Construction of Referent Social Power in Mariama Ba’s Scarlet Song

Abstract

This paper aims at establishing the dynamics of referent social power among literary characters in the familial spaces of the fictional societies as depicted by Mariama Ba in Scarlet Song (1981). The objectives of the study are to discuss the characters with referent social power and demonstrate how they exercise it over other characters. Character sampling was limited to characters whose interaction demonstrates existence of referent social power. The paper argues that character social power exercise relies more on instruments of reference, rather than on other models of power exercise. Michel Foucault’s Panopticism and Feminism are the theoretical approaches used. The study is descriptive and analytical and employs the qualitative research design, which involves close reading of the novel as well as other related material. The analysis on how and why different characters acquire and exercise referent social power over one another constitutes data that has been analysed in a descriptive manner. The key finding in the paper is that the characters in the text exercise control over each other through appealing and innocuous use of reference.