Africa and Ousmane Sembene

Every society stratifies its members. Some societies have greater inequality than others, but stratification is universal. Social stratification persists over generations and involves not only inequality, but also an established belief system to support it[1]Social stratificationstratification is defined as the act, process or condition of being arranged into classes or social strata within a group. Class stratification is the tendency of groups to be divided into separate classes. This paper will analyze social status, class and race in Ousmane Sembene's, "Faat Kine", "Xala", "Black Girl", and "Mandabi".

Faat Kine manages a busy gas station in Dakar, Senegal, drives a fancy car, and worries about her children's education. She is an unwed mother of two, and takes pride in her children's individuality. Kine's life is complex; she enjoys the compassion of many friends, yet struggles for respect and independence in a male dominated world. She wants to own an oil company and send her children to Europe for travel and study; however, she is not financially stable to undertake both. Kine aspire for her children to succeed, she was once a student too, with ambitions of becoming a lawyer, but all that changed after an affair with a married professor, who fathered her first child. Nonetheless, the father of her second child abandoned her while pregnant, and stole her life savings. These adversities help develop her into the "new African" that Ousmane Sembene envisions. However, society is too traditional for Faat Kine, who sees more for herself than what society constructs for her.