A Letter to Mariama Ba Term Paper_Christine Mbugua

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

FACULTY OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE

COURSE TITLE: AFRICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

COURSE CODE: CLT 516

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: DOCTOR JENNIFER MUCHIRI

TERM PAPER: INSPIRATIONAL FIGURES RECONSTRUCTED FROM

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD IN WANJIKU KABIRA’S A LETTER TO

MARIAMA BA

SUBMITTED BY: CHRISTINE NJOKI MBUGUA

REG. NO: C50/ 68683/2011

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 25th JANUARY, 2012

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INTRODUCTION

Mariama Bâ is one of Africa’s most renowned female writers, known especially for her semi-

autobiographical novella, So Long A Letter. This novella is written in the epistolary form, as the

title suggests, a style that was common to novels in the 18th century particularly those written

by, or about, women. The epistolary, or letter form, is characterized by its intimate, emotional

and reflective nature. When Mariama Bâ uses this form to write her novel in, the result is thus

a powerful insight into the intimate thoughts and concerns of the African woman.

So Long A Letter is semi-autobiographical in nature. Just like the main protagonist (and

narrator) in the text, Ramatoulaye, Bâ was one of the first women in her generation to acquire

formal schooling in Senegal and was a teacher by profession. She was raised as a Muslim by her

grandparents. Bâ was not just a writer and a teacher; however, she also ended up being a

political activist and pioneered the women’s rights movement in Senegal. Bâ married a

Senegalese member of parliament, Obèye Diop, but divorced him and was left to care for their

nine children. This is similar to Ramatoulaye’s situation in the book where she was abandoned

by her husband after 25 years of marriage, and was left to raise their twelve children on her

own.

Mariama Bâ’s So Long A Letter addresses the situation of the contemporary African woman

caught between oppressive and chauvinistic cultural norms and a burgeoning awareness of the

right to be seen, heard and respected as a woman and as a rightful and equal member of the

existing community. It is therefore not surprising that Wanjiku Mukabi Kabira’s

autobiographical epistolary text, A Letter to Mariama Bâ also concerns itself the situation and

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concerns of the African woman. Ayoo Odioch, in her foreword to this text states that it “refuels

the thoughts, feelings and experiences of African women” [viii]. She goes on the say that:

It creates a web of relationships between the African woman and her

environment, between fellow women and the forces at play in defining the place

of women vis-à-vis that of men in contemporary society. The novella looks at

the problems the African woman faces within a changing society. [viii]

However, the striking difference between the two texts is that while Mariama Bâ’s novella

reflects on the experiences of the adult woman through an adult woman’s perspective, Kabira’s

autobiography is a journey back into her childhood memories in which she recalls and gives her

perspective on the people, mainly women, whom she admired for their fortitude and courage

during the Emergency Period in Kenya’s colonial past.

I will thus be examining Wanjiku Kabira’s text using two main lenses: theories and thoughts on

autobiographies in general, and the autobiographies of childhood in particular, as well as the

lens of feminist criticism. The writers, whose works I will be frequently be referring to in the

course of my presentation are Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, from their text Reading

Autobiography (2nd Edition); Kate Douglas, from her text Contesting childhood – Autobiography,

Trauma and Memory and lastly, Ann B Dobie from her text Theory Into Practice.

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THE EPISTOLARY FORM AS AN INTIMATE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FORM

In the introduction to the 2008 print publication of Mariama Bâ’s novella So Long A Letter,

Kenneth Harrow indicates in a footnote that Christopher Miller in his analysis of Bâ’s novella

has noted that this letter form was common to novels of the eighteenth century but is

extremely rare to African Literature [i]. Harrow goes on to say that before Bâ’s novella, African

literature portrayed the situation of the ‘mature troubled woman’ as representative of

‘women’s plight, that is, as victims like those appearing in the fiction written by Senegalese

men’ [ii]. He goes on to say that ‘women were represented as disempowered or abused’ [ii]. In

Ba’s novella however, says that through Bâ’s use of the letter form,

Aissatou functions as the interlocutor of Ramatoulaye’s letters, standing in the

place of the reader who shares in the accounts presented in the letters. The

reader’s place is defined by this address of mature sister to sister, of Senegalese

woman to Senegalese woman, and this is brought into an intimate, private space

created by Bâ [i-ii].

Jennifer Muchiri when discussing Kabira’s A Letter to Mariama Bâ tells us that ‘the letter form is

a narrative strategy that allows the writer to explore herself as a woman by focusing on the

lives of women in her immediate society’ [Women’s Autobiography: Voices from Independent

Kenya, 83]. The implication is thus apparent that when a female writer employs the letter form,

she will most probably be focusing on women as a central concern.

Ann McElaney-Johnson in her paper Epistolary Friendship: La prise de parole in Mariama Ba's

Une si longue letter, states that ‘The letter is a rejoinder in an ongoing dialogue. Addressed to a

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specific person, its style and content are defined by the anticipation of another's words’ [113].

In other words, the addressee of the letter determines its contents. Kabira’s writing to Mariama

Bâ takes on a new significance especially once the reader recognises Bâ as a feminist writer

who was one of the first female activists to gain prominence in Africa. The feminist leanings in

Kabira’s text would thus be not only unsurprising but would even be anticipated by the reader.

McElaney-Johnson in her paper cites another scholar commenting on the epistolary form:

Altman identifies two types of confidants in epistolary literature. The passive

confidant is absent from the letter; he plays no role in the correspondence other

than as silent addressee of a missive. The active confidant on the other hand is

involved to varying degrees in the story and may influence the plot and may

write letters of her own [116].

While in Bâ’s novella, Aissatou clearly functions as the active confidant, in Kabira’s

autobiography, Bâ functions as the passive confidant whose role seems primarily to serve as a

sounding board for Kabira’s childhood recollections of men and women who defied either

knowingly or not, the traditional gender roles expected of them.

Towards the end of her paper McElaney-Johnson argues that ‘The epistolary relationship

between writer and reader engenders the thematic texture of the novel. The text not only tells

the stories of women facing difficult cultural challenges but also inscribes their friendship into

the very fabric of the novel’ [118]. Although clearly basing her premise on Bâ’s So Long A Letter,

we can argue that because Kabira not only models her autobiographical novella on the form of

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So Long A Letter but also addresses her letter to Mariama Bâ herself, then these concepts

advanced by McElaney-Johnson can to a certain extent be applied to Kabira’s text as well. In

that regard then, we can draw the parallels between the two texts because it is clear that not

only does Kabira present her perceptions of men and women from her childhood who faced

difficult cultural challenges, but she also at the same time reveals her close connection to these

people from her childhood; a connection created through the various ties of family, empathy

and admiration.

Walid El Hamamsy notes that with historically, ‘the letter thus provided authors with a chance

to write realistically, being one of the most credible narrative media due to the first-hand

experience it encompasses’ [Epistolary Memory: Revisiting Traumas in Women's Writing, 152].

El Hamamsy notes that the letter form has an advantage as its inherent

…intimacy attracts both the reader and the writer of the epistle. The reader feels

privileged to be able to partake in the thoughts and feelings of the writer which

are expressed to her/him and the fictional reader(s) alone. The letter writer, on

the other hand, is given a chance to voice feelings and thoughts that s/he might

not otherwise have been able to do due to social conventions and the nature of

public discourse [152].

This intimacy is evident in Kabira’s text where the reader feels as if he/she is listening in on a

private conversation between Wanjiku Kabira and Mariama Bâ. In addition, one feels that as

Kabira writes about her childhood recollections of women we would in the present day term as

activists, one can then begin to see that female activism is not a recent addition to the Kenyan

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scene but has actually been there for a long time. It is only the nomenclature that is new but

the concept behind it is not.

El Hamamsy goes on to note that

…letter writing has almost always been a mode chosen by women writers

throughout the history of English literature. Although there have always been

men writers resorting to the epistolary form, the genre remains associated with

women…Martens…accounts for the appeal of that particular form to women by

the fact that "as a flexible, open, and non-teleological structure, it complements

the non-autobiographical quality of women's lives and the traditionally

dependent, accommodating female role [152-153].

If we take Marten’s comments on the letter form’s appeal to women and apply them to

Kabira’s A Letter to Mariama Bâ, we see the relevance immediately. She uses the letter form to

reflect on actual women drawn from her childhood memories who because of their difficult

circumstances find non-traditional ways to endure in a world that does not allow them to

reflect on the paths that they choose to follow. It is rather Kabira herself as the narrating ‘I’

who will reflect on what she makes of their choices.

El Hamamsy concludes on the appropriateness of the letter form to contemporary writings by

women thus:

The letter thus suits "new feminine writing" which Hogan characterizes as "open,

non-linear, unfinished, fluid, exploded, fragmented, polysemic"…Letter writing

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becomes a question of identity that has to do with a whole gender's choice to

speak, instead of being silent, and to subvert, instead of being subservient [153-

154].

If we examine Kabira’s text through this particular lens, it is thus possible to view her text as

one that challenges conventional or traditional norms by foregrounding in her autobiography

men and women who challenged the status quo either subtly or overtly at a time when radical

feminism in rural Kenya was unheard of. Kabira also provides a voice to these brave women

who would otherwise remain known only to a chosen few. In A Letter to Mariama Bâ she

comments on page 16 that ‘the story of their [the women she highlights in the text] role in the

struggle for independence and those of many other women has not been told’. Her telling of

their story is fragmentary and non-linear, thus fitting in perfectly into the letter form. Kabira’s

choice of the letter form can thus be considered as being appropriate in regard to her focus on

gender, norms and the need to adapt to fast-changing circumstances. The

AUTOBIOGRAPHY, MEMOIR OR TESTIMONIO?

Kabira’s autobiography is mainly a focus on the lives of some of the villagers that she recalls

from her childhood. Why then is it not labelled a biography of these people that she focuses

on? It is because of the fact that in the act of recalling details about select adult figures from

her childhood, she also, whether deliberately or inadvertently, reveals a lot about who she is as

an individual and as a woman – what she believes in as well as what is important to her.

Kabira’s autobiographical letter to Mariama Bâ can thus be regarded either as a ‘Testimonio’ or

a memoir. Smith and Watson in Reading Autobiography explain that

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The term [testimonio] in Spanish literally means “testimony” and connotes an act

of testifying or bearing witness legally or religiously. John Beverley defines Latin

American ‘testimonio’ as “a novel or novella-length narrative in the first person

by a narrator who is also the real protagonist or witness of the events he or she

recounts, and whose unit of narration is usually a ‘life’ or a significant life

experience” [Morgan At the Centre 92-93]. In testimonio, the narrator intends to

communicate the situation of a group’s oppression, struggle or imprisonment, to

claim some agency in the act of narrating, and to call on readers to respond

actively in judging the cases. Its primary concern in sincerity of intention, not the

text’s literariness...And its ideological thrust is the “affirmation of the individual

self in collective mode’ [ 282]

Kabira’s narration of the life experiences of women in the Mau Mau period of Kenya, clearly has

some aspects of the testimonio, given that she, as a child, was a witness to the trials or

tribulations than these women have undergone. Furthermore, although she narrates about

specific individuals, it is clear that she is also seeing them as representative of a group, and she

focuses particularly on the oppression, both overt and subtle, that women endured during this

period of her childhood. In this regard, we can see how her text does indeed affirm ‘the

individual self in collective mode’.

On the other hand, A Letter to Mariama Bâ can also be categorised as a memoir if one

examines Smith’s and Watson’s definition of the term. The start by stating that “historically, [it

was] a mode of life narrative that situated the subject in a social environment, as either

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observer or participant, the memoir directs attention more towards the lives and actions of

others than to the narrator” [289]. At this juncture, one would say that this definition could be

applicable to Kabira’s A Letter to Mariama Bâ since Kabira as she as the narrating ‘I’ is more an

observer than a participant, with most of her text dwelling on the ‘lives and actions of others

than to the narrator’. However, Smith and Watson go on to clarify that:

In common parlance autobiography and memoir are used interchangeably. But

distinctions are relevant. As Lee Quinby notes, “whereas autobiography

promotes an ‘I’ that shares with confessional discourse an assumed interiority

and an ethical mandate to examine that interiority, memoirs promote an ‘I’ that

is explicitly constituted in the reports of the utterances and proceedings of

others. The ‘I’ or subjectivity produced in memoirs is externalised

and…dialogical”.

In other words, in the context of Kabira’s A Letter to Mariama Bâ, the term memoir is applicable

as the narrating ‘I’ is definitely focused on mainly exploring other subjects that she observed as

a child, often including their ‘utterances and proceedings’ for example as shown on pages 6 to

8, in the dialogue between Tata and Monica, and on pages 9 to 11, this time exploring a

dialogue between Sarah and Njoki. Smith and Watson conclude by saying that at present, the

term memoir “refers to life writing that takes a segment of a life, not its entirety, and focusing

on interconnected experiences”. [289]

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REVELATION OF THE NARRATING ‘I’ AS A FEMINIST ACTIVIST

We see Kabira emerging as a feminist, an activist, a non-conformist, as well as a voice for those

whose stories would otherwise be untold. Kate Douglas in her text, Contesting Childhood

informs the reader that:

Whitlock predicts that further changes in autobiographies of childhood will occur

as a consequence of future social-political shifts: “The more autobiographical

writing is used by those who have not been authoritative or dominating then the

more likely it is that childhood narratives will be a record of the incursions of

history and conflict rather than a pre-adolescent idyllic phase”[42]

Whitlock’s prediction is very much in keeping with Wanjiku Kabira’s autobiography that looks

back at a childhood impacted by the Mau Mau guerrilla warfare and the punitive measures

imposed by a vengeful colonial government. In particular, she chooses to focus on her

recollections or impressions of how some of the women in her childhood responded to this

challenging environment.

Douglas goes on to point out that:

Autobiographies of childhood have emerged at a time when memory has

entered a range of discourses – from science to philosophy and social science - in

an extraordinary way. Michael Lambek and Paul Antze write “We live in a time

when memory has entered public discourse to an unprecedented degree.

Memory is involved to heal, to blame, to legitimate. It has become a major idiom

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in the construction of identity, both individual and collective and a site for

struggle as well as identification [20]

When this claim is considered in the context of Kabira’s autobiography, one can see the

relevance. Kabira, in particular, recalls the vulnerable adults from her childhood, mainly the

widowed young women whose husbands had been killed in the Mau Mau war against the

colonial government. In recalling the difficult circumstances that many of these women had to

contend with for most of their lives, she realizes that this reflected their great inner strength

and this heals her remembrance of their long-enduring hurts. On page 13, she says,

For Margaret, and many other young widows like her, their lives were at

crossroads where the growth of new culture and fruits of women’s struggle for

liberation have emerged.

Kabira recognizes that female activism in Kenya has its foundations in the responses to life’s

challenges that Margaret, and other widows like her, made.

Most of the text in fact, is primarily concerned with Kabira’s reflective memories of those

women who struggled to overcome many challenges posed not only by unforeseen

circumstances such as the early death of one’s husband, but also posed by tradition and

religion. Ann B Dobie commenting on feminist criticism in her text Theory Into Practice cites

Nancy Chodorow, from her text The Reproduction of Mothering where she says that “girls and

boys develop a different concept of self because of different relationships with the mother, the

primary parent in the home. Girls maintain an on-going gender role identification with the

mother from the beginning” [108 – 109]. To break away from such engrained gender roles must

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be difficult and yet a number of women in the text manage to do so, even given the fact that it

is against societal norms. Kabira admiringly tells Mariama Bâ that:

I cannot stop admiring these women for their resilience. They became widows in

their early twenties, never got married again, but brought up their children in

spite of poverty and war [8].

For Kabira, these women are not objects of pity or victims; they are instead women to be

admired and emulated.

PORTRAYAL OF TWO RADICAL WOMEN

Two women in particular, stand out from the text as being quite radical in their defiance of

societal norms. The first woman is identified by Kabira as Auntie Muthoni wa Wilson. She is

introduced to us initially in the text when she is in the process of mourning her loss of freedom

now that she is a newly-married woman [19-20]. This already tells us that she is a revolutionary

woman who does not see a woman’s existence as being defined by her role as a wife. Kabira

tells us how she recalls Auntie Muthoni telling her that ‘she could not live in chains in marriage.

She was born to be free of mind and spirit’ [26]. The words ‘chains’ and ‘free’ juxtaposed

against each other as they are, suggest that for Auntie Muthoni, marriage is synonymous with

entrapment, probably because of the traditional assignation of gender roles that could prove

extremely limiting or stifling for one who needed to be free of such imposed constraints. The

word ‘born’ in relation to freedom asserts that in following her inclinations, Auntie Muthoni

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was actually fulfilling her destiny; what she was born to do. This lends to Auntie Muthoni’s

actions an almost mystical or spiritual impetus that could not have been denied.

Auntie Muthoni’s husband was a violent man who would beat her up and oppress her in other

ways. Rather than stoically endure as was the norm (Kabira indicates on page 20 that she was

‘unlike many women who put up with beatings and other forms of oppression’), Auntie

Muthoni, we are told, ‘Walked out of marriage and headed for Nairobi to lead an independent

life’ [20]. This was despite existing public censure since it was believed that ‘women who went

to live in Nairobi alone and independently were prostitutes’ [20]. Auntie Muthoni is portrayed

as being ready to go against the norm in her search for ‘freedom to live’ [20]. In other words,

Auntie Muthoni believed that to accept and endure marital oppression as was the traditional

and expected norm, was to endure a form of mental and spiritual slavery and was ultimately a

land of living death. To avoid this, we are told that ‘She defied tradition” [20]. ‘Defied’ is a

rather strong choice of word painting an image of a strong, assured and self-willed woman.

What did Kabira the child make of this? She admired her. When Auntie Muthoni decided that

two children were enough despite the fact that she did not as yet have a son as society

expected, she is reported by Kabira as saying “To hell with sons! I will not give birth to other

children”[21]. Kabira comments on this by saying “she was just a courageous woman who

defied tradition…Some might even be tempted to call her a nonconformist, a gender activist”

[21].

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Kabira thus bears out Sidonie Smith’s and Julia Watson’s assertions in their text, Reading

Autobiography that

In autobiographical narratives, imaginative acts of remembering always intersect

with such rhetorical acts as assertion, justification, judgment, conviction, and

interrogation. [7]

Kabira has asserted Auntie Muthoni’s right to follow her choices although these are non-

conformist in nature; she provides justification for Auntie Muthoni’s pursuits of independence

and her walking out of an abusive marriage. She speaks with conviction about Auntie

Muthoni’s decisions – she whole-heartedly admires this decision and shows no doubt about the

rightness of Auntie Muthoni taking this step; and finally, as the adult narrator, she interrogates

Auntie Muthoni and thinks of her in terms such as ‘non-conformist’ and ‘gender activist’ –

clearly adult rather than child-like concepts.

The other woman who stands out very distinctly in the text is Auntie Wanjiru wa Kangethe.

Kabira informs us that “Auntie Wanjiru was a freedom fighter in the Mau Mau war of

independence.” [22] From this introduction to Auntie Wanjiru, the reader is made aware that

she must have been an extraordinary woman as it was mainly the men who were actively

involved in the Mau Mau. Kabira goes on to say that not only did she feed them and shop for

them, but she “also took the beatings and torture on their behalf” [22]. This informs us of her

courage and fortitude, and the fact that she was a woman who was ready to endure hardship in

order to stand up for what she believed in. When her husband acts cowardly when faced with

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torture from the home guards she divorces him, something almost unheard of in this time, as

evidenced in the astonished tone in Kabira’s words:

…wonders of wonders! As soon as she settled in Nairobi, she went to the chief of

Kariobangi estate where she resided and asked for assistance to change her

name by dropping her husband’s name [23]

Rather than feeling honoured to be chosen to be someone’s wife, and thus acquiring value in

the eyes of society, Auntie Wanjiru instead, and unusually, asserts her sense of self-worth:

To call me Wanjiru wa Kaguru is to abuse me. The man I have lived with should

not be given that honour. He is not worthy of it. I am Wanjiru wa Kang’ethe. I

am Kang’ethe’s daughter and I am proud of that! [23]

Notice her repetition of the phrase, ‘I am’. She knows herself and is comfortable and assured of

her self-identity. In a way, she is a forerunner of an increasing number of Kenyan women in the

present day who even when they marry choose to keep their surnames and refuse to adopt

those of their husbands. Others choose to hyphenate their surnames with those of their

husbands’. To this end, Aunt Wanjiru comments that “It is good to have a husband and be

single at the same time” [23].

Kabira’s inclusion in her autobiography of these two women, as well as the other individuals

she comments on can be related to an aspect of autobiographical writing known as Relational

Life Writing. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson in Reading Autobiography inform us that

This term was proposed by Susan Stanford Friedman in 1986 to characterize the

model of selfhood in woman’s autobiographical writing…Friedman argues that

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women’s narratives asserts a “sense of shared identity with other women, an

aspect of identification that exists in tension with a sense of their own

uniqueness” [278]

Kabira’s developing self-identity as an activist, feminist and non-conformist is thus seen as a

result not directly of her own experiences which she hardly mentions, but rather a sharing of

the experiences of the woman she encountered in her childhood, and who proves to have had a

profound impact on her.

THE MASCULINE EMASCULATED

Although Kabira mainly focuses on women in her text, it is important to note the two men that

she does focus on in her narration. A Letter to Mariama Bâ is clearly focused on gender issues

arising from the roles of men and women in this particular place and time. It is therefore not

surprising that the two male figures she narrates about have been ‘emasculated’ in some sense

and do not fit into the traditional gender roles assigned to men.

The first male figure we encounter in the text is Wanyahunyu. When talking about him on page

2, she respects the phrase ‘I used to see him’ several times. Always, it is in reference to his

daily routine of gardening or fetching water from the river while this establishes Wanyahunyu

as hard-working – she does not recount seeing him idle – it also presents a mystifying spectacle

[then] of a man doing work normally performed by women or girls. On one of the occasions

that Kabira recalls seeing him, he was fetching water from the same stream from which she

would fetch water. The idea derived from this recollection of a memory from her childhood is

that the tasks Wanyahunyu performed is what made him such a distinctive and memorable

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figure – he was not representative of the norm for men in Kabira’s childhood recollection of her

world, and thus, he stood out for her.

Kabira then goes on to comment on the most distinctive feature that Wanyahunyu possesses

that also makes him very memorable to her: he lives in a hole in the ground. The authentic

nature of this autobiographical letter is evident in the genuine confusion that colours her words

on why he would do this. She makes it very clear that he was not a fugitive in hiding from the

government and even after the example of another man who also lived in a hole as he was in

hiding from the colonial government as he was a Mau Mau activist. Even now as an adult,

engaged in the process of reflection and recall, Kabira has no answers for what she clearly sees

as mysterious behaviour.

She ponders further on Wanyahunyu’s mystery because he was unmarried, another mystifying

element of his character. Clearly Kabira grew up in a culture where adult roles were mainly

defined by marriage and parenthood. Wanyahunyu exhibited neither of these. She goes on to

indicate that clearly, the choice for this state of being must have been Wanyahunyu’s to make:

Wanyahunyu lived on a world where men had choices; that is, he could choose a

woman while according to Gikuyu tradition, women waited to be chosen [4].

Just as the women that Kabira highlights in the text have challenged the gender roles assigned

to them by society, we now see a man also having his role clearly defined as well. Clearly her

childhood was a period of change, a state of displacement caused by the disruption of guerrilla

warfare and a hostile colonial government. In this context, one can read Kabira from a feminist

point of view. Dobie, in her text Theory into Practice says that “today’s outspoken feminists …

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complain of the imbalance of power between the sexes” [116.] According to Dobie, feminist

critics,

…analyse the male / female power structure that makes women the other (the

inferior) and they reject it. They work to abolish limiting stereotypes of women.

They seek to expose patriarchal premises and the prejudices they create. Often,

they challenge traditional, static ways of seeing gender and identity [114].

The women Kabira focuses on, as well as the character of Wanyahunyu clearly exhibit the

above.

The other male figure who is examined in the text is Githinji wa Nyagiko. Like Wanyahunyu, he

is depicted as being atypical of the male persona in this community. He is described as being

mentally-handicapped although strong and hardworking. However, what seems to make him

stand out is the fact that his brother, who is supposed to be looking after him ends up

exploiting him instead. Kabira’s description of his brother’s treatment of Githinji is that he ‘used

like a donkey’ [17]. This simile underscores that this treatment was not only abusive but

actually dehumanising, reducing Githinji to the level of a beast. However, this was not the only

humiliation heaped upon Githinji. Kabira recalls how the village children would mock him with a

song that mocked the fact that he was unmarried and showed no interest in women. Again, like

in Wanyahunyu’s case, we see a depiction of a culture that had such clearly established gender

norms, that even children knew of them and regarded anyone not fitting into this form as

‘other’ or alien.

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Kabira, also highlights how puzzling it was for her that Githinji ‘combined both the male and

female roles’ [18] in his daily chores. Kabira goes on to say that ‘only these two men, Githinji wa

Nyagiko and Wanyahunyu, fetched water and collected firewood. These were female roles in

the village as they were in all other Gikuyu villages’ [18]. For the young Kabira, these two men

clearly played their role, just as the strong women of the village did, in making her question the

existing status quo that existed in term of expected gender roles.

Ironically, Kabira narrates to the reader that both these men eventually had to be assisted by

women. Githinji ended up escaping from his brother’s cruelty with the assistance of Kabira’s

mother and went to live with his sister, Auntie Muthoni wa Wilson, who was discussed earlier

in the paper. The contrast drawn between the two is striking: on the one hand a strong,

independent woman, and on the other a weak defenceless man. Wanyahunyu as well in the last

days of his life had to be taken in by a widowed woman, Monica, who looked after him until he

died. Kabira makes a point about this by saying that ‘neither Monica nor Muthoni had a

husband’ [18]. She is making it very clear to the reader that in a society where it was the norm

for the man to be the protector and the provider, there was now a reversal of roles with the

women taking on this dominant role.

However, it is important for the reader to realise that Kabira is not necessarily being objective

in her portrayal of men as vulnerable. When it comes to her father, she portrays him as a strong

and admirable man. Jennifer Muchiri notes that although she has two characters in the text,

Tata Wilson and Monica do the praising in a dialogue between them, in an effort to appear

unbiased, she does not succeed because ‘her father is the only strong male character in her

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autobiography’ [Women’s Autobiography: Voices from Independent Kenya, 84]. It is also striking

that all he female characters are strong; none are portrayed as flawed or weak. The idea of

selectivity, and thus bias, is thus very hard to ignore.

THE NON-LINEAR STUCTURE OF A LETTER TO MARIAMA BÂ

A Letter to Mariama Bâ does not have a linear plot but is instead made up of a loose

recollection of reminisces about different individuals from her childhood. This actually is in

keeping with some styles of autobiographical writing. Smith and Watson, in Reading

Autobiography say that “the stuff of autobiographical storytelling…is drawn from multiple,

disparate, and discontinuous experiences and the multiple identities constructed from and

constituting those experiences” [40]. Douglas in Contesting Childhood: Autobiography Trauma

and Memory adds to this saying that “Memory drives autobiography, and in turn,

autobiographies influence perceptions of the ways in which memory functions. Memory

necessarily forms the backbone of autobiographical writing about childhood” [21]. What we

can derive from the three writers is that since memory is rarely linear, it follows that

autobiography, which is mostly based on memory, does not necessarily have to be arranged in

a linear fashion.

Jennifer Muchiri in Women’s Autobiography: Voices from Independent Kenya notes that despite

the non-linear plot of Kabira’s text, ‘the continuous address to Ba serves as a cohesive strategy

for the letter, holding the various characters and events together’ [85]. This cohesive strategy,

combined with the use of the letter form and the autobiographical nature of the text all

combine to work very effectively together.

22

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Kabira concurs with Mariama Bâ’s words views expressed through her

protagonist Ramatoulaye in her text So Long A Letter that “women should no longer be

decorative accessories, objects to be moved about, companions to be flattened or calmed with

promises” (64). She exalts what it means to be a woman enduring hardship and riot only

endures, but rising above it. Mariama Bâ through Ramatoulaye also says that “my heart

rejoices each time a woman emerges from the shadows” [93]. Kabira extends this concept in

her own autobiography and enlightens us on those brave women [and men] who had the

courage not to conform but because they were not key public figures and thus remained in the

shadows. Wanjiku Kabira has now shed light on them and at the same time allowed us to see

her roots in activism.

At the same time, it must be noted that although Kabira has allowed us to see her memories of

some of the notable men and women from her childhood, she has not allowed us to see very

much of herself as an active participant in this time. Although the reader can comfortably feel

that the text reveals some of Kabira’s principles and values, he/she cannot say that they have

come to know her as an individual with a specific personal experiences. It is ironic that Kabira’s

choice of the epistolary mode, which is supposed to be one of the most intimate forms fails to

reveal her as person except in a very general way.

23

LIST OF WORKS CITED

Bâ, Mariama. So Long A Letter. Reading: Heinemann [Pearson Educational Publishers], 2008.

Print.

Douglas, Kate. Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory. New Brunswick:

Rutgers University Press, 2010. Epub.

El Hamamsy, Walid and صمامحال لو ي Epistolary Memory: Revisiting Traumas in Women's“ .دي

Writing”. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 30, Trauma and Memory / و اذال ةرك

فال يج .JSTOR. Web. 21 Jan 2012 .175-150 :(2010)ةع

Kabira, Wanjiku Mukabi. A Letter to Mariama Bâ. Nairobi: University of Nairobi Press, 2005.

Print.

McElaney-Johnson, Ann. “Epistolary Friendship: ‘La prise de parole’ in Mariama Bâ's ‘Une si

longue lettre’ “. Research in African Literatures, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer, 1999): 110-

121. JSTOR. Web. 24 Jan 2012.

Muchiri, Jennifer. Women’s Autobiography: Voices from Independent Kenya. Saarbrucken: VDM

Verlag dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, 2010. Print.

Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life

Narratives. 2nd Ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. Epub.