space (hamlet, boat, ,

 

house, room, garden) in Schwarz-Bart's text, becomes not a negative

limiting image but a positive, protected, and protective space. Télumée .

is told she must be like a drum with two sides. The world can beat upon

1

123

one but she must keep the other face intact. Toussine, we are told,
"could withdraw at will into the recesses of her soul, but she was
reserved, not disillusioned Qfllpig, p. 22)."

Schwarz-Bart's novel is positive, moving and beautiful, but there
are limitations to her vision. First of all, she has been accused of
romanticizing, of wanting to reinstate “la vieille négritude." Her
characters are seen as “exemplary victims." This criticism is in part
justified. Although the women are not victims--they do not have a victim
mentality, do not see themselves as victims and are in no way
subservient--they do live a life apart. They are rural négresse . (Her
novel treats only the world of the peasant). The outside world,
especially the white world, is ignored, consciously made irrelevant.
Télumée's one foray outside her known, familiar world, as a maid in a
white household, almost ends in disaster. It can be argued that the life
of the Lougandor women, built around "le mythe paysan" is mythical,
unreal, with no relevance to ordinary women, especially to women faced
with the problems of everyday, increasingly urbanized life. The narrator
herself acknowledges this: the story is set in a time "before paved
roads“ and electricity. At the end Télumée regrets the passing of her
era, and at the thought of increasing modernization she describes her
reaction: "Alors une nostalgie m'étreint, ma personne m'échappe et je ne
reconnais plus mon temps“ (31213, p. 248). But even in their time the
Lougandor women are depicted as having lived by different codes and
their lessons have validity. The peasant is not idealized. Neither is
his life. In fact, in the folk wisdom, seen through proverbs, as Ormerod
points out, life is described as being harsh and cruel.40 The novel is

about survival, not escape or flight.

124

The dominant image of the book is that of a river, the waters and
currents of life, now smooth now 'twmultuous. Télumée's grandmother
teaches her to flow with the current, not to lose her “nageoire,” the
propelling and stabilizing element which enables her to stay afloat, if
not to chart her own course. She must be like a little fish, not a
“grosse baleine échouée." She must hold her head high amidst the stonms
Of life. The source of Télumée's strength and courage is her belief in
herself, drawn from her' grandmother's nurturing and affirming love.
Interestingly the Lougandor women do not have happy or lasting relation-
ships with men, but they are not embittered. They face life squarely.
The men they come in contact with, themselves victims of the cruelties

of fate and life, often disappoint them. In contrast to the Lougandors

these men allow themselves to be destroyed by life as do the women in;

most of the novels discussed so far. Telumée and Toussine are images of
self-reliance and survival outside of the system of white exploitation.
Schwarz-Bart's vision stands in opposition to the more common portrayal
of woman (and man) as victim. Télumée, unlike Sapotille, Mayotte, Cajou
or Zétou, manages to remain whole. But she is outside the system and
because of this does not internalize negative, destructive values. She
sees herself as a négresse in her grandmother's eyes and according to
her own positive definition. Cajou and the others try to survive within
the dominant culture where values are dictated by the _l3§_k_é_§ and where
they always see themselves as falling short. So they attempt to cOpe by
fleeing from their island which they imagine is the source of their
problems and cause of their constraint. Whereas many of these women
withdraw from reality and embrace madness, Schwarz-Bart's heroines

refuse madness and assert their ability to cope. But they cope on their

125

own tenms, in their own world, by maintaining their separateness.

The woman in these novels, Lacrosil's Cajou or Sapotille are perhaps
the most extreme examples, is a prisoner of the image of herself created
to a large extent by her response to her society. This is especially
true of the middle-class woman who has been more exposed to the values
of the city, of 'the imétropol . In many cases their imothers, like

Mayotte's mother in Je suis martiniquaise, still want their daughters to

 

behave as if they have been "élevée(s) en chapeau, dans la méme pension

41

que les enfants des blancs.“ The woman sees herself as inferior first

because she is a woman and especially because she is a femme de couleur.

 

Life she knows by experience is particularly cruel to black women. The
source of their misfortune is thus chiefly attributed to their color.
This idea is emphasized and exaggerated by their upbringing. The result
of this is that even tough, ambitious, independent or well-educated
women find it almost impossible to overcome the handicaps of their
negative self-image and to break out of society's or their own
self-imposed restrictions. Lacrosil's heroines are an extreme case and
her novels give a distorted picture, fortunately. But it cannot be
denied that in these novels many women do not see themselves or their
situation in a positive light. Schwarz-Bart's characters are an
exception.

Maryse Condé points out that in Caribbean folklore the image of the
woman was largely positive. She is endowed with the capacity to endure, _

“42 Condé suggests

to overcome: “une femme tombée se relevera toujours.
that this legendary image of woman and her status has been degraded by
urbanization and the rise of bourgeois values which are modeled after

metropolitan, European, ideals.43 It is this legendary, mythical image

126

of woman which we recover in Schwarz-Bart's Longandor women but which is
largely absent in other female characters. The pity is that more and
more "la route goudronnée, les voitures automobiles qui traversent le
pont de l'Autre Bord, les poteaux électriques qui se rapprochent, se
dressent déja a mi-chemin de la Ronciére, en lieu et places des

tamariniers sauvages et des balatas."44

Télumée's spiritual grand-
daughters will need to find other strategies, other sources of strength
but first of all as women they must reconstruct their shattered
self-image. This is what the heroines hoped to do in Europe. But as
Ronnie Scharfman indicates, this is a vain hope. Writing about Télumée's
terrifying dream of France Scharfman says:
The heroine is used to seeing herself reflected whole and loved
in her grandmother's eyes. But the white eyes in the dream
reflect fragmentation and absence. How could she possibly look
for herself, recognize herself in such a mirror? That this
world is not even a possible source of reflection seems to be
what keeps Télumée from the temptation of aspiring to it, all
the while reconfirming then5 restorative component of her
mirroring bond with La Reine.
Deprived of a nurturing, reinforcing mirror at home, many of the other
protagonists to their~ detriment succumb to the temptation and seek

reassurance and justification elsewhere.

127

Notes

1 Some of these terms referred interchangeably to the percentage of
white or black blood and (more Often) to the appearance, e.g., “chabine”
means a light-skinned woman with curly hair whereas "c‘a‘presse" is a
dark-skinned woman with straight or curly hair.

2 The term créole has many meanings. As well as designating the
person (originalhy "a native of non-native descent“ especially of the
West Indies, Central and South America, and later ”a person of Negro
descent born in the Americas" as well as “loosely, a person of mixed
Creole and Negro stock,“ (Webster's Dictionary); the term créole refers
also to the language, defined by the Dictionnaire Larousse as “langue
parlée par les Noirs de l'Amérique et des iles de l'océan Indien, et qui
est formée de francais ou d'espagnol et de mots indigénes.“ Thus,
according to "Le Petit Robert" créole refers to “Personne de race
blanche, nee dans les colonies intertropicales (Antilles),“ as well as
to "langues mixtes provenant du contact du francais, de l'espagnol, du
portugais avec des langues indigénes ou importées (Antilles)"; and also
to "Nm Le creole d'Haiti.“

3 See Frantz Fanon, Peau noire,,masgues blancs (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1952), Ch. 11.

4 Robert P. Smith, Jr. "Michéle Lacrosil: Novelist with a Color
Complex,“ French Review 47, March 1974, pp. 783-90.

 

 

 

 

5 Batouala, considered by some the first “black" novel in French was
written by René Maran, a West Indian who was a French functionary in
Africa.

6 This is the case for example of Maryse Condé from Guadeloupe who
married an African and taught for many years in West Africa. Miriam
Vieyra is married to a Senegalese filmmaker. Francoise Ega lived for
many years in Africa, where her husband was in the French army.

7 Jacqueline Manicom for example was co-founder of The French
feminist group “Choisir.”

8 Manicom's work is the most militant and overtly “feminist," and is
perhaps the exception.

9 Gloria Hull, [ed., Give Us Each Day: The Diary_of Alice Dunbar-
Nelson (Norton, 1985).] unpublished talk at the University of the West
Indies, March, 1985.

10 Miriam Warner-Vieyra, Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit (Paris: Présence
Africaine, 1980), p. 31.

11 Simone Schwarz-Bart, Pluie et vent sur Telumée Miracle, Paris,
Seuil, 1972. All further references occur in the text and are indicated
as Pluie.

12

 

 

See Clarisse Zimra, "Patterns of Liberation in Contemporary

128

Women's Fiction,“ L'Esprit Créateur, XVII, No. 2, Summer 1977.
13

 

Edward Brathwaite is an anglophone Caribbean poet from Barbados.

14 Aimé Césaire, quoted in Introduction to Return to my Native Land,
trans. John Berger and Anna Bostick, intro. Mazisi Kunene
(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969).

15 See, for example, Mongo Beti's Mission Terminée or many of Birago
Diop's Contes see also Denise Paulme, Morphology of the African
Folk-tale or Propp's Morphology of the Folktale.

16

 

 

 

 

Fanon, p. 35.

'7 Zimra, p. 107.

18 By “black" one must understand also "mulfitre," métis“ or any other
term indicating non-white becasue as Ormerod points out: “The problem of
racial identity is, however, much more complex than the simple black/
white division of the earliest days of slavery. In Haiti, for example,
due to the slave-owners' habit of taking black mistresses, by the
eighteenth century there was an elaborate system of colour stratifi-
cation based on the individual's genetic composition of 128 theoretical
parts. The fOllowing account gives some idea of the fanatical zeal of
the classifiers:
The true Mulatto was the child of the pure black and the pure
white. The child Of the white and the Mulatto woman was a
quarteron with 96 parts white and 32 parts black. But the
quarteron could be produced by the white and the marabou in the
proportion of 88 to 40, or by the white and the sacatra, in the
proportion of 72 to 56 and so on all through the 128 varieties.
But the sang-m‘élé with 127 white parts and 1 black part was
still a man of colour“ (C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins; rev.
ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1963), p. 38.

Introduction to the French Caribbean Novel (London: Heinemann, 1985),

p. 13.

19

 

Zimra, p. 105

20 See Beverly Ormerod, An Introduction to the French Caribbean
Novel (London: Heinemann, 1985T, p. 63.

21 ack skin white masks (Paladin 1970), Chapter 2:

Frantz Fanon, Bl
"The Woman of Colour W9-

22 As Fanon himself puts it: "Every woman in the Antilles, whether
in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair is determined to select
the least black of men." Black skin, white masks, p. 35.

23

 

 

Fanon, Black skin, white masks, p. 39.

 

24 For a discussion of the position of the colored woman, see Zimra:
"In a colonial society predicated on racism, the colored woman's role
has traditionally been that of a go-between, between two antagonistic

129

male groups," p. 103.
25
p. 68.

26 Michele Lacrosil, Sapotille et le serin d'argile (Paris:
Gallimard, 1960); “Sapotillbwis a Caribbean fruit with a reddish-brown
skin.

27 There is some indication that Sapotille's view was that of her
creator. Lacrosil is quoted in an article as having said “Vous
n'imaginez pas comment les Francais sont devenus racistes depuis qu'ils
out perdu leurs colonies. 0n se fait souvent insulter dans la rue ou
dans le metro. Il y a dix ans, cela n'arrivait pas.“ (Le Fi aro, 11 Dec
1967, p. 12) quoted by Robert P. Smith, Jr. in article already cited.
Cajou Lacrosil's second novel also shows the heroine's complexes as
originating mainly from her own damaged self-image.

28 Maryse Condé, Heremakhonon (Paris: "IO/18,“ 1976); Une saison a
Rihata (Paris: Laffont, 1981). '

29 See Jocelyne Loncke's discussion of Veronica's situation in "The
Image of the Woman in Caribbean Literature." BIM, No. 63. Veronica's
liaison with the aristocratic Ibrahima Sory in Africa is inspired by
similar motives.

30 Condé corroborates this in an unpublished talk on Women Writers,
University of the West Indies, Kingston, Dec. 1982.
31

32 Andre Schwarz-Bart, La mulatresse solitude (Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1972).

33 These values were vividly parodied and condemned by such
négritude poets as Damas in the '30s and in their publication Légitime
De ense, Paris, 1932.

34 Michéle Lacrosil, Sapotille et le serin d'argile (Paris:
Gallimard, 1960), p. 235.

35

Mayotte Capécia, La n§gresse blanche, (Paris: Corréa, 1950),

 

 

 

 

Zimra, p. 107.

 

 

Lacrosil, p. 235.

36 Simone Schwarz-Bart, Ti-Jean, l'Horizon (Paris: Eds. du Seuil,
1979), p. 11.

37

 

Ti-Jean l'Horizon, p. 14.

 

38 Beverley Ormerod, An Introduction to the French Caribbean Novel
(London: Heinemann, 1985).

39
p. 130.

 

Beverley Ormerod, Introduction to the French Caribbean Novel,

 

130

4° Ormerod, p. 16.

 

 

 

41 Mayotte Capécia, Je suis martiniquaise (Paris: Correa, 1948),
p. 58.

42 Maryse Conde, La parole des femmes (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1979),
p. 4.

43 Condé, La parole des femmes, p. 5.

44 Schwarz-Bart, Pluie, p. 248.

45

Ronnie Scharfiman, "Mirroring and Mothering in Simone Schwarz-
Bart's Pluie et vent sur Télum'ee Miracle and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso
_Seg," YaTe Frenai Studies 62: 88-106.

 

 

Chapter Four
“L'Europe révée, l'Europe réelle
L'Afrique révée, l'Afrique réelle.“

The Black Woman in Europe; the Antillaise and Africa

 

Works of fiction dealing with the black woman in Europe are mainly
by Caribbean women writers. Maryse Conde, Francoise Ega, Michéle
Lacrosil, Jacqueline Manicom, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Miriam Warner-Vieyra
have all chosen as protagonists, femmes de couleur, who live or have
lived in Europe. Francophone African women, who began writing imore
recently, have so far concerned themselves mainly with the stories of

women in their own continent. However, two Sénégalaises have. been

 

concerned with the problems of African women in France and their work
will be discussed briefly: Mame Seck Mbacké has written both fiction
(short stories) and non-fiction and Ken Bugul has published a contro-
versial novel/récit which Bugul describes as autobiographical. The work
appears in the collection "Vies africaines" (Les Nouvelles éditions
africaines) which contains this note: “La collection Vies d'Afrique est
ouverte seulement au récit du vécu des ‘étres et ne peut comporter
d'imaginaire que celui qu'aura élaboré l'auteur comme substance de son
bagage culturel.1

The profiles and histories of the West Indian femme de couleur in

France and that of the African woman are not identical in tenms of their

131

132

backgrounds, reasons for wanting to go to the métropole and social and
cultural conditioning (although their educations in French schools were
fairly similar). The “bagage culturel“ that they brought with them was
different, but the stories of the women in France touch and their
experiences coincide on many points. From the literature it appears that
the African woman's foremost desire was to go to France rather than to
leave home, whereas the main motivation of the Antillaise was to escape
from her own society. This is clear when one compares for example the

attitude of the young Sénégalaise Youmané (“L'Africaine Exilée“) towards

 

France with that Of the Antillean heroine Cajou:

Elle [Youmané] aimait la mer. Elle y découvrait un chanme
secret. Elle voyait au-dela de la ligne d'horizon un autre
pays, le pays des Blancs d'oD viennent ces bateaux étranges,
charges at lancant des appels surprenants: la voix des sirénes.
Youmané aimait suivre des yeux leur blanc sillage sur le corps
de la mer. Elle sentait un besoin confus, une sorte d'attrait,
un appel muet. (...) Plus le temps passait, plug se faisait
jour ce désir d'en voir plus, d'en connaitre plus.

Youmané's desire to expand her horizons in no way implies a rejection of
her homeland whereas Cajou's reaction upon learning she has succeeded in

her baccalauréat (Cajou) clearly does:

 

Mon avenir était la, avec la possibilité de quitter ce village
et de les oublier, le boulanger et le facteur, la pitié
détestable des comméres.3(...) Je révais de partir. Ce diplOme
m'en offrait l'occasion.

The African woman in France who falls upon hard times retains and is
sustained by the vision of her homeland. She longs to be repatriated,
whereas the feelings of the West Indian protagonists are much more
ambivalent. This is especially true of educated West Indian women. The
African woman once in France, however, finds herself faced with the same

kinds of problems as West Indian femmes de couleur. She has difficulty

 

being accepted, getting a job, finding accomodation, being taken

133

seriously. She is regarded as an exotic curiosity, a sex object, or a
source of cheap labor to be exploited. For perhaps the first time in
Francophone African women's writing color becomes an important theme.4

The women in Francoise Ega's novel Lettre a une Noire, mainly set in

 

Marseilles in the early sixties, are confronted with much the same harsh
situation as that of the “travailleurs et travailleuses immigrés" in
Mbacké's Paris of Le froid et le piment. Both Bugul's and Mbacké's
narrators write of France, as Caribbean women do, with disappointed,
critical, and disillusioned eyes. Youmané's first sight of France is
recorded thus:
La terre des Blancs: une terre, c'est trop dire. Plut‘dt du
ciment, du goudron, des ensembles gigantesques dans une
atmosphére glaciale OD les bruits du monde semblaient étouffés
par un ciel bas. Youmané (...) regardait curieusement cette
ville dont elle a tant révé. Elle était étrangére a cette ville
assez différente de celle de son imagination: elle l'avait
toujours percue comme une ville faite de lampions et de néogs.
Elle était surprise par cette grisaille et cette mélancolie.
But their view of their homeland and their childhoods, like that of
other African woman writers, is closer to the autobiographical writing
of Camara Laye and of Francoise Ega who alone among West Indian women
writers "recaptures through a rigid process of romantic selection the
warm and secure parts of the past."6
Many of the African women's novels treated in the first section of
this study end at the point in the protagonist's life where she is about
to set off for France. In Pre-Independence West Africa the pattern of
the educated African woman's academic formation followed closely that of
her male counterparts. It often led from the village school, to the
French school, "l'école francaise,“ to further studies in a large town:

Abidjan, Conakry, Rufisque, Saint-Louis, Dakar, etc., and very often

134

especially for the most brilliant students, eventually to Europe.7 The
West Indian student of promise who wanted to pursue further studies in a
university also had of necessity to travel to the métrOpol . The

départements d'outre-mer Of’ Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane until

 

8 In any event, many students considered it

recently had no university.
an honor and a privilege, and both African and Antillais students
desired and actively sought to go to France as the final crowning step
in their academic development. The image of France which both Africans
and West Indians had formed as educated French citizens (Guadeloupe and

Martinique became départements in 1946) or inhabitants of French-ruled

 

territories, led them to have great regard for French learning, civil-
ization, and culture, and to have great expectations. They considered
themselves French and looked to Paris as their Mecca. They went to
France full of hopes and illusions. Jacqueline Manicom's heroine Dr.

Madévie Ramimoutou in Mon examen de blanc looks back bitterly on her

 

naive student days, when, as a young, brilliant, middle-class West
Indian, she first confronted prejudice. Confident in her own superiority
she could not understand why her white boyfriend saw their relationship
as problematic:

Cet été-la, elle croyait encore aux choses qu'on lui avait
apprises dans les écoles antillaises: des anc‘étres gaulois,
voyons! Elle était doublement francaise: d'abord pour étre née
dans une colonie francaise, ensuite parce qu'on lui en avait
donné la ferme assurance lors de la départmentalisation en
1945, alors qu'elle était déja une petite fille qui comprenait
beaucoup de choses. Les negres d'Afrique sont des sauvages lui
avait-on dit, tandis que les Antillais sont presque des Blancs.
Bourrait-il avoir des choses insurmontable entre Xavier et
elle?

She typifies the bourgeois Antillaise's point of view. Madévie's

 

illusions were quickly shattered by the realities of French society, but

135

these illusions are portrayed as being shared by many of her
countrymen/women for whom France was a magical wonderland: "... dans le
réve de chaque Antillais, la France, Paris, c'est: 'Lumiére! Lumiére!

n10

caco doux! pomme France!‘ C'est le pays de cocagne. Madévie remarks

to her French colleague with frustrated irony: "Cher Cyril, que la

'11 These feelings of warmth and

France est douce pour les Antillais!‘
expectant hope are also documented in the African novels and
biographies. African students too had been taught about “Nos ancétres
les Gaulois...“ and came to France expecting to be welcomed and
accepted.12 The students found life difficult--they were homesick,
unused to what was in fact an alien way of life and to the extremes of
weather, especially in an urban environment. But by and large many of
them survived, even excelled, and went back home qualified and
successful. Especially in the early days the students (mostly male) had

a life relatively free of restriction and prejudice. Thus Zek in Maryse

Condé's Une saison a Rihata nostalgically remembers Paris and especially

 

his success with women:

Zek gardait un souvenir fabuleux des années qu'il avait passées
a Paris (...) C'était a cause des femmes (...) Paris l'avait
sacré roi, prince du sang. Ce n'était pas le triste Paris qu'il
avait revu au cours d'une mission, des années plus tard,
grouillant, d'un sous prolétariat sénégalais ou inalien. Non,
c'était le merveilleux Paris de la veille des indépendances,
quand chaque étudiant papgait se fabriquer un arbre
généalogique a sa convenance.

The life of a student was relatively easy compared to that of the other
groups of Africans and Antillais who also went to France full of
Optimism, seeking a better life--the immigrants. Manicom's Madévie, for
example, recognizes her good fortune, as despite her hardships in

France, she is one of “ces mulfitresses privilégiées qui peuvent aller en

136

France non pour laver le sol des hOpitaux de Paris mais pour faire des
études de médecine et écouter ainsi de distingués chirurgiens parler de
la grandeur d'Eme de la mére patrie."14

The novels dealt with here are concerned with both groups--women who
come to France as students and become professionals and those far less
fortunate, who come as immigrant workers or as ordinary citizens hoping
for a "better life.“

It was relatively easy for West Indians to go to France. In Mpg

examen de blanc the narrator remarks that the Immigration Office

 

actively solicited and encouraged emigration from the Caribbean to the
métropole with promises of jobs and material advancement. At the same
time there were many white collar workers and professionals working on
contract in the colonies and French territories. As Madévie observes
dryly: “La mere patrie se sert de nos bras et nous, nous avons besoin de
ses cerveaux."1l5 Some of the African women who went to France to work
went as maids: many went back with the French families of these

government officials or professionals on contract for whom they had

worked in their home country. This was also true of the Antillaises. But

 

many skilled and qualified women also found that because of prejudice
they were forced to accept menial and unskilled jobs. Francoise Ega in

Lettres a une Noire tells the story of Cécile:

 

Elle était comptable diplOmée a Fort de France, elle avait méme
une bonne. Elle a fait le tour des bureaux de placement de la
ville, on l'a envoyée d'un emploi a l'autre: on regardait sa
peau bien noire et on lui répondait poliment: “je vais vous
écrire“. La premiere semaine de décembre, elle a bien attendu,
elle ne savait pas ce que cela voulait dire en France, “je vous
écrirai", et puis elle a d0 se faire une raison, il fallait
bien qu'elle paie sa petite chambre au Panier.

Elle a accepte d'étre repasseuse dans une blanchisserie
sordide de son quartier.

137

Solange's story is similar:
J'étais coiffeuse aux pays (...); malgré mes références, cela
n'a pas marché et il fallait que je mange. Je n'ai jamais pu
sortir de cet engrenage: une fois qu'on est déclaré a la
Sécuritélgociale comme gens de maison, allez essayer de vous en
sortir.“

Sembéne Ousmane in his collection Of short stories VoltaTgue in the
conte entitled "La Noire de...“ tells the tragic tale of a young African
woman who, exploited by the family she works for and kept almost as a
prisoner in an unfriendly and unfamiliar environment, is finally driven
to suicide. She becomes a mere statistic, a curiosity mentioned in a

17 In “Lettres de France,“

brief, obscure item in a provincial newspaper.
another story in the same collection, he also poignantly portrays the
plight of a young African girl sent Off to France as a bride for an
aging African immigrant worker.

Mame Seck Mbacké, a young Senegalese writer who was for several
years an employee of the Senegalese consulate in Paris and in charge of
“'cas sociaux'" de l'immigration sénégalaise en France“ has written in
great detail of the plight of West African immigrants in France and
substantiates and documents what Ousmane described many years before.18

Her work, Le froid et le_piment, subtitled “Nous travailleurs immigrés,"

 

is divided into three parts. In the first section, “Cas sociaux,“ Mbacké
documents actual cases: "des faits tragiquement vécus de l'immigration

sénégalaise en France."19

The second and third parts are Mbacké's
fictional accounts of two peOple's sad stories: "Un homme de couleur
raconte" and "Youmané l'Africaine exilée."

The cases recorded in the first section paint an ugly picture of

prejudice, exploitation, déracinement, despair and depravity; of

 

brutalized and emasculated men who in turn brutalize their women, of

138

women who abandon husbands and children, of exiled women who turn, or
are tempted to turn, to prostitution, of battered wives, broken
families, poverty, illness, desertion, alcoholism, suicide, death. Most
of all it is a gallery of shattered hopesand dreams. Almost all the
cases documented express their desire to “rentrer au pays." Tragically,
most do not have the means and never make it. Occasionally, as in the
case of Fatou, a homesick young wife, things work out well and she

adapts to her new country and situation.20

Much more often, as in the
case of Caroline Mbengue, “disparue dans sa douziéme année ...loin de sa
douce inere...,“ to whom the book is dedicated, their stories end

21 The reader must bear in mind that these cases represent

tragically.
those immigrants who, because of their desperate situation, have come to
the notice of the Senegalese consulate. It is not the whole picture.
There were no doubt many success stories. Yet the extent and depth of
the suffering described is devastating. In Mbacké's short story,
Youmané, “l'Africaine exilée," is a victim of prejudice and bigotry.
Married to a Frenchman, she is proud of her pretty métisse daughter.
Youmané is not a sOphisticated or educated woman. She has had a hard
life partly because she has always been so independent. She has never
wanted to be like other girls and learn "womanly“ tasks or play their
games. On her own from the age of twelve, when she leaves home and
school to seek her fortune, she is raped and thrown out by her white
employer. Eventually persuaded by a young French co-operant to become
his wife, she travels to France with her husband who adores “sa
négresse.“ Youmané is illiterate but she has managed to adapt to her new

life quite well. Her husband and child love her, but her in-laws cannot

tolerate a black daughter-in-law. She is accepted as a plaything but not

139

as a wife. They finally succeed in destroying the marriage and
alienating her daughter's affection. Left with two Ayoung children,
Youmané is forced into prostitution, loses her children and dies in
solitude, pining for her homeland and begging that her children be sent
back to their African grandmother. Mbacké's story is straightforward and
realistic. The woman is shown to be the victim first of all of her
disregard for traditional wisdom--Youmané insists on having her own way
even when her parents oppose her. When her Imother ritually offers
Youmané her breast just before her departure to ensure her safe return
to Africa, she is too ashamed in front of her husband to accept it. She

is also a victim of the EurOpean's vision of the femme de couleur.

 

Youmané's husband treats her like a doll and abandons her when his
parents turn his mind against her. Although his change of heart is
rather violent, the narration suggests that his love was based on a
superficial attraction for her as an exotic, beautiful object. Mbacké's
story also depicts the solidarity between women. Unable to tell her
father when she gives birth to a EELS, it is her mother and an
influential woman friend, who look after her and support her. Mbacké
makes use of the linear, episodic narration typical of the folktale and
the didactic intent is clear, as it is in Ken Bugul's story.

Ken Bugul's autiobiography Le baobab fou begins at the point where

 

most of her Sénégalaises sisters leave off: with the journey to France

 

(in this case eventually to Belgium): "Le Nord des i‘eves, le Nord des
illusions, le Nord des allusions, le Nord référentiel, le Nord Terre

"22 As her plane leaves Sénégal Ken hears in the distance the

Promise.
bleating of a lost sheep--"le bélement désespére du mouton - égaré peut-

Etre"--a prophetic image, and feels as if she is being “arrachée a

140

moi-méme" (Le baobab fou, pp. 34-35). Ken's life in Belgium is marked by

 

many of the same phenomena (exploitation, alienation, solitude) as that

of Michéle Lacrosil's extremely disturbed Antillaise heroine, Cajou,

 

although Ken's reactions are quite different. Instead of depression and
withdrawal, Ken attempts to flee herself by embarking on an equally
self-destructive if spectacularly dissipated and decadent life. She
becomes involved, mainly unwittingly as the narrator tells it, in the
artistic demimonde of intellectuals, artists, and "marginaux" where
nothing is taboo: "free love,” prostitution, homosexuality, drugs.
Within a year of her arrival in Europe Ken has had several love affairs,
an abortion, liaisons with all sorts of characters of several
nationalities including a painter, an American G-I, a young Belgian,
but, as she says, she always manages. Most of her wild adventures the
narrator explains result from her desperate desire to be like those
around her and to find and prove herself. Thus her love affair with
Louis, the Belgian student who makes her pregnant, is described as “ma
premiére idylle en Occident. Idylle qui me servait a m'expliquer, a
m'intégrer, a montrer que j'étais comme eux: qu'il n'y avait aucune
différence entre nous, que eux et moi, nous avons les m‘émes ancétres"

(Le baobab fou, p. 54). Ken is haunted by the same emptiness and

 

alienation which the Antillaises protagonists of the novels, suffer, but

 

which is not typical of most of the Sénegalaises and other African women

 

in the literature. The causes she adduces to explain her condition are
also similar. She blames her education, “l'école francaise," and the
fact that she has no sure identity, no family ties, no sense of
belonging. She has come to Europe in search of herself and of "mes

anc‘étres les Gaulois" because "J'avais une famille sans structures

141

réelles (...) Mais aussi et surtout, le colonialisme, qui avait créé la
distorsion des esprits pour engendrer la race des sans repéres. Le
colonialisme avait fait de la plupart de nous des illogiques. Je ne

voulais pas l'accepter" (Le baobab fou, p. 85). Like Samba Diallo, the

 

tragic hero of Cheikh Hamidou Kane's Aventure Ambigu'é (he too blames

 

"l'école francaise"), Ken is “installée dans l'hybride," she describes
herself as “déchirée,” a term reminiscent of many Antillais protag-
onists. She ascribes the blame for her sad plight to her particular
biography because, unlike her sisters and her cousins, she is the only
woman in her family to have attended "l'école francaise" and the only
one not to have a mother of her own. For her, her mother is not “ma
more" but simply "la mére." Throughout the pggig reference is made to
the traumatic incident which, together with "l'école francaise,“ the
protagonist feels changed and shaped the course of her life forever: “le
départ de la mére." At the age of five her mother goes away and leaves
her behind in the village because she is attending ”l'école francaise."
When she rejoins her mother a year later, her place has been supplanted
by a young niece whom her mother is caring for. She never recovers her
place and for her, although tender and kind, “ma imére” irrevocably
becomes "la mere.“ Her father is too wrapped up in his religious duties
to be really close to her and, a brilliant student, she seeks refuge in
her studies and in trying to be as westernized as possible. "Je croyais
avoir trouvé un moyen de me rassurer en me faisant 'toubab'" (Le baobab
1:92, p. 138). She is more and more estranged from her family and her
village society. Bugul, like the Caribbean writers, explains the further
trauma of ‘the meeting with Europe, “the Imother-country,“ where! Ken

discovers her skin, realizes that she is an outsider and details her

142

attendant solitude: "Cette solitude que j'avais retrouvée durement, avec
le choc d'avoir perdu ici, mes ancétres les Gaulois. Le reflet dans le
miroir, le visage, le regard, cette couleur qui me distinguait en me

niant" (Le baobab fou, p. 110). Ken is anxious to be herself,

 

"s'assumer" but she does not know who she is, which identity to assume.
Through a process of rigorous introspection she realizes that cut off
from her family, she had consciously set out to be totally
"occidentalisée" but when she gets to Europe everything is different
from what she has been taught. Where she wants only to be accepted, the
insistence in fact is on her "difference." It is the era where Blacks
are in fashion:
“Nous avons une amie noire, une Africaine", était la phrase la
plus “in" dans ces milieux. La Négresse aprés les lionceaux et
les singes, avec les masques Dogon et d'Ifé. J'étais cette
négresse, cette "chez vous. autres“, cette “toi en tant que

moire, il faudrait que..." cet étre supplémentaire, inutile,
déplacé, incoherent“ (Le baobab fou, pp. 101-102).

 

The African woman in Europe, like her West Indian counterpart, becomes
the victhm of the process of reification. She is regarded as a sexual
object, exotic, sensual: “Tu plais aux hommes." Paradoxically, her
beauty enslaves. She cannot escape from her skin; Ken even goes as far
as some of her West Indian predecessors in wanting to escape from her
blackness, the source of her reification: “Je m'arrachais la peau
jusqu'au sang. Sa noirceur m'étouffait. Oh Dieu, comme la mére était

loin! (...) je ne voulais plus avoir la peau noire" (Le baobab fou, p.

 

113). But if Ken, the protagonist, is largely unaware and unthinking
(the reader cannot help feeling that she is responsible for some of her
predicaments because of her unquestioning, acquiscent attitude), Bugul,

the narrator, is extremely lucid and recognizes her loss and ambiguity.

143

She sees that she is playing a game and she is aware of the futility of
her attempts: “Que cherchais-je en fait avec tout cela? (...) Je voulais
prendre a témoin les Occidentaux. Je me ridiculisais dans une tentative
de re-naissance (...) J'avais joué pour fuir la solitude, car elle me
ramenait toujours au départ de la mére, celle dont on m'avait arrachée
sans me laisser le loisir de sécher le sang qui coulait 5 flats de mes

entrailles" (Le baobab fou, p. 109).

 

Just as the child had been separated from her natural mother, so the
process of Westernization has separated Ken, the educated African woman,
from her traditions and her identity and caused her to want to deny
them:

Dans tous les manuels scolaires que j'avais eus, le Noir était
ridiculisé, avili, écrasé ... ou bien les Noirs étaient mis les
uns contre les autres. (...) Je n'arrivais pas a redémarrer
comme mes “amis“ me le conseillaient et comme je le souhaitais!
J'avais signé un pacte avec l'irréel et le mouvement implacable
au destin. Le temps passait en introspections, en quétes des
racines imaginaires (Le baobab fou, p. 107).

 

Ken in Belgium becomes more and more conscious of the virtues of
village life and nostalgically recognizes that “Il ne fallait pas
arracher l'enfant du ventre de la mére. Il ne fallait pas que la mere

parte" (Le baobab fou, p. 179). Reduced to prostitution and on the point

 

of suicide the young Sénégalaise fortunately recovers herself and finds

 

the need and the means to return home "J'avais repris conscience a

temps“ (Le baobab fou, p. 181).

 

Le baobab fou, like other African and Caribbean novels, traces the

 

process of assimilation/alienation with its deceptions, contradictions
and dangers. The narration is lucid, frank and somewhat sensational. Ken
Bugul's story also comes close to that of many Antillaises heroines in

elucidating the underlying motivations and factors which lead these

144

women to want to be accepted in the white world. Unlike the West
Indians' stories, however, Ken's story ends relatively happily. There is
a possibility of re-integration, of repossessing a valid reality almost
lost. As the protagonist describes her journey of separation from her
origins and village culture there is a constant, retrospective
recognition of the treasures being lost, expressed in a juxtaposition of
images and sensations. Even before the voyage to Europe, in her
brother's apartment in the capital where she goes to spend her vacation
Ken is aware of these differences: "Le frére habitait avec sa petite
famille au troisiéme étage d'un immeuble situé en plein coeur de la
capitale. C'était lfll endroit froid, avec des carreaux froids partout.
Ah, le sable chaud, tiéde, confortable, le sable, la terre qui seule

était en mesure de supporter l'étre humain“ (Le baobab fou, p. 140).

 

The structure of Bugul's and Mbacké's gggigs share several elements
with the other novels already discussed. Like the Caribbean novels,
Ken's and Youmané's stories involve symbolic and real journeys and are
told in flashback. Both protagonists suffer from early separation from
their family/mother/initial comforting and stabilizing culture.
(Youmané, as already noted, left her village home at 12 to become a maid
in town and never returned.) Like the Antillais heroines then, they are
deprived of parents, family ties which stabilize and give them a secure
sense of who they are. This lack accounts for much of their later
suffering. Youmané's reminiscences begin and end in Europe, with the
protagonist's death. Ken's story opens with her departure from her
native land and closes with her homecoming. But although the paths seem
to trace a circle, the narration is much more linear than that of the

Caribbean novels--incidents succeeding each other more or less

145

chronologically with occasional digressions--more in the manner of the
African autobiographical novels. Bugul and Mbacké deal through their
works with the lives of black women in different social milieux but who
suffer similar misfortunes.

The Martinican novelist Francoise Ega in her work Lettre a une Noire

 

takes as her milieu the poor Antillais community in Marseilles. She is
concerned with the least privileged group of Blacks in France. The work
is a series of letters to Carolina, a fictitious Third World “sister,"
who is illiterate and lives in a Brazilian slum. The narrator
establishes the link between all exploited peOple as she addresses them
through Carolina, who will never read her book. She writes of her own
struggles as a woman who wants desperately to care for her family and to
write. She wants most of all to write about, and communicate with, her
less privileged sisters: the many "Antillaises placées,“ maids in French
families. The hardships of the négresses documented by Mbacké in Paris
are exposed in literary fonm through Ega's Marseilles. The stories are
often grim, yet because of Ega's faith and optimism, this work is the
least pessimistic of the novels dealing with the condition of the black
woman in Europe. Ega claims to be "uneducated" and worries about her
ability as an ordinary “more de famille" and unlearned créole-speaker to
manipulate the language of Moliére and to be taken seriously as an
aspiring “femme de lettres”:
...j'ai un sentiment de géne. C'est inexplicable, mais avais-je
le droit d'ainsi malmener la langue de Moliére? Moi, une pauvre
négresse?ZAvais-je le droit de dire de jolies choses en mauvais
francais?
Obviously the narrator feels she does and she must. Her book is also a

book about writing a book, as a woman and an Antillaise. She tells the

 

146

story of her West Indian sisters and her own story with passion,
objectivity, economy and moving simplicity.

The narrator, Maméga (Francoise Ega's own diminutive) lives in
Marseilles with her husband and five children. (The story has many
autobiographical elements.) Her husband, a disbanded militaire who
served for many years in Africa, is making a living as best he can while
waiting for the ministry responsible to place him somewhere permanently.
Their situation is comlicated by the fact that they do not want to
relocate and leave “sunny" Marseilles. Maméga c0pes with her household,
supplements the family income by doing part-time work and tries to find

time to write. Moved by the plight of the young Antillaises who work as

 

femmes de ménage or bonnes a tout faire, Maméga decides to take a job as

 

 

a maid so she can really understand what they are going through and
write about it. Despite her husband's opposition she gets herself
employed "chez une dame" which is first of many such positions. There
are agencies which specialize in placing domestics and it is easy to get
jobs because, as one of her “dames” tell her frankly: “Les négresses
sont sérieuses et travailleuses; d'ailleurs, c'est pas pour rien qu'on
dit 'travailler comme un noir'! C'est pas pour vous vexer, mais c'est
vrai" (533552, p. 57). Fortunately for the narrator she is not forced to
stay with an unreasonable mistress longer than she can bear (some of the
women are virtually enslaved as they must repay their passage before
they can change jobs) but she discovers to her astonished horror the
extent of how petty, thoughtless, unreasonably demanding, and even
cruel, these “dames” can be:

Ainsi je fais l'expérience qu'il y a vraiment de sots métiers,

puisque selon que tu es femme de ménage ou femme de lettres, tu

passes de la condition de b‘éte de some 5 celle de créature
humaine. Pourtant, j'ai encore, ma vieille Carolina, mes doigts

147

tout raides et je suis bien la méme; alors pleure, pleure mon
ame, car il y a beaucoup plus de mes soeurs dans la premiére
catégorie que dans la seconde. Ouand donc se rompront
définitivement les chaines qu'elles n'ont pas forgées! (Lettre,
p. 151)

Maméga muses over the fact that despite the hardships that await

them, Antillaises

 

continuent a affluer par pleins b‘a‘teaux, les unes pour avoir
des allocations familiales au méme titre que les Francaises de
France, les autres dans l'eSpOir d'un gain plus substantiel, et
le métro les happe, les usines les engloutissent. Alors elles
se rongent, elles ne rient plus (.....) Parfois elles trouvent
le repos dans un sana, ou beaucoup prés de Clichy, et voila,
c'est pas la case, pas la favella, mais le taudis et l'eSpoir
qui ne laisse jamais les malheureux" (Lettre, p. 60).

Above all, Maméga is moved by their spirit and tenacity. Faced with the
grim reality of the daily existence of one of her protégées who has
found a job as ”fille de salle” in a hospital in Paris she is amazed at
the girl's courageous, even optimistic, attitude: "C'est dur, mais c'est
bien mieux que chez la dame a Marseille," the latter writes to her of

her new situation in Paris (Lettre, p. 60).

The Antillaise's condition is extreme. and pitiful. As with the

 

Sénégalais in Mbacké's work, life is permeated by “le froid.“ But it is

 

a cold which is not only physical. The chill in the air, the cold which
they cannot escape is an outward representation of their whole exist-
ence. “Elle (Solange, one of the narrator's friends) prétend que,
lorsqu'elle ne mélange pas quelques syllabes de patois a sa conversa-
tion, elle a beaucoup plus froid" (£35353, p. 63). Isolated, homesick,
forced to work long hours, at backbreaking tasks, cheated, “la Noire“ is
completely dehumanized. Made to bear all sorts of humiliating indig-
nities, what is especially degrading for “gens de maison," is to be

treated not just like children or animals but worse--like inanimate

148

Objects with no feeling or understanding. The black maid is usually
referred to only as “la négresse" or “la Noire“ even by the children.
One family, which does use their maid's name, cannot even bother to call
Maméga by her own name when she replaces her sick friend:
Pour la premiére fois depuis que je suis lancée dans la
profession de femme de ménage j'ai un prénom, la dame me l'a
donné. Elle ne veut pas changer ses habitudes, c'est moi qui
changerai de prénom, je m'appellerai Renée en attendant que la
vraie Renée revienne. C'est clair et net“ (Lettre, p. 128).
“La négresse" merits less consideration than a household pet. She does
not even have the right to her name. Ega sensitizes the reader to the
fact that this happens not only to négresses, however, but to anyone who
happens to be relegated to the rank of servant for, in the words of one
of her employers, "Les autres ne comptent pas!“ The narrator explains
that “Les autres, c'étaient: la nurse (young, blond), la repasseuse et
moi" (Lettre, p. 99).

What Ega is protesting (and her protest is mOre effective because,
although sometimes obtrusive and direct, it is never strident or hyster-
ical) is the demeaning of the human being, the reification of the person
who is seen as a "b‘éte de some," a machine with no feeling, simply
because he/she is black or employed as a domestic servant.

Ouand on a été bonne a tout faire, on est vaccine pour tous les
évenements de la vie future, car c'est la qu'on arrive a se
dépouiller le plus aisément de toute pr‘étention a la dignité
humaine, on est une chose, comme un balai ou un réfrigérateur!“
(Lettre, p. 132).
Her friend Solange declares herself immune but she has suffered. As the
narrator remarks, “Elle rit, mais elle souffre...je ris avec elle, tout
simplement, pour ne pas remuer le fer dans sa plaie" (Lettre, p. 64).

The “ladies of the house“ especially bear the brunt of the narrator's

censure. But although she is concerned mainly with the situation of her

149

black sisters “placées” as maids, she is as moved at the plight of the
old Provencale abandoned by her former employers and confined to the
cellar. She is objective in her vision. The Antillais stall proprietor
who hires her as a vendor in his stall at the “Foire de Marseille" is
almost as unreasonable as her French "dames" for in his case too "le
bien-Etre avait endurci” (£23353, p. 197). The well-off West Indians who
belong to the organizing committee of the “Cercle antillais“ come in for
especially harsh criticism. "Les superbes," as the narrator dubs them,
pretend that all is well in the antillais community and refuse to deal
with reality. They blind themselves to the desperate needs of their many
hurting fellow countrymen. With gentle irony the narrator describes a
typical evening where Antillais couples sit listening to a European
discoursing on the Antilles. Such people are concerned only with
appearances (social gathering, outward show): with organizing “bals” or
“conférences” or publishing “un journal antillais" full of sensational
nonsense. They are as capable Of prejudice as the “Francais de France.“
They refuse to accept or even tolerate some young Antillaises at one of
their gatherings because the latter are “maids.“ They too are
responsible for treating their sisters as objects, for classifying them
and seeing them as inferior because of their occupation:
Les petites bonnes étaient de plus en plus nombreuses (....),
j'étais contente de les voir enfin hors du joug quotidien.
Peut-étre elles redevenaient des étres comme les autres en ce
moment.... C'étaient penser trop tOt: un suberbe s'est approché
d'un groupe de jolies filles qui payaient leur écot et a dit:
“Oui vous a invitées? Ce n'est pas un bal pour vous! Il y
a des personnalités“ (£21355, pp. 133-134).
These "négres suberbes" who have "made it" are shown to be full of

prejudice and hypocrisy. Out of pride, or shame, the community pretends

that things are fine, consequently their compatriots keep coming in

150

droves ngttpg, p. 87).

The work ends with the death of Maméga's best friend, Solange, in
Paris and the narrator's own illness. (Francoise Ega in fact died,
prematurely, in 1976.) She has not yet managed, despite much effort, to
find a publisher for her book. But it is finished, she is working on
another, and it is being read, her family and friends like it, people
are interested. Her indomitable spirit is confident that in the future
life will be better for their children.

Francoise Ega's book is the type of work which probably would once
have been summarily and finally dismissed as a “woman's book." The
narrator is a woman, writing to a woman, mainly about women. And largely
about that most forgotten and ignored of women: “La bonne a tout faire,"
“la femme de ménage.” The spheres which she describes are those scarcely
ever penetrated by men, except as clients or spectators: the kitchen,
the laundry, the back courtyard where the maps are washed, the
sewing-room, a house of prostitution. In fact, the narrator's own
husband is a minor character, always there, but in the background, and
largely peripheral in these areas--apart from their own home he never
enters her space (her workplaces, her friends' homes) except to drop her
Off or pick her up on his bike. He is not central to this story. Most of
the time he grumbles and mildly disapproves of what she is doing,
although he never actively opposes or tries to stop her. Her work, her
writing, her projects, her book are “her thing.“ In her efforts to help
others, to get her book published, to cope with her family she is
encouraged, advised, sustained mainly by her women friends and other
women with whom she comes in contact.

It is a strong, optimistic book about themes and subjects which on

151

the surface might appear more likely to evoke pessimism if indeed they
were even to be considered worthy of notice. The language and modes of
representation that Ega uses seem apt and very “natural.“ For example,
speaking about her book, she uses a metaphor from child-bearing, a
cliche, but her expression fits so naturally in the context of her
writing, that it appears fresh and almost new: “Que penserait-elle (a
friend) si je lui disais que je faisais un livre et que j'écris les
derniers chapitres? Il me faut encore cet anonymat, sans cela, je
perdais confiance en moi. Et pourtant, si je veux connaitre l'aspect de
mon bébé, il va bien falloir que je l'extirpe de ma maison pour qu'on me
dise comment il est" (1:23.122, p. 65).

In contrast to Ega's optimism two other Caribbean women writers
writing about black women in France present darker views. Michéle
Lacrosil and Jacqueline Manicom hold very different views and their
styles and protagonists reflect these differences. Whereas Lacrosil's
narration is straightforward, Manicom's is often ironic. But both deal
with women who find that in France, for the educated woman, despite
possibilities of advancement, diplomas and good jobs, the white world
sets up barriers which it is impossible to overcome. Both Cajou

(Lacrosil's protagonist in Cajou) and Manicom's Madévie (Un examen de

 

M) are professional women in the sciences. Cajou has a doctorate in
chemistry and works in a research laboratory, Madévie is a medical
doctor, an anesthetist. Both have studied and lived in France. Both are
disillusioned and tempted by suicide (Cajou finally succumbs). Their
stories are similar: as West Indian students in France, they have
encountered prejudice and success. Both have had love affairs with a

white man, have become pregnant and decided not to have the child--for

152

different reasons, however. Madévie because she finally realizes her
lover will not marry her, Cajou because she cannot bring herself to
marry and “ruin" a white man. The novels have similar surface structures
and the stories of the two women are parallel in many of the external
facts. Yet thematically they are very dissimilar and represent almost
opposing sets of reactions and views of reality on the part of the
protagonists. Together they give a depressing picture of the types of

difficulty and the fate facing the educated Antillaise in the métropol .

 

The source of Madévie's conflicts is from without, whereas Cajou's
arise mainly from within. Madévie's come from the weakness of her
fiance, Xavier, and the prejudices of French bourgeois society: "Si
j'épousais une fille de couleur, ce sera pour ma famille une véritable
catastrophe! Maman en mourrait!" (Egamep, p. 66). Cajou's come from her
own inadequacies: her attitude to life is deformed by a distorted and
stratified Antillean society. She brings with her to France the problems
of a repressed West Indian heroine. Madévie, on the other hand, comes to
France feeling confident and superior. She is a “mulatresse qui se veut
a tout prix civilisée" (Examgp, p. 41)--unconsciously she too is driven
by the values of Antillean (and French) society which subscribe to the
superiority of "la peau blanche.” Both are the victims of "chosifica-
tion.“ Both are regarded as objects--Madévie by her fiance and Cajou in
her own eyes. Xavier sees Madévie as his society does, as an agreeable
exotic diversion for the white man “goOtant sa part do magie, de vaudou
avant le mariage bourgeois" (£129.20- p. 40), a fact which the young
Madévie ignores: “Alors elle oubliait la 'structure' de la bourgeoisie
parisienne parce qu'il lui avait dit 'je t'aime', comme on dit 'je

t'aime' a une sapotille bien mare, come on 'veut' un mango juteux"

153

(Exgmgp, p. 68). Cajou is luckier: Germain, who really loves her, does
not want to relate to her in that way. Disapproving of her past
relationships, he tells her: ”Tu acceptais d'étre un jouet" (93123, p.
62). But she has internalized the hmage of herself as an object,
moreover as an object to be scorned and pitied, and she cannot escape
it.

Both novels use a pattern of narration familiar in women's writing:
instead of being linear they move back and forth in time and space:
between Paris and the French Caribbean, between past and present. Both
also make use of the closed space, the archetypal womb, symbolically
representing their worlds: the window, the mirror, the laboratory or
Operating room, the tiny attic apartment or the cramped “cube,“ a
circular or cyclical sructure. Although their histories and attitudes
diverge, both protagonists limit themselves to these circumscribed
spaces where they feel safe. Thematically however, .9312! is a
fatalistic, defeatist, pessimistic novel, whereas Manicom's Mon examen
de blanc, while pessimistic in terms of the fate of the individual
protagonist, is much more upbeat. It is perhaps the only one of these

“24 Manicom's heroine,

novels which is explicitly militant and "feminist.
Madévie, who does not expect, and is not prepared to encounter,
prejudice in France, in fact suffers at the hands of others from all the
self-imposed, often imaginary, prejudices and Obstacles that Lacrosil's
failure-oriented, anti-heroine Cajou foresees and creates for herself.

If one takes Cajou as a sequel to Lacrosil's earlier novel,

Sapotille et le sérin d'argile, and sees in Cajou (as this observer

 

does) a logical continuation of Lacrosil's earlier heroine (they share

many of the same traits), it gives a useful perspective from which to

154

examine the character. The earlier novel ends as Sapotille goes to
France hOping to leave behind her the memories of her unhappy childhood,
plagued by prejudice, and the bitterness of a miscarriage, a broken
marriage and an unhappy love affair. She goes expecting (or claiming to
expect) to find the social barriers of the Antilles and damaging
restrictions gone. Events prove that Cajou largely finds that this seems
to be so: awarded her doctorate with honors, she is acclaimed for her
scientific research, her papers are published. She gets a prestigious
job in a research laboratory and her director wants to make her “chef de
travaux.“ A white man falls in love with her and wants to marry her. He
prefers her to her confident white friend with whom she is obsessed. He
is no angel, but an enlightened even "liberated" man. The trouble is,
Cajou's alienation and self-hatred is such that she can accept none of
these things as real. Her lack of self-esteem leads her to distrust
appearances/reality. She can no longer distinguish between the two and
is suspicious of everyone and everything which appears to be favorably
disposed toward her. She is indeed as she describes herself “un cas
pathologique," depressed, withdrawn, alienated. Her only yardstick for
judging everything is her blackness.

She looks in the mirror (Often) and can see only her "laideur." Her
self-image (and her corresponding impression of others) is so distorted
that she is no longer in touch with reality. Lacrosil's justification
for her character's state of mind is somewhat weak. Cajou's mother, who
is white, loved and protected her. Her negative image comes initially
from the reactions of outsiders, strangers (surely less significant than
her own mother) who cannot believe that the little colored girl is

“madame's” daughter: “'Elle, votre fille? Ma'ame Kébaire, c'est pas

155

croyable'" (gm, p. 40). But, be that as it may, Cajou as a child
discovers her blackness (her dead father was black) and from then on her
life changes. Because she does not look like her mother she begins to
hate herself and to fear that her mother will change and stop loving
her: “Tu es une dame, tu es belle. Je serai jamais comme toi. A cause de
ce qui me manque, tu comprends?“ (93192, p. 40). She sees her color as a
fatal deficiency: ”ce qui me manque.“ She becomes obsessed with her

"ugliness"/blackness. Like the emaciated victim of anorexia nervosa who

 

is so obsessed with her' desire to be thin that she looks at her
reflection in the mirror and sees herself as fat, Cajou is so obsessed
with her own desire to be “other" (i.e., white) that she sees only her
color. Thus when she looks at herself in the mirror she perceives
everything about herself as "ugly" or “dirty“ (black) and concludes that
this is the only image others can have of her. Blackness for her is
synonymous with "laideur," lack of worth. She interprets everything that
happens to her by that one criterion: her “ugliness“lcolor. Thus she
decides her doctorate and her work are acclaimed not for their merits
(she does not think they are outstanding) but because they are unusual
and not expected by a white world of a "fille de couleur.“ She is
suspicious of her boss's consideration and attention and interprets her
promotion as a trap: the director of the laboratory, she says, knows she
is incapable of exercising authority. As a black woman others will
refuse to respect her and therefore because “elle ne saurait pas
s'imposer,“ she will fail. This, she believes, is his intention. Because
she hates herself (“Je ne mraime pas,“ _gjpp, p. 14; “Je me me suis
jamais aimée,“‘§gjpp, p. 29), Cajou does not believe anyone else can

love her or that she even deserves to be loved. What she "lacks,"

156

whiteness, also denies her the right or the possibility of being either
lovable or loved.

She explains her lack of confidence, her lack of “self-hood“ and her
conviction that she is doomed to failure (“Ma chére, le jugement est
rendu; il est sans appel et voici le verdict: REFUSEE. L'échec t'attend"
Cajou, p. 12 ) in tenms of her heredity and her past and especially in
terms of a significant relationship she had with her white playmate
Stéphanie, a relationship repeated in Paris many years later in the
person of Marjolaine. Stéphanie and Marjolaine become the significant
others with whom she identifies and in whose eyes she sees herself
reflected as diminished and unimportant:

Mon premier échec s'appelle Stephanie. L'opinion de Stéphanie
comptait pour moi plus que tout autre quand j'avais dix ans.
(.....) Stéphanie devient pour moi la mesure des choses et le
miroir OD je lisais, quand le rire éteignait et rallumait des
étincelles dans ses prunelles, combien j'étais laide. Je me
comparais a elle, je me posais des questions Pourquoi est-on
soi? Sans choix, sans recours? Pourquoi étais-je cet étre et
non cet autre? (Cajou, p. 34).
Fearful that her mother will be replaced by a look-alike stranger who
will not love her, afraid to leave the garden where she plays with
Stéphanie while her mother is out, afraid to extend her circle of
friends because she fears she~ will lose! Stéphanie, 'their friendship
finally ends when she is sixteen: "Mon amitié pour Stéphanie se
terminait. C'était un échec. Ce premier échec a oriente ma facon de voir
et de réagir" (Cajou, p. 97-8). She becomes incapable of escaping from
her image fOrmed through her relationships with the two girls. It is
irrelevant that (as her lover Germain points out to her in the case of

Marjolaine) they are selfish and manipulative. They also happen to be

white, which Cajou desires to be above all else, a desire she can never

157

fulfill. The result is detrimental. She sees her image as her destiny:
“Quand je tourne la téte, j'apercois mon image dans la glace au-dessus
du lavabo. Tu es de la race des esclaves, Cajou. Subis, ma chére!"
(9319!, p. 165). In her games with Stéphanie she longs to become
Stéphanie and therefore “other" than she is.

Her relationship with Marjolaine is as intense. (Her fiance in fact
suggests that the two women have been lovers and that she prefers
Marjolaine to him.) She is fascinated especially by Marjolaine's hair,
quite different from her own. Stéphanie and Marjolaine become extensions
of her childhood desire to be beautiful like her mother (to be “other")
and to rid herself of her physical attributes ("s'évader de soi") which
separate her from this ideal self which she can never attain. As a child
she had a black doll (“une moricaude que je jugeais hideuse”) which she
kept trying to lose, another image of her symbolic self. The doll was
always returned to her "déformée mais non déteinte." Cajou, the adult,
comes to the realization that she is incapable of resolving her dilemma:
like the doll she could not lose, she cannot lose (“fuir”) herself:

Réagit-on contre un miroir? Il faudrait briser les miroirs. J'y
songeais sérieusement quand j'étais enfant. C'était une idée
folle. Je ne guérirai pas. (She will never be "déteinte.“) La
seule Evasion possible, c'est le suicide“ (£3123, pp. 205-206).
Faced with her proposed promotion and her lover's proposal of marriage,
both of which she would really like to believe in, but which she feels
unworthy of and incapable of handling, Cajou feels trapped and
frustrated, “un prisonnier privé d'avenir” (ngpp, p. 113). She is
especially terrified at the thought of having to go to a cocktail party
given by her boss and his wife. Genmain tells her she cannot refuse. The

invitation becomes the catalyst, which forces her to act. (It was an

158

invitation to go to a party which also ended her friendship with
Stéphanie.) Cajou chooses suicide, the final annihilaton and suppression
of self; thus Cajou achieves the complete darkness and obscurity she
seeks: "Je ne suis plus personne. Douceur de me dissoudre dans le noir“
(Cajgp, p. 183).

While Freudian critics could have a field day, Egjpp has generally
been dismissed as an unrealistic novel, about a woman obsessed with
color and failure, dealing with, as she describes herself, "un cas
pathologique.“ But although it does present an overstated picture of an
extreme case, a sick and disturbed individual, in-the light of recent
findings about passivity and female conditioning, and especially of the
"sexual revolution“ it needs to be examined more carefully for what it
does expose about the damage done to the female m by negative

“25 here

conditioning and about the phenomenon called "fear of flying
presented in the most extreme fonm. Cajou chose, or was conditioned, to
want to be recognized and reflected only in the eyes of the white world
(white, female world in fact). She rejected or was denied the other part
of herself. Symbol ically, on the advice Of a psychiatrist her dead
father [black], "her origins" or “racial questions“ were never discussed
with her. That was the start of her anguish and her tragedy. Cajou sees
herself as a fatherless child, a déracinée, a displaced person (a theme
common in Caribbean literature): “Jamais je n'ai connu le sentiment de
sécurité que peut éprouver une fille, Stéphanie ou Marjolaine,
solidement enracinée parmi les siens. Cette impression de n'étre nulle
part a ma place m'est venue avec l'adolescence“ (ngpp, p. 41).

Cajou ends with the protagonist alienated, depressed and choosing to

end her life, having found no satisfaction or solutions: neither in the

159

West Indies, in France, in her studies, in her work or her relation-
ships. Seen in terms of sexual and racial politics it is a pessimistic
and defeatist position. Manicom's Madévie is healthier and more
integrated.

Madévie is cynical and lucid although also divided (the narrator
refers to herself in the third person). She is alienated from
herself--her younger self, that self which she has outgrown, discarded
and no longer wishes to be, but which still clings to her in many ways
despite herself, with its prejudices, attitudes and illusions: "Alors je
chasse de mon esprit les chiméres de Madévie qui enviait la peau de la
Sainte Vierge" (gxgmgp, p. 57). She rejects the values and attitudes of
that “Madévie, l'autre. celle que je ne veux plus connaitre” (E52933, p.
68) intellectually, but cannot escape entirely. That young Madévie,
confident, superior, full of illusions and bourgeois ideals, is now back
in Guadeloupe, older, wiser, disillusioned, and much more “aware" in
tenms of her own identity, her society and its needs and problems.

The novel begins in an Operating-room in a clinic in Pointe-a-Pitre,
near the airport. Madévie is assisting the surgeon Cyril Démian, a
"blanc-France.“ Also in the room is Marie-Dominique who is described as
beautiful, “une fée." She is a French nurse on contract and one (the
old) Madévie envies her. The question of color arises at once.

Comme j'envie Marie-Dominique (....) Je voudrais ‘étre belle
comme Marie-Dominique. Je voudrais avoir le joli nez de
Marie-Dominique. Au lieu de tout cela, je ne suis qu'une
mulatresse, avec une peau en chocolat, comme disent les petits
enfants de France qui n'ont pas l'habitude des gens de couleur
(Egamgp, p. 11).

Her words are intentionally ironic. Madévie is pretending to see herself

in the eyes of the other. Her sojourn in France has proved to be her

160

“examen de blanc.“ Her relationship with Xavier, a white student, has
taught her that in the white world, she, “une mulatresse privilégiée,“
"cultivée," has no value. She is simply “une négresse": "Et les
négresses gréco-latines, on me les prend pas au sérieux!" (Examen, pp.
41-42). Madévie's disillusioned remark points to the conflict between

the aspirations of the Antillaises and the role, purely sexual, exotic

 

and erotic, which they are assigned and limited to by a white,
male-dominated society, a r6le endorsed by her own middle-class
upbringing. Listening to a sonata by Bach (a mark of her assimilation),
Madévie reminisces:
Sonate du p‘éché tant attendu par Madévie, du p‘éché exotique
commis par Xavier. P‘échés véniels a vrai dire: dépuceler une
mulatresse. Se faire initier a l'amour charnel par un Blanc. Le
cure de Saint-Suplice absoudrait bien vite le jeune homme et
quant a Madévie, sa mére qui l'avait bien éduquée dans
l'admiration du Blanc lui en voudrait a peine (Examen, p. 40).

From Capécia's négresse blanche to Manicom's Examen de blanc the

 

 

values of many in the society do not appear to have changed. Madévie
herself, however, is aware of the inconsistencies and contradictions in

her position. As an educated femme de couleur she is cut off from much

 

Of her own society. She is caught between worlds, as her clinic is, out
there by the airport, where she watches the planes and reflects on the
image, a false one, which her fellow Antillais have of France. "Elle
guette les boeings" and hopes for the arrival of her lover. But as time
goes on she waits for him less and less, and consciously separates
herself from “the other Madévie,“ with whom she no longer identifies.
Because of her background and her education she is also isolated and
oriented toward the world of the_p§k§§ who look down on other Antillais,

and finds herself confined to the circles of 'the “blancs-France."

161

Symbolic of this isolation is her association with closed Spaces, her
tiny living quarters, the sterile operating room, frequented only by
other white peOple, her colleagues at the hospital. Madévie, “le docteur
Ramimoutou" is painfully aware of the isolation and ambiguity of her
situation and her attitude to it is ambivalent and disquieting.
Sometimes she feels safe and protected, like the privileged class: "Dans
mon espace limité je me sens prot‘egée" (155.1922: p. 60); sometimes she
longs to escape and is tempted by suicide. She recognizes that her

relationship with Cyril (a mirroring of the middle-class Antillais,(e_)

 

and the béké-France) is one of deference and passivity, conditioned by

 

her position, her past experiences and her education. She is just as
knowledgeable as he is about classical music, but pretends not to be,
which allows him to patronize her and to think he is forming her taste.
She is afraid to disagreewith him professionally because she may anger
or displease him. She admires his skill as a surgeon yet despises him
for what she considers to be his unnecessary mutilation of women's
bodies: "Il en veut aux femmes de fabriquer des placentas" (Examen, p.
52)‘. Yet she finds it impossible to say anything. It is Cyril who,
ironically, controls her world: "Arrive Cyril. Il s'introduit dans ce
cube. Capricieuse géométrie que cette piéce rétrécie qui s'étire quand
Cyril est la. Je peux alors si je veux faire des voyages en hauteur on
em profondeur" (_E_xa_mg_n_, p. 12). Cyril wants to direct her destiny and
she allows him to. The "cube" is a metaphor not only for Madévie's body,
identity, self-image, and existence (the woman vis-a-vis the male, here

specifically the femme de couleur and the white male) but for the

 

Antillean middle- and upper-classes and for Guadeloupe, for the identity
and destiny of the French Antilles and their relationship with the

162

metrOpol . Cyril, the “blanc-France" has boxed her in to a certain role
and path as she has boxed herself in. He can release her from it, albeit
temporarily. When he is with her, she feels differently about her
landscape, her space, because he has conferred his presence: "Et la
source joyeuse a quitté la roche claire pour couler noire et silencieuse
dans le 'cube'." The references to color “claire“ "noire" are hardly
fortuitous. But lest the reader not understand at first, the narrator
makes it even more explicit. Madévie (woman/Guadeloupe) is dependent on
Cyril (blanc-France) for her life and her happiness:
Evidemment je suis malheureuse et j'ai besoin de Cyril. Il faut
que je sois malheureuse pour Cyril. Je suis un tout petit
globule rouge et il n'y a pas assez d'oxygéne dans ce "cube“.
Cyril Démian m'en apporte. Il ne dit rien! on Si peu de
choses....

Généreusement, il m'offre le paysage d'en bas. Il me fait
cadeau de mon pays: me voila, les bras charge de ma savane
brulante, de la mer CaraTbe engloutissant le gigantesque soleil
d'or (Examen, p. 12).

The multifaceted metaphor functions effectively on several levels: on
one level the narrator is using irony to point out the unsatisfactory
and unjust realities of the male/female, France/Antilles situation
(Manicom, a militant feminist and political activist is here dealing
with “politics" proper as well as the politics of both sex and race). On
another level Madévie is criticizing the West Indian who can only
appreciate and experience his/her society or culture when it has first
been endorsed by the European.

Manicom uses the relationship between Madévie and Cyril to make
several points and on many different fronts. For example, ironically
although she is (or pretends to be) willing to have a love affair with

him and to relate to him merely as a sex object, it is Cyril who refuses

to cast her in that role:

163

Je lui dirai, moi, que je vivrai toute ma vie avec lui, s'il le
veut, enfermée dans le “cube“, espérant des heures, des jours,
des nuits durant, que ses épaules m'accueillent, que sa
poitrine tremble, que s'affirme son sexe. (....) Cyril ne veut
rien de tout cela. Il attend ma voix, ma plainte, mon récit
(Examen, p. 39).
Manicom's book, as previously mentioned, is very “feminist.“ The
narrator effectively uses irony and sexual and medical imagery to make
her points. She exploits to the full the possibilities inherent in the
labour/Operating room situation (a white» male gynecologist/surgeon,

female patients and assistants). But both Cajou and Mom examen de blanc

 

are novels not only about women and the feminine condition, but also
about the position of the assimilé/West Indian middle class and
Antillean society in general. In Qajpp this society, like the woman, is
rendered impotent and self-destructive by its neuroses and particularly

by its insistence on clinging to white Eurocentric values. In Mon examen

 

de blanc both woman and Caribbean society have come a long way. The
neuroses and false position have been recognized and faced but not
removed or cured. There is still a long way to go.

The language and images used in this literature to describe the
isolation, alienation and frustration of the black woman who finds

herself in France, whether African or Antillaise, are remarkably

 

similar. The situations express themselves in several novels almost

identically: Mariotte, the old négresse of Schwarz-Bart's Un plat de

 

Apprc aux bananes vertes, alone and lonely in the hospice in Paris muses

 

on her fate: “Descendre. Glisser toujours plus bas. J'ai ferme toutes

n26

les issues, mais vois....la nuit réveille les monstres, while Ken,

the young Sénégalaise of Le Baobab Fou describes her situation thus:

 

 

De plus en plus le fossé se creusait, désespérément. L'Afrique
me rappelait a elle par ses élans, ses instants de poésie et
ses rites. Mais je tenais bon le lien avec les valeurs appor-

164

tées par la colonialisation. Je ne pouvais plus retourner sur
mes pas, ni m‘éme jeter un coup d'oeil en arriére (Le Baobab
_fpp, p. 143).

Zétou in Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit uses almost exactly the same

 

terminology and images:

J'étais plongée dans un monde étrange, derriére une nuit
d'ombre. J'entendais des gens rire et parler de l'autre cOté,
mais je ne pouvais pas communiquer avec eux. (....) Je glissais
lentement dans un abime sans fin. Tout d'abord, j'étais
contente d'étre loin des autres, a l'abri d'un mur.

Mais quand je compris qu'au fond de l'ab‘ime c'était la
mort, je luttai Q§sespérément pour trouver une sortie (....) Il
était trop tard.

The African or West Indian immigrée in Europe is coincée. Having
found herself in this desperate situation, she is faced with several
alternatives and reacts in different ways: she can go back home, if home

is still a desirable possibility, as it is for Ken in Le Baobab fou for

 

whom home has positive associations: "se blottir dans les cuisses
chaudes de la mére, rouler dans le sable, écouter les contes et

légendes...“ (Le baobab fou, p. 144). She can go back home to a society

 

which is imperfect and try to change it by social or political action

(only Manicom's Mon examen de blanc suggests this). She can stay in

 

France and try to cope by working mainly with other women, together, as
women, to help each other, so that the future will eventually be better
for their children everywhere (Ega alone depicts this as a possible
course of action). The final alternative is to try to escape (s'évader)
or to find a better world. Mariotte (Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes)
returns in her old age to childhood, and her childhood world comes back
to her. In the asylum in Paris she comes and goes between the two,
between France and Guadeloupe. Some destroy themselves as they seek

escape once and for all in madness or death (Zétou in Le Quimboiseur

165

l'avait dit, Youmané, ”L'Africaine exilée," and Cajou). Others,

 

Antillaises, continue to search, following the pattern of’ Césaire's

 

journey, France having proved in Lacrosil's words, "un échec,“ the next
stage in the retracing of the voyage is Africa.

In Maryse Condé's novel Une Saison 5 Rihata set in an imaginary,
unspecified West African francophonel country, Marie-Héléne, ‘the

Antillaise spells out her reasons for having married Zek, the young West

 

African, a fellow-student in Paris:
A vrai dire, l'Afrique avait pesé lourd dans la balance.
Retourner a la Guadeloupe ne signifiait guére pour Marie-
Hélene que retourner vers sa mére. L'Tle et la mére étaient la
méme chose, utérus clos dams lequel blottir sa souffrance, yeux
fermés, poings fermés, apaisée par la pulsation du sang. Mais
la mére était morte. Alors la douleur de l'avoir perdue a
jamais, de n'avoir méme pas assisté a ses derniers moments, se
changeait en haine de l'ile, a présent stérile, matrice déser—
tée qui n'envelopperait plus de foetus. Restait l'Afrique, mere
aussi, proche par l'espoiree§8l'imaginaire. Elle avait donc
épousé Zek a la mairie du XV .
The identification of Marie-Hélene's natural mother, now dead, with the
island-mother now lost, rejected, or cast aside, re-evokes a theme found
elsewhere in Caribbean women's fiction.- Marie-HEIéne in Paris had
rejected the bourgeois values of Antillean society, embraced new
militant, revolutionary (and idealistic) theories especially about
Africa--"le devenir du continent africain, le progrés de l'homme noir,
sa place dans le monde“ (Rihata, p. 21)--and had become actively
committed. In the wake of a personal tragedy, Paris becomes for her,
like Guadeloupe after the death of her mother, no longer a rewarding or
safe and comforting world. So she turns to Africa, "proche par l'espoir
et l'imaginaire." But Marie-Héléne in Africa becomes the victim of a
further, triple, deception. Already betrayed by her natural mother,

Guadeloupe, and a victim of her upbringing, now her revolutionary

166

student ideals acquired in EurOpe and the mythical vision she has of
Africa--that is, both the hOpe and the illusion--prove false. She cannot
come to tenms with the Africa she discovers either personally, politi-
cally, or socially. She does not find either "healing or happiness."29

Miriam Vieyra, who is in fact married to a Senegalese and lives in

West Africa, chooses to dramatize the situation of the Antillaise

 

vis-a-vis her own society and vis-a-vis Africa by using as her vehicle
marriage and family customs, an area in which there are obvious external
characteristics and circumstances which make the sources of friction and
discomfort more easily observable. In a companion piece to her first

novel, Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit, Vieyra in Juletane treats the

 

problems of the West Indian woman in Africa. There are many parallels
between the two works, Juletane, like Zétou (Suzette) in Le Quimboiseur

l'avait dit finds herself in a hopeless situation, both end their days

 

in an insane asylum (one in France, one in Africa) pining for their
Antillean homeland, and both seek escape in suicide. The problem of the
West Indian woman in Africa, these parallels suggest, is fundamentally

the same as that of the Antillaise in Europe, summed up by Suzette's

 

desperately poignant hindsight: “Je dirigeais ma pensée vers mom village

que je n'aurais jamais d0 quitter...." Like Ken (Le baobab fou), the

 

details which Suzette focuses on emphasize the warm, comforting,
positive side of island life. Her selective memory filters out the
hardships and extremes of poverty, and she forgets the reasons which
impelled her to want to get away. Juletane's situation in Africa, like
Suzette's in Paris, is one of severe restriction and unexpected
frustration. The life she has come to is not at all what she had

expected. Like Suzette's dreams for her future, Juletane's become a

167

nightmare.

An Antillaise, married to an African, Mamadou, whom she met in

 

Paris, Juletane's first shock comes when she discovers her husband is
already married and she has a co-wife. Juletane is an orphan. Not only
are her parents dead but she has lived in Paris since she was 10, with
her godmother, now also dead. Thus doubly orphaned, motherless,
fatherless, and without her country, she feels her world has come to an
end with this disclosure: "Une fois de plus je retrouvais mon angoisse
d'orpheline. Perdue, seule au monde. Mon désarroi était immense.“
Juletane realizes her true situation vis-a-vis Mamadou and her new
homeland:
...l'avenir révé se transformait en un douloureux présent.
J'avais porte toute ma confiance, mon amour sur cet homme,
lamentablement lache.... L'arrivée sur cette terre africaine de
mes péres, je l'avais de cent mgfiiéres imaginée, voici qu'elle

se transformait en un cauchemar.

On the personal level the Antillaise finds that going back to Africa

 

leaves her yearning unsatisfied and her crisis unresolved. The
experience is not as she had imagined it would be. It is not a

home-coming. The Antillaise in Africa discovers her "otherness" as she

 

already has in Europe. But this last rejection is even more bitter and
hard to accept. Marie-Héléne, in Une Saison 3 Rihata, discovers she is
an outsider. "Semela" or "celle-qui-vient d'ailleurs" is the name given
to her by the African villagers. She is a stranger not only because of
her physical métissage but because of “ses gestes, ses attitudes, ses
réactions, toute une maniére d'étre qui déconcertait, intimidait,
attirait selon le cas, et la singularisait....“ (Ripgta, p. 12).
Marie-HélEne, unexpectedly rejected, in turn rejects this reality which

does not fit in with her dreams and expectations. Her mother-in-law sees

168

her as "cette épouse étrangére, cette Antillaise." Presented to her
father-in-law, he coldly reproaches his son: “Pourquoi as-tu fait cela?

Pourquoi as-tu épousé une Blanche? (Rihata, p. 23). The .Antillaise

 

exiled in her own society is at home nowhere: ”une négresse“ in EurOpe,
"une Blanche" or “Semela” in Africa. Marie-Héléne is puzzled and deeply
hurt by her in-laws' rebuff and by the reaction of her neighbors who do
not readily accept her: "Exclue? Pourquoi? Savaient-elles comme elle
avait révé de l'Afrique quand toute sa génération réclamait l'indépen-
dance comme un merveilleux giteau d'anniversaire?" 315333, p. 33). Like
her view of the métropole, the West Indian's view of herself vis-a-vis
Africa was naively egotistical and unrealistic. Her relationship with
her mother-in-law is symbolic of her relationship with Africa. Rejected,
because she is different, she begins to compare Sokambi, her African
mother-in-law, unfavorably to her own mother whose traits now seem so

refined by comparison. The Antillaise, in what now becomes an “alien“

 

society partly by her own inadequacy, resistance and her inflexible
attitudes, finds herself isolated and confined in a continuing exile. As
a result Marie-Héléne, like Cajou, loses her will to act. She withdraws
farther and farther into a dream-world. Her perspective alters and the
once-rejected Antilles becomes more and more attractive and desirable.
The relationship of the Zek/Marie-Héléne couple is a reflection of a
mutually exploitative relationship. "Elle n'avait que lui. Il était a la
fois sa victime et son bourreau. Il la sauvait, la guérissait“ (315233,
p. 34). Zek marries her partly because he sees in her the instrument of
his vengeance against his father whom he has never been able to please
and partly because she fascinates him and he wants to be important in

her eyes, while Marie-Héléne marries Zek because for her he represents a

169

link with Africa and the possibility of fulfilling her dream, but most
of all because of the value he confers on her: “Si elle lui avait cédé
.... C'était pour se voir en lui. Jamais elle n'aurait autant de prix
aux yeux d'un étre" (m, p. 25). In this novel identity and "le
regard de l'autre;" as in much of the other Caribbean fiction already
discussed, are important themes. Characters are constructed almost
exclusively through the eyes of others and see themselves as their image
reflected in the other's eyes. Thus Marie-Héléne sees herself as her
brother-in-law sees her: "enceinte, diminuée, vieillie, lasse, lasse a
mourir" (315333, p. 33).

The Caribbean heroine is still in search of her lost identity.
Arguably, because of the Middle Passage which made of Africans of
different families and cultures one undifferentiated mass, reducing them
all to £9115, she never had an identity except the unacceptable one
defined in terms of color and exploitability. Having failed to find
either herself or a haven in Europe, she now seeks to use Africa to fill
the void and to reconstruct for herself a history and a satisfactory
home. But this journey too ends in failure. The Africa she finds offers

no solution to the Antillaise's problem of alienation and identity. As

 

she is not EurOpean, so she is not African. Alain Baudot points out the

paradox of the Antillais's situation vis-a-vis Africa: "L'histoire de la

 

représentation de l'Afrique dans l'imaginaire antillais, qui coincide
avec les avatars de la qu‘éte de soi, est donc celle d'une déchirure."
This is so, he says, because for the Antillais, “L'Afrique est en lui,
avant lui, et, par la force des choses, a jamais hors de lui."31 Maryse
Condé makes a similar point. Referring to the situation of the West

Indian woman Maryse Condé says:

170

Etre femme et antillaise, c'est un destin difficile a
déchiffrer. Pendant un temps, les Antillais ont cru que leur
quéte d'identité passait par l'Afrique (....); l'Afrique était
pour eux la grande matrice de la race noire et tout enfant issu
de cette matrice devant pour se connaitre, fa§2lement, se
rattacher a elle. En fin de compte c'est un piége.
Condé points out that not only is it difficult to understand and love a
country when one does not know either the language or the religion,
which makes it very hard to relate to people in the other culture, but
that in addition in the case of her heroines who “cherchent a la fois a
s'affirmer, en tant que femmes et en tant que colonisées, par rapport
aux problémes politiques et sociaux du monde," the matter is complicated

33 Condé does not

by the relationship of the woman to her own society.
consider that her heroines' journey to Africa has been futile, however,
or that "they fail.“ Marie-Héléne because “she stays in Africa“ and

Veronica in Heremakhonon because:

 

...elle a découvert d'abord que ses problémes personnels
psychiques et psychologiques ne pouvaient Etre résolus en
Afrique; elle a compris que pour les résoudre, elle devait
retourner aux Antilles pour participer a la vie des Antilles OD
les évensments sont tout aussi angoissants et inquiétants qu'en
Afrique.

The case of Veronica parallels that of Manicom's protagonist Madévie at
the end of her sojourn in Europe and also recalls Ken Bugul's situation.

The black woman in Europe and the Antillaise inAAfrica are both

 

victims of their disappointed expectations. Both expect to come to terms
with themselves, "s'assumer" as Bugul says or "s'affirmer" as Condé puts
it, through the intermediary of this other reality, Europe or Africa,

because they have failed to find what they want in their terre natale.

 

At first they have neither the fortitude to immediately accept their
rejection and the loss of their dream nor the patience to go beyond the

appearances and penetrate the reality once they have met with these

171

obstacles. But in the end some protagonists at least (Madévie, Ken,
Condé's heroines if not Vieyra's or Lacrosil's), profit from their
journey in that they recognize that flight is no solution, that they

must go back and face their situations, that is, themselves.

172
Notes

1 Ken Bugul, Le Baobab fou (Dakar: Nouvelles Editions Africaines,
1982), p. 183.

2 Mame Seck Mbacké, Le Froid et le Piment (Dakar: Nouvelles Editions
Africaines, 1983), p. 132.

3 Michéle Lacrosil, Cajou (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), pp. 101, 104.
All further references appear in the text.

4 Although the women in West Africa in Aminata Sow Fall's novel Lg
revenant (Dakar: Nouvelles Editions Africaines, 1980) for example do
bleach their skins in an attempt to be lighter, skin color or blackness
is not a significant question in the novel. However, Abdoulaye Sadji's
novel Nini deals with a mulatto heroine obsessed with being white.

5

 

 

 

Mbacké, p. 159.

6 Wilfred Cartey, Whispers from a Continent (New York: Random House,
1969), p. 5.

7 See for example Nafissatou Diallo's De Tilene au plateau; Cheikh
Hamidou Kane's L'Aventure Ambigue'; Bernard Dadié's Clirfiié or Camara
Laye's L'Enfant Noir.

8 L'Université des Antilles-Guyane now serves these territories. It
became a full-fledged university in the late seventies. Before that time
all Antillais students of university level went to further their studies
in France.

9Jacqueline Manicom, Mon examen de blanc (Paris: Editions
Sarrazin), 1972.

10

 

 

 

 

 

Ibid., p. 45.

11 Ibid., p. 47.

12 The phrase "Nos ancétres les Gaulois" has been repeated so often
it has become an ironic cliché. The phrase appeared according to several
African and Caribbean writers at the beginning of a chapter in their
history books. French textbooks were used without being adapted in all
French territories.

13
20-21.
14

Maryse Conde, Une Saison a Rihata (Paris: Laffont, 1981), pp.

 

Manicom, p. 54.

15 Manicom, p. 61. All further references appear in the text and are
indicated as Examen.

173

 

16 Francoise Ega, Lettres a une Noire, pp. 61 and 64.
17 Sembéne Ousmane, Voltaigue (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1962).
18

Mame Seck Mbacké, Le froid et le piment (Nous, travailleurs
immigrés) (Dakar: Nouvelles Editibns AfriEaines, 1983).

19

 

Mbacké, Avant-Propos.

20 See “Fatou,“ Mbacké, p. 19.

21 Mbacké, p. 5. The work is dedicated "A tous ceux qui ont souffert"
and "A Caroline Mbengue, disparue dans sa douziéme année."

22 Ken Bugul, Le Baobab fou, p. 33. All further references appear in
the text.

23 Francoise Ega, Lettres a une Noire (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1978), p.
84. All further references appear in the text.

24 Manicom was in fact very active in the woman's movement in France
and was a co-founder of "Choisir," the French women's organization,
which among other things fought actively in favor of abortion.

25
1973).

26 Simone and André Schwarz-Bart, Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes
(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1974), p. 39.

27 Miriam-Warner Vieyra, Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit (Paris: Présence
Africaine, 1980), p. 137.

28 Maryse Conde, Une Saison 3 Rihata, p. 77. All further references
appear in the text and are indicated as Rihata.

29 See Ormerod, Introduction to the French Caribbean Novel (London:
Heinemann, 1985), p. 2.

30 Miriam Warner-Vieyra, Juletane (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1982),
pp. 34,35.

31 Alain Baudot, "Les écrivains antillais et l'Afrique,“ Notre
Librairie 73 (janvier, mars 1984).

32 Marie-Clotilde Jacquey and Mbnique Hugon, "Entretien avec Maryse
Conde,“ Notre Librairie 74 (avril-juin 1984), p. 22.

33

 

 

Erica Jong, Fear of Flyipg (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

 

 

 

 

 

Jacquey and Hugon, p. 22.

34 Jacquey and Hugon, p. 24.

Conclusion

The writers in this study all belong to the period of history marked
by colonialism and by the French policy of “assimilation." French West
African countries have been independent of French rule since the six-
ties, but in terms of the fonmal education received by these women of
letters French or European nonms dominate. Martinique and Guadeloupe are

French départements d'outre-mer and as such Antillaises receive essen-

 

tially the same formation as their metropolitan and African counter-
parts. Thus both African and Caribbean women writers share a basic
(French) educational background. The attitudes of the writers clearly
show this influence. However, from the literature, the Caribbean woman
is depicted as seeing herself in a situation more problematic than that
of her African sister. The West Indian novels are in general much more
pessimistic. The result of the woman's upbringing and education is often

self-doubt.l

This is evident in their attitude to their writing as well
as in the Caribbean woman's insecure sense of self. Both African and
Caribbean women question their ability to write as well as whether their
subject matter is worth writing about, but the African woman is much
more secure and self-assertive in this regard.2

In both Caribbean and African feminine writing the focus is always
primarily on the woman, on her everyday life, on the feminine condition

and on her relationships with herself and with others. The portrayal of

the woman is much fuller than in male ficETOO. Autobiographical

174

175

narratives or female biographical material predominate. The literature
is not militantly ”feminist,“ except in the case of Jacqueline Manicom's
work, but is concerned with questions and areas of central interest to
women. Many of the works however portray women who are in some way
vitcims of, or in conflict with, social _m_ipr_e§ or a social structure
which they consider outmoded or damaging in practice if not in intent.
The attitudes of the African narrators as well as those of many of the
protagonists show their backgrounds and education as being clearly
influenced by Western values. They are almost all to a certain extent
“occidentalisées.” This is not to say, however, that they reject their
African heritage.

The novel in black Africa is only about 60 years Old. Despite a rich
and diverse oral tradition and cultural heritage, because written
literature began with the colonial period, a period of upheaval,
devastation and radical violent change, most African novels published
before 1960 deal with the trauma Of the colonial situation. Early novels
especially focus on the suffering and disintegration of the community as
a whole. In these novels, individuals, including women, are representa-
tive of group consciousness. It is only later that the focus shifts from
group to individual conflict and even then the individual in conflict
with the group or society is often still representative of a new
consciousness within the community of a need for change. Individualism
in the traditional African context means conflict. Self-realization is
only possible within the context of the value system of the community.
This emphasis on a group identity where the individual's needs and
desires are always subordinated to those of the group is especially

stressful for women who are often of low status within the community.

176

The stress increases when the old patterns, which assured them a certain

consideration begin to break down.3

Traditional .mppgs ‘transplanted
unadapted to a Westernized urban setting can bring disastrous results.
The modern woman is forced to redefine her destiny as a woman in new
terms. However, African women do not want fulfillment at the expense of
family unity or outside the community. Their works are first of all
biographies concerned with establishing a written record of the African
woman's place in her community and telling her personal history.
Especially in the case of the African novel it is important to
consider the public for which this literature is intended. The African
woman writer is addressing an African audience which is extremely
limited at the present time. The number of West Africans who are
French-speaking is relatively small and mainly confined to urban areas.
The literacy rate is generally low; in Senegal, the oldest French
"colony," for example it is about 10% at present. Because the literacy
figures for women are much lower than those for men, most of the
potential literate Francophone African reading public is male. Chinweizu
points out that it is useful to see African novels as descendants or
inheritors of the oral tradition, the African epic or folktale; hence as

having an implicit (or explicit) didactic purpose.4

Thus, if we look at
the actual, Often also the implied, reader as the educated African
(assuming that the writers are addressing an African reading public),
then one can hope that these works will speak to those in the society,
numerically mainly male, but also the educated woman, who can play a
part in redefining roles, eliminating injustices or righting wrongs.5

The African woman is presented as deeply attached to her traditions

and heritage. None of the writers or the characters wants to dispense

177

with or; discard their precious cultural heritage. However, all are
conscious of and point out areas of conflict and injustice which limit
and destroy women's potential for self-actualization and happiness.
Kaya, Diallo, Ndiaye all portray the woman in their society in this way.
Bfi's novels and Fall's texts deal explicitly with these issues. 83 and
Fall both argue for the need to eliminate and change harmful elements
while pointing out and advocating the value and necessity of retaining
their traditions. Fall's novels especially see the condition of the
woman as being synonymous with the situation of those in the society,
both male and female, who are less privileged or of low status. Her
works address flaws in the social structure in general without seeking
to destroy it.
In the area of the male/female relationship these stories bear out
Sonia Lee's finding from anglophone African women's writing that:
Les héroines du roman féminin ne cherchent pas la monogamie
mais le bonheur et ce bonheur féminin se résume par l'amour
conjugal. Dans le roman masculin le bonheur de 1% femme c'est
la maternite: dans le roman feminin c'est l'amour.
As Fall puts it in the words of her character Lolli (La_gréve des Battu)
what women want is “le plein épanouissement de la femme dans un cadre
familial ou, en responsables, elles auraient aussi leur mot a dire."7
All the women in the literature want to be loved, considered, respected,
by their parents, friends, family or spouse. The source of their
unhappiness is shown to be a breakdown in relationships, whether it is
the imother or father/daughter relationship or the conjugal one. In
addition they protest against customs or taboos which they consider

unfair or restrictive. The younger African woman, however, as portrayed

by these writers, is confident that she can reconcile differences and

178

overcome obstacles, whereas her disillusioned West Indian sister is
shown to be much more cautious. These differences are at least partly
due to radically different social structures.

The novel in the Caribbean dates back at least to the eighteenth
century. Writings by women constitute some of the earliest examples of
West Indian literature. Most Caribbean novels are concerned with the
search for an identity. The Caribbean novel deals with race as well as
class Oppression, and most often the two are inextricably intertwined.
Caribbean and African literatures, both Anglophone and Francophone, were
born of a colonial situation but the difference in the West Indies was
that both the colonizer and the colOnized were strangers in the new
land. There was therefore much more place in the society for invention,
more leeway as far as social roles were concerned. Although, as in
Africa, the colonizer was trying to impose a structure, the "givens"
were not the same. In both cases the European structure had to be
modified to cope with the new situation. But the colonized people in the
diaspora, unlike the African peoples at home, were no longer a part of a
well-ordered established, hierarchical society. The infamous Middle
Passage had already created fragmentation and chaos. Therefore the
situation of the African woman or the _C_r;§c_il_e_ woman of color in the
Caribbean differed greatly from that of the African woman at home in the
mother country. She did not have roles clearly defined for her--young
girl, bride, wife, mother--roles growing out of and laid down by long
and ancient tradition. She did not have established patterns of behavior
and expectations which were defined by tribal culture.

The Caribbean woman of color did not have the respect and status

that her African sister had in her ancestral community, although this

179

deprivation could also be seen as an advantage. Deprived of a

pre-conceived destiny the Antillaise had to struggle to achieve any

 

status within the community but she was also freer, the possibilities
for individual personal growth and development were more Open. The same
situation can be said to obtain when the African woman passes from a
traditional rural to an urban milieu. In the colonial situation women
had a special, albeit not privileged, position. The sexual role of the
woman vis-a-vis the master gave her an advantage not enjoyed by the
black male. Her sexual role thus tended to give the femme de couleur a
mediating position between two groups but also left her open to being
doubly exploited and oppressed. Since slavery intentionally broke down
and destroyed family structures and traditional hierarchical patterns,
the African male transplanted in the Caribbean was deprived of his
position and authority and the responsibility for the family devolved
largely on the woman. This emasculation of the black male, deliberately
practited under slavery and the plantation system, resulted in the
woman's having to assume added burdens and responsibilities, a situation
which has continued after the abolition of slavery and the decline of
the plantation system. Consequently, if women in a colonial situation
are the ultimate victims, in a Caribbean society the position of woman
as victim has added dimensions, both in terms of her enslavement and of
possibilities for growth and self-realization.

The Antillais' history also caused a destruction Of their
traditional black identity and values and a promotion of white, European
norms. Because of the ambiguity and flexibility of her position, the
black, and especially the mulatto, woman was in a position to take

advantage of the possibilities for social advancement. This, however,

180

resulted in a concomittant denial of her black heritage and an isolation
and alienation which proved to be detrimental both to her self-image and
her integration into the black community. The heroines in francOphone
West Indian novels clearly suffer from an identity crisis.

In Capécia and Lacrosil's novels the woman is a victim of the image
of herself created in response to her social context. She cannot escape
from her alienated and alienating values. In Vieyra's novels she is a
victhm of her naive or misguided attempts to better her life. She is
betrayed by her expectations and by the egotism of those closest to her,
be they West Indian, French or African, her own mother, the white man,
or her selfish spouse. The dreams of France, ”terre promise“ or of a
mythical Africa which can help the protagonists to find themselves are
also discounted. In general the women see themselves as victims, caught
in their own desperate attempts to define their identities and to rise
above the limitations of their social, political and personal circum-
stances.

The African woman, whilei coping well at home, in Europe finds

herself in the same predicament as her Antillaise sister. She is haunted

 

by the same sense of alienation and exile. Both are victims of a process
of reification. If she forgets who she is and tries to become “other,"
the results are disastrous. Not only is she not allowed to relate except
as an exotic sexual object or a useful curiosity, but she is in danger
of losing touch with reality and her authenticity. Her salvation lies in
remaining firmly attached to her African roots even as she adopts and
adapts what may be valuable from European ideas or practices. As Diop
says “We are ready to keep the gifts of the West, provided we use them

w8

according to our genius and our situations. Ken Bugul's autobiography

181

serves as a cautionary tale and Mbacké's work, less sensationally, makes
similar points.

The problem for the Antillaise is much more difficult. In the West

 

Indian situation, where there is no secure family structure and their
aspirations are directed at European ideals, many women find the
situation so problematic and hopeless that they run away, literally or
figuratively. Even the strongest, most lucid, like Schwarz-Bart's or
Manicom's protagonists, are tempted by madness or suicide. Schwarz-Bart
writes of “la folie antillaise“ which is never faraway and Maryse Condé
speaks of the writer's as well as the individual's predicament:
Nous sommes prisonniers de structures érigées par la génération
précédente qu'on prétend nous voir respecter. 0r il faut les
briser. La libération de l'écrivain négro-africain homme ou
femme, passe par la. Il n'est pas d'identité culturelle
immuable. Toute9 identité culturelle dépend de facteurs
socioéconomiques.
It is a daunting task. Condé sees West Indian women's writing at the
present time as "disappointing": "On the whole West Indian feminine
literature is somewhat disappointing. It resolves nothing and is too
exclusively based on the myth of the white man."10
The fictional portrayal of the West Indian woman reflects the
existing reality in the society: too often she is “antillaise, et par

conséquent inconsciemment honteuse de son origine directe,“ll

(that is,
her West Indian origins). Changing the social structures alone will not
be enough, however. What is needed is an accompanying change of the
individual mentality of the woman. Crucial to this change is an
exploration of the past in order to come to terms with it, for, as the
orphaned ChristOphe asks in Une Saison 3 Rihata: “Comment devenir homme

(or femme) quand on me connait pas son passé?"12

182

In female Caribbean writing the autobiographical form is the
fictional manifestation of this attempt to grapple with the past in

f.13 Fanon describes three

order to be able to arrive at a sense of sel
different phases which characterize the evolution of the intellectual
and the writer in a colonized society. The first is the phase of
"unqualified assimilation" in which the intellectual is inspired by and
slavishly imitates European norms. Then comes a reaction: "In the second
phase we find the native is disturbed; he decides to remember what he

is."14

In this phase, Fanon says, the intellectual immerses himself in
his history and "culture" but as he is not really "a part of his peOple"
his relationship with his society can sometimes be superficial,
"exterior" and problematic. "Sometimes this literature of just-before-
the-battle is dominated by humour and by allegory; but often too it is
symptomatic of a period Of distress and difficulty, where death is

"15 In Fanon's view one does not really

eXperienced, and disgust too.
achieve a "national literature" until one enters the third phase, that
of a "fighting literature, a revolutionary literature" where the writer
"after having tried to lose himself in the peOple and with the people,
will on the contrary shake the people."16

Women's literature, especially in the Caribbean, is mainly in the
second phase, where the "native" decides to "remember what he [she]
is"--hence the prevalence of the autobiographical fonm. Kenneth Harrow
points out that in literatures of "colonized peoples," in black American
writing, for example (a literature like West Indian literature con-
sidered "littérature engagée"), the most obvious function of autobiog-
raphy is to "redonner leur identité a des déracinés, fournir les fonde-

ments de la reconnaisance par lesquels on fait corps avec les siens."17

183

Now the AntillaisLe) represents, as already pointed out, the

 

déracinégel par excellence. If the autobiography does not always allow

 

him/her, as it does in Schwarz—Bart, to reconstruct a past of which
he/she can be proud, it at least allows others to begin to exorcise the
ghosts and to understand in order to be able someday to demolish those
restricting and negative structures which hamper mental health and
progress, and which, as Condé points out, need to be destroyed.

The Caribbean woman sees herself as an orphan, a déracinée, out of
tune even in her own society. Moreover, in many novels she does not see
any chance of changing either herself or her society. Like the
problematic hero described by Goldmann she is a "degraded" heroine
seeking "authentic values" in a "degraded" world--a futile task.18

Manicom's work, however, suggests that although the woman is in a
difficult position there is a posSibility of breaking out of her
situation by facing it lucidly and by engaging in political action. The
situation of the middleclass educated woman is seen as particularly
problematic as it is she who most suffers from alienation. She is most
"aware," most assertive and ambitious and hence most vulnerable and
alienated. But the woman in a rural milieu also, in addition to physical
hardships, is shown as subject to an extremely negative self-concept,
the legacy of colonialism and slavery. Schwarz-Bart's Lougandors are
superior, almost mythical, “superwomen” who survive and transcend their
destiny by a sort of physical and spiritual "marronnage." They deliber-
ately cut themselves off from negative and destructive influences and
like the defiant and hardy Maroon, symbol of resistance and endurance,
they manage to triumph. But it is a path open only to a special few.

However, there is hope. The act of writing itself is symbolic of

184

liberation. It is cathartic and soothing. Not only does it bring release
to the individual writer but it serves as a unifying bond and "aver-
tissement aux lectrices." Through their writing the women seek to reach
and express solidarity with other women in similar predicaments. Some
are already, in Fanon's terms, in the third phase where the writer
"turns himself [herself] into an awakener of the peOple." For the works
of Caribbean women writers like those of their African sisters, as Lloyd
H. Brown says, "clearly imply that profound and pervasive changes can
only take place when external refonms go hand in hand with fundamental
personal growth."19

Francophone women's literature from Africa is in its very early
years. Women's writing in the French Caribbean has not up until now been
noted for its optimism or its success. Both literatures have so far been
concerned mainly with recalling and examining the past. Fanon points out
that "the colonised man who writes for his people ought to use the past
with the intention of opening the future, as an invitation to action and

"20 One hopes that more and more women, African and

a basis for hope.
West Indian, will take up this challenge and continue to find in

literature a means of sharing with and encouraging each other.

185

Notes

 

1 See Maryse Condé, "La littérature feminine de la Guadeloupe: recherche
d'identité." Présence Africaine 99/100 (1976), pp. 155-166. For self-doubt as a
feminine phenomenon in general, see Annette Kolodny, "Dancing through the
Minefield. Some Observations on the Theory, Practice and Politics of a Feminist
Literary Criticism," in The New Feminist Criticism, ed. by Elaine Showalter
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1985).

2 See Diallo's De Tiléne au Plateau, pp. 90, 132, and compare with
Francoise Ega's Lettresla une Noire, pp. 84, 65.

3 See, for example, Diallo's work and Fall's novels, especially La gréve
des Battu.

4 Chinweizu, p. 25 ff, p. 135. The folktale is particularly evident and
relevant for example as a point of departure for looking at Aminata Sow Fall's
works.

5 Diallo's narrator at times for example addresses the reader directly and
suggests that her readership might not always share her interests or viewpoint.
Thus her remarks can be seen as aimed at both the male and female critical
"serious" reader:

Ecrire un livre pour dire qu’on a aimé Pére et Grand-mére? La
belle nouvelle! .J'espére avoir fait un peu plus: avoir' été
au-dela des tabous de silence qui régnent sur nos émotions (23
Tiléne, p. 132).
Somethmes also, as here, her remarks seem to be directed defiantly at
the European or very Westernized African, from whom she fears ridicule
because he/she would not understand or sympathize with the narrator's
point of view which she feels she cannot "rationally" defend:
Pourtant, si je souffrais d'avoir été humiliée, je souffrais
aussi pour pére. Comprenne qui voudra ou qui pourra (emphasis
added). J‘étais malheureuse, malade presque, d‘avoir fait
perdre a cet homme grave le contrfile de lui-méme. Je souffrais
de l'avoir fait, souffrir car il faut qu'il efit été
profondément blessé (De Tiléne, p. 90).

 

 

 

 

6 Sonia Lee, "L'image de la femme dans le roman francophone de
l'Afrique occidentale." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts,
1974, p. 203.

7 Aminata Sow Fall, La gréve des Battu, p. 43.

 

8 Alioune Diop ("Les sens de ce congrés" - Discours d'ouverture,
Presence Africaine, no. 24-25, fev-mai, 1959, p. 44) quoted by
Madubuike, The Senegalese Novel, p. 163.

9 Maryse Conde, "La littérature féminine de la Guadeloupe: recherche
d'identité," p. 166.

10

 

 

Maryse Conde, "Feminine Literature in Guadeloupe and Martinique,"

186

conference at Remy Nainsouta Centre, November, 1976, quoted by Roger
Toumson in "La littérature antillaise d'expression francaise," Présence
Africaine 121/122 (1982), p. 137.

11Condé's description of novelist Suzanne Lacascade, Cond‘e, "La
littérature féminine de la Guadeloupe," p. 158.

12 Maryse Condé, Une Saison 3 Rihata, p. 38. Christophe, the orphan,
haunted by a desire to discover an unknown past which he suspects is
somehow shameful is as much a symbol of the West Indian condition within
the text as the chief protagonist is.

13 The frequent incidence of autobiography in African literature is
perhaps explained not only by the individual's need to fonmally recount
his history and establish his identity but by the presence of this
tradition within tribal societies, as evidence by ‘the function and
importance of the "griot" or official historian/praise singer/story-
teller. In the African context, the autobiography can therefore be seen
also as a continuation of this long-standing tradition.

14 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press,
1966), p. 179.

15

 

 

Fanon, p. 179.

16 Fanon, p. 179.

17 Kenneth Harrow, "Autobiographie et littérature engagée d'aprés des
oeuvres des auteurs magrébins et noirs américains," L'Afrique artistique
et littéraire 43 (1977), p. 5.

 

18 Lucien Goldmann, Towards a Sociology of the Novel, pp. 1-2.
Goldmann says "the novel is an epic genre characterized, unlike the
folktale or the epic poem itself, by the insurmountable rupture between
the hero and the world..." (p. 2).

19 Lloyd W. Brown, Women Writers in Black Africa (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1981), p. 181.

20 Fanon, p. 187.

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APPENDIX

APPENDIX A

' Selected Caribbean Women Novelists

"Early" Writers Born Pre-193O

 

BETZON, Thérese de
(Martinique, ca 1850-1912)

DESROY, Annie
(Haiti, bn. 1893)

CAPECIA, Mayotte
(Martinique, 1928-1953)

CHAUVET, Marie Vieux
(Haiti, 1917-1975)

EGA, Francoise
(Martinique, 1920-1976)

LACASCADE, Suzanne
(Antilles)

LACROSIL, Michéle
(Guadelope, bn. I915)

Yvette, histoire d'une jeune créole. Paris,
Imprimerie ModEle, 1880

 

Le joug, Port-au-Prince, Imprimerie Modéle,
1934

Je suis martiniquaise, Paris, Corréa, 1948

 

La négresse blanche, Paris, Corréa, 1950

 

Fille d'HaTti, Paris, Fasquelle, 1954

 

La danse sur le volcan, Paris, Plon, 1957

 

Amour, colére et folie (trilogy), Paris,
Gall imard, 1968

 

Le temps des Madras, Paris, Eds Maritimes
et d'Dutre-mer, 1966

 

Lettres a une Noire, Paris, L'harmattan,
1978

Claire-Solan e, Sme africaine, Paris,
EugEne Figuigre, 1924

Sapotille et le serin d'argile, Paris,
Gallimard , 1960

 

 

Cajou, Paris, Gallimard, 1961
Demain Jab-Herma, Paris, Gallimard, 1967

 

"Contemporary" Writers Born Post-1930

CONDE, Maryse
(Guadeloupe)

Heremakhonon, Paris, 10/18, 1976

 

Une saison a Rihata, Paris. Laffont, 1981

 

Ségou, Paris, Laffont, 1984

196

JULIA, Lucie
(Guadeloupe)

MANICOM, Jacqueline
(Guadeloupe, 1938-1976)

SCHWARZ-BART, Simone

(Guadeloupe)

VIEYRA, Miriam Warner
(Guadeloupe)

197

La parole des femmes, essay, Paris,
L'Harmattan, 1979’

 

Lesagens de Bonne Espérance, Paris, Temps
*Actuel, 1982

 

Mon examen de blanc, Paris, Eds Sarrazin,
’1972

 

La graine, journal d'une sage femme
*(Eiography)

Un lat de orc aux bananes vertes, Paris
Eds du Seuii, 1967 (with Andre Schwarz-

Bart)

 

Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle, Paris,
Eds du Seuil, 1972

Ti Jean L'horizon, Paris, Eds du Seuil,
1979

 

Le Quimboiseur l'avait dit, Paris, Présence

 

Africaine, 1980

Juletane, Paris, Presence Africaine, 1982

 

HICHIGRN STRTE UNIV. LIBRQRIES
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31293006306553