And readers are thus exposed to the exploitation and extortion that occurs in this cycle of sympathizers. While the gathering of women is supposed to be a time of preparing widows for captivity, it turns into a time of financial exploitation of widows. Ramatoulaye succinctly expresses her disappointment: this is the moment every Senegalese woman dreads, the moment she sacrifices her possessions as a gift to her in-laws; and worse still, beyond her possessions she renounces her personality, her dignity, becoming a thing in the service of the man who married her... Her behavior is conditioned... our in-laws take them away with them a bundle of banknotes, laboriously overcome, and leaving us completely destitute, we who will need material support (Letter 4/7). These women clearly did not come to mourn with Ramatoulaye, rather, they came to support the patriarchal power of