Examining Madame in Ousmane Sembène’s “Black Girl”
“Black Girl” is both a short story and feature film by Sembène, and both portray the exploitive nature of Madame with clarity. When reading the short story “Black Girl,” it is strongly evident that every action Madame takes is calculated to get the most value out of nonwhite people like Diouana, the chef, and other servants. Madame is glad when the chef praises her family since she knows “from experience what it [means] to have a good reputation with the servants” (Sembène 4). Her statement about having a “good reputation” makes it apparent that all Madame cares about is her image. She wants the servants to adore her so that she will receive better services from them, particularly better food, laundry, and childcare.
To add to this, Madame only desires a servant from Africa because “In France when she hired a maid not only was the salary higher but the maid demanded a day off to boot” (Sembène 3). Madame is cunning, knowing she can get away with treating nonwhite servants in a worse way because they have been oppressed for so long. Madame is the one offering Diouana wealth and the opportunity to live in France — she holds all of the power in this scenario because France is seen as a ‘better place’ that is “beautiful” while Africa is a “sordid slum,” (Sembène 5) as Diouana states. It is clear that other African people are made to believe that Europe and English people are ‘better’ because “any young African girl would have followed [Madame] to the end of the earth” (Sembène 3) if offered a job from her.
Once Diouana is in France, we can see more of the white population’s exoticization and exploitation of non-white people for labor and for entertainment. Madame’s guests are “strange, self-centered, sophisticated beings” who “never [stop] asking [Diouana] idiotic questions about how African women do their cooking” (Sembène 6). Diouana is simply in France for the value she can offer in terms of productivity and in terms of her exoticness. The French people don’t care about her as a person, evident when they refer to her as the “Pouchets’ black girl” (Sembène 6). Diouana realizes this herself, falling into a deep depression that no one notices because they do not view her as anything other than a servant. Even to the police, Madame denies that anything was wrong and claims Diouana was “treated well [t]here, she ate the same food, shared the same rooms as my children” (Sembène 2). This reveals how Madame cannot see or refuses to see past herself — she thinks that just living in the same house and eating the same food is good enough treatment for Diouana. She does not mention how their relationship deteriorated over time, revealing she really does not care about having any sort of relationship with Diouana besides one that is master to servant.
