Torn between tradition and modernity: images of youth in the fictional work of Mariama Bâ

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines Mariama Bâ’s depiction of the hectic lives of young Senegalese, faced with the dictates of tradition and realities of modernity. If a great deal of scholarship has studied her feminist deconstruction of patriarchy, few studies have highlighted her depiction of young men and women negotiating the necessity to reconcile modernity and social pressures. This study explores Bâ’s representation of the young, torn between tradition and modernity. While analysing the implications of such an ambivalent condition, the paper highlights, from a sociological and feminist perspective, the alternatives set forth by the writer for cultural synthesis and the reevaluation of the social status of the young, in a context of patriarchy and gerontocracy. I argue that the youth in the novels strive to redress aspects of local culture, and to address cultural dissonances from contact with new cultural norms, through a redefinition of identity and gender roles.