Thesis statement: In the epistolary novel So Long a letter, Mariama reveals the role of education in the lives of Senegalese women and girls, showing that education, as a means to liberation, gives women options out of predicament. Mariama shows her strong predilection in the role of education impacting on Senegalese women since education gives women courage and deeper thoughts of what they want indeed and offers opportunities to overcome difficulties they find in their lives and helps them find their passions other than their husbands.
In the case of the narrator Rmatoulaye’s friend Aissatou, she leaves a marriage in which her husband, Mawdo Ba, no longer loves her and then abandons her. Even though she has loved him since the youth, she considers his marriage with young Nabou as a betrayer to her and refuses polygamy. Aissatou’s positive situation suggests that education gives women courage and determination to defend for themselves when facing unfairness. Aissatou doesn’t belive in Mawdo’ excuse of his new marriage as a result of his mother’s pression. She writes him a letter: “I am stripping myself of your love, your name. Clothed in my dignity, the only worthy garment, I go my way” (32). With her metaphor of “clothed in my dignity, the only worthy garment”, Aissatou stresses that dignity is important as a quality for women to have. Rather than bear the disloyalty of her husband and take care of him, she prefers to follow a free path that depends on her own choice. With her education, Aissatou exclaims:“…books saved you. Having become your refuge, they sustained you. The power of books, this marvellous invention of astute human intelligence. Various signs associated with sound: different sounds that form the word. Juxtaposition of words from which springs the idea. Though, History, Science, Life, Sole instrument of interrelationships and of culture, unparalleled means of giving and receiving. Books knit generations together in the same continuing effort...