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<i>La fille dans l’impasse</i>: étude socio-sémiotique
Abstract
“La fille dans l’impasse”1 is a Rwandan popular tale where the central character is a girl named NDABAGA. She is an emblematic figure for feminine courage. The expression “ibintu byageze iwa NDABAGA”, whose literal translation may be “things are now getting at Ndabaga’s”, means that the situation has extremely deteriorated and that any remedial
requires unusual intervention. The text was chosen for its important interest, insofar as it is part not only of Rwandan, but also of universal collective unconscious. Indeed, it is articulated on the opposition /masculine/-/feminine/ and we know how much the opposition governs our everyday actions. It is then interesting to see, through this tale, how places and activities are distributed according to gender and how a woman succeeds in courageously challenging a prohibition to
achieve a beneficial feat for men and women in her community! Aren’t nowadays women struggling to find a place in decision-making circles, kind of “modern Ndabagas”? Following the example of the heroin in the tale, aren’t they led to deny their femininity -as defined by tradition- to claim their rights? Ndabaga is a model for temerity and tenacity that should be followed by any woman committed to a liberation struggle. This way, this tale has a didactic interest. It may be used in educating and sensitizing people to gender issues of which it is a beautiful illustration. It is simple, short and easy to understand. Of a must, my analysis is socio-semiotic. The specific feature of this approach is understanding “the significance of text-objects on two levels: textual level and contextual level of production” (Semujanga, 1994: 135). Any text is a semantic micro-world, a whole with oriented coherence. Then, it is necessary to analyze it in its internal organization. To do so, I make use of existing methodological elements according to the model established by A.-J. Greimas. These methodological elements allow me to account for internal structures of the text of the tale on the narrative, discursive and logico-semantic levels. It is due to this immanent analysis that I am able to establish the relationship existing between the said text and its production context “which guarantees its deeper signification” (Semujnga, 1994:135).
This is the more important that a text like this one I mean to analyze is, as I mentioned previously, a reflection of the collective unconscious, or even the space for representation of social discourses.
requires unusual intervention. The text was chosen for its important interest, insofar as it is part not only of Rwandan, but also of universal collective unconscious. Indeed, it is articulated on the opposition /masculine/-/feminine/ and we know how much the opposition governs our everyday actions. It is then interesting to see, through this tale, how places and activities are distributed according to gender and how a woman succeeds in courageously challenging a prohibition to
achieve a beneficial feat for men and women in her community! Aren’t nowadays women struggling to find a place in decision-making circles, kind of “modern Ndabagas”? Following the example of the heroin in the tale, aren’t they led to deny their femininity -as defined by tradition- to claim their rights? Ndabaga is a model for temerity and tenacity that should be followed by any woman committed to a liberation struggle. This way, this tale has a didactic interest. It may be used in educating and sensitizing people to gender issues of which it is a beautiful illustration. It is simple, short and easy to understand. Of a must, my analysis is socio-semiotic. The specific feature of this approach is understanding “the significance of text-objects on two levels: textual level and contextual level of production” (Semujanga, 1994: 135). Any text is a semantic micro-world, a whole with oriented coherence. Then, it is necessary to analyze it in its internal organization. To do so, I make use of existing methodological elements according to the model established by A.-J. Greimas. These methodological elements allow me to account for internal structures of the text of the tale on the narrative, discursive and logico-semantic levels. It is due to this immanent analysis that I am able to establish the relationship existing between the said text and its production context “which guarantees its deeper signification” (Semujnga, 1994:135).
This is the more important that a text like this one I mean to analyze is, as I mentioned previously, a reflection of the collective unconscious, or even the space for representation of social discourses.
