Change in the role of women

At the beginning of Ousmane Sembene's novel, God’s Bits of Wood, the role of women is no different than in most countries at the time, and as a matter of fact still today in a number of countries. They were expected to fulfill the needs of their husbands, take care of all domestic affairs and bring up their daughters so that when they grow up they can do the same. After the strike broke, something unexpected in the role of women in Thies. Since men stopped working as a strike method to show their disapproval of the current methods, they stopped producing money to provide food for their families. Given this new situation, the women of Thies felt the need to take care of this and little by little became the new provider of the house.

I believe this is very interesting because women before were seen as almost useless, yet now the family up to a point depends on their ability to feed them.

Title

So far in the story although we still can't figure out completely the meaning of the book, there have already been some hints on what it may refer to. First let's start with God from God's Bits of Wood. There are two main perspectives on God. The people who rely on him and expect him to help them out of that preoccupying situation, in Ousmane's novel this people tend to be the older ones, and the people who although believe in God, think that they don't have time to spare and need to start taking action now despite the fact that God's will is for them to succeed. And the second part of the title, Bits of Wood, so far represent the base of Thies. The whole city is made out of pieces of wood. The city functions thanks to pieces of wood. Everything in the story is made out of wood.

Brotherhood

After the strike, many people, on the worker's side especially, are injured, and some other are dead. I found it very interesting that two women, maybe more, stopped doing their chores or whatever they were supposed to be doing to help the injured. No one told them they had to do it, but they still did it. This is a cultural phenomenon that can still today be seen in many countries in Africa, and some others in Latin America. It is some sort of brotherhood feeling. As Ousmane clearly describes it in the beginning of the book, these people lived in a very small and closed community, it could even be said to be isolated. This closeness allows people to get to know each other better and care about one another more. This is why, unlike in many other countries, having people stop doing their chores to help others is actually normal in the story while if someone were to do that in the USA they would most likely be cheered on.

Background and purpose

As I started reading God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene, the first thing I did was to try and locate the story in a specific time period and geographic place and this is what I concluded:

This book was first published in 1960 but it actually takes place in the 1940s in Senegal. I found it interesting that the book is about the strike of the 1940s that occurred because the workers, especially the railroad workers, weren't happy and it was published in 1960, on the same year Senegal got its independence from France. This book lets us appreciate how the independence started. First the workers formed unions to complain about the status quo of Senegal, the Senegalese weren’t happy with the French dominance. Then, not only the workers but all types of people joined in the movement and little by little they started to get more organized. I think that the main purpose of the book is to contrast how a simple workers’ strike lead to the independence of Senegal.