Introduction
In the two literary works, the authors show an emerging tension as characters respond and react to new changes. The works illustrate multiple incidences where pressure is created upon introducing new ideas. In So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ, Ramatoulaye is devastated by the imposition of her culture after her husband’s death. She is also stressed by her new life without a husband and the new dangers her children face. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo has to flee his home for Mbanta and feels discomfort in the new life. Okonkwo has to deal with missionaries who introduce cultural practices in the new land. Trying to fight the recent cultural changes, the protagonist commits suicide. Although the protagonists’ fates in the two literary works differ, both of them experience devastation, anger, stress, and anguish between new and old practices. Thus, the tension between new and old is felt in the form of toxic cultural practices and forces of modernity in the two literary works.
Toxic Cultural Practices
Ramatoulaye, the protagonist in So Long a Letter, suffers grave injustices from forced Muslim custom practices. She also has to live a different life from what she is used to after the death of Modou. In a letter to her friend, Aissatou, who is currently in America, the character writes about the norms she must adopt after her husband’s death. Ramatoulaye has to observe a forty-day period of mourning in isolation among other customs. Showing how estranged she is, Ramatoulaye says, “I listen to the words that create around me a new atmosphere in which I move, a stranger and tormented” (Bâ 2). The protagonists feel a higher level of stress that makes her fail to recognize herself and feel tormented. Although her husband Modou had left her and remarried, she is forced to mourn him. Ramatoulaye finds such cultural norms to be a form of injustice that requires reform. The protagonist undergoes an intensified experience adopting new changes.
Okonkwo is also forced to experience toxic cultural practices by fleeing his land to his mother’s. Although Okonkwo had accidentally shot Ezeudu’s son, the rules of the land demanded that he leave the land until seven years passed. Okonkwo flees with his family but is not appeased by the new life. Okonkwo feels discomfort in terms of norms and the level of success in Mbanta. He knew that “he would have prospered even more in Umuofia, in the land of his father’s where men were bold and warlike” (Achebe 168). Compared to Ramatoulaye’s tension of unreasonable customs, Okonkwo’s incident might have been accidental but worth the punishment. Okonkwo is aggressive towards his family and friends to show his masculine powers. Okonkwo and Ramatoulaye live in fear of breaking their cultural norms, hence the increased tension from a new life.
Forces of Modernity
Ramatoulaye is tensed by the growing forces of modernity amongst her children and the general public. Before she could learn how to live without a husband, ruthless modernity poses new dangers to her children. Two of Ramatoulaye’s sons are run over and injured by a stray motorcycle, and catch three of her daughters smoking. The character is also disturbed by Aissatou’s namesake getting pregnant out of wedlock. The act of bringing bank notes for gifts instead of foodstuff in the wake of the dead is surprising for Ramatoulaye. The mother is used to old habits of well-behaved children, birth after marriage, and foodstuff as gifts. To show her strain in adopting modernity, she says, “To lift us out of the bog of tradition, superstition, and custom, to make us appreciate a multitude of civilizations without renouncing our own…to develop universal moral values in us” (Bâ 36). The protagonist admits that adapting to modernity will help uproot toxic customs while accepting foreign practices. She, therefore, finds it hard to allow modernity while maintaining moral values.
Okonkwo is agitated by modernity brought by missionaries that seek to change their land’s practices. The whites invade Okonkwo’s land as well as that of his mothers. Okonkwo is devastated by the missionaries’ mission to overpower and destroy their clan’s culture. As he returns to his land in Umuofia, Okonkwo learns about the whites’ presence through new schools, hospitals, and Christianity. He mentions the arrival of the white by saying, “And at last the locusts did descend. They settled on every tree …the whole country became the brown-earth color of the vast, hungry swarm” (Achebe 103). Okonkwo sees the whites are locusts who intend to destroy his land’s culture by installing a foreign one. The character is afraid that his clan people have accepted the whites’ manipulation and are abandoning their ways. Okonkwo’s response to modernity is different from that of Ramatoulaye. Although she finds modernity dangerous, she is willing to adapt to it. On the other hand, Okonkwo resists the changes and chooses to die instead of conforming.
Conclusion
The protagonists of the two literary works experience tension in the forms of cultural practices and modernity. The characters are reluctant as they move from the comfort of old patterns to adopting new ones. For Ramatoulaye, although there is a need to abolish bog traditions, adopting the unique culture comes with its dangers. Therefore, she must stand firm against the new threats as she welcomes modernity. Okonkwo is too rigid to conform to new norms and would rather die. The two stories illustrate how people are forced to respond to new ideas that cause discomfort in their old ways.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. William Heinemann Ltd, 1958.
Bâ, Mariama. So Long a Letter. Les Nouvelles Éditions Africaines du Sénégal, 1979.