1/25/2019 5 Comments Tsi Tsi Dangarembga“My mother said being black was a burden because it made you poor, but Babamukuru was not poor. My mother said being a woman was a burden because you had to bear children and look after them and the husband. But I did not think this was true.” Nervous Conditions, 1988 Author’s Name: Tsi Tsi Dangarembga
Dates Alive: February 4th, 1959-present day Location: Lived between Zimbabwe, London, and Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) Major Works:
Major Themes: Some major themes explored in the writing of Dangarembga are gender inequality, perseverance, influence of colonialism, tradition versus progress, coming of age, identity in existence, and traditional identity versus personal identity. Novel Choice Plot Summary: “Nervous Conditions”, has a variety of themes executed throughout the novel, but the most prominent being the portrayal of identity. Although the novel is a fiction story, it was common for girls in lower-developed African countries to face the same obstacles as Tambudzai, the main character. Tambu was an ambitious and determined preteen living in post colonial Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, with her parents and her brother. One of the many themes throughout the novel was the idea of gender inequality, where Tambu and her mother were expected to work at home and not to be educated. Despite what was expected of Tambu, she had a desire to go to school and would do anything to have that opportunity. Since Tambu’s parents could only afford to send one of their children to missionary school, they chose to send their eldest son, Nhamo. Before Nhamo gets the opportunity to attend the school, he suddenly dies. The beginning of the novel stresses some of Tambu’s remminitance on the events that lead up to her brother’s death. One of them being her growing and selling corn in attempts to raise enough money for her tuition, so both her and her brother could attend the missionary. After a family reunion for Tambu’s immediate and extended family, her very wealthy uncle, Babamukuru, offers to send one member of each family to his missionary school (different from the one Nhamo was sent to) and since Nhamo had passes, Tambu was offered in his place. Tambu was unbelievably excited to embark on something she had wanted for so long, and began her journey by moving in with Babamukuru and his family: Maiguru, his wife, Nyasha, his daughter, and Chido, his son. After some awkward encounters with her cousin Nyasha, Tambu starts to build a relationship with her cousin. Simultaneously, Tambu becomes absorbed in her studies, in hope for success. One key relationship within the novel is the relationship between Nyasha and her father, Babamukuru. Tambu notices the frequent fights and dismay within their relationship, the first time she’s witnessed an extremely toxic relationship that she was not involved in. During a school dance both Tambu and Nyasha attended, Babamukuru and Nyasha had a very violent argument, where Babamukuru accuses Nyasha of lewd behavior and Nyasha strikes her father in the face. During school vacation, Tambu and her family return to the homestead to visit her parents. Babamukuru was distraught to see that his relatives, Lucia and Takesure, were still living in the homestead and were expecting a baby. Babamukuru decides to allow the relationship since he saw a larger issue on hand. Tambu’s parents have conceived both their children out of wedlock and never had the desire to get married. To Babamukuru, that was unacceptable and he ordered that they be married. After Tambu’s extended family and parents return to the mission, her mother gives birth to a baby boy, soon followed by her aunt, Lucia. Tambu is completely against Babamukuru’s irrational decision in forcing her parents to get married since it was a change she didn’t feel was necessary. When she refuses to attend the wedding, Babamukuru punishes her by lashing her and forcing her to do the maid’s chores for 2 weeks. As the girls are preparing for finals, nuns arrive and conduct a test. Tambu is then offered a position in a convent school. Babamukuru didn’t like the idea initially, but quickly came around to the idea. When Tambu returned home for the holidays, her mother was sick, but Lucia was able to nurse her back to health. As Tambu is getting ready to leave for the convent, she is in search for Nyasha and cannot find her anywhere. When she does find her, Nyasha is very harsh with Tambu, since her best friend was now leaving her. Once Tambu leaves for the convent, she is seemingly discriminated against when she was told to stay in the dorm with a surplus of other African girls. Tambu loses touch with Nyasha since she was busy with her studies. When she returns, she finds nyasha to be frighteningly thin, suffering from an eating disorder. One night, Nyasha seems to have some sort of psychotic episode. Nyasha begins to regain her mental health after seeing a psychiatrist, while Tambu is worried that she has let the influences of the colonialism surrounding her consume her. Analysis of Main Characters: Tambudzai: Tambu is the protagonist of the novel. She is portrayed as extremely hard-working and ambitious, with many goals she plans to achieve, thus making her very perseverante. Throughout the novel, we see that Tambu is slightly naive, but not by choice. She had only been exposed to so much growing up on the homestead, so when she arrives to her uncle’s home and is welcomed with a feast and two fancy dresses, it is extremely foreign to her. Despite her not-knowing of many things other than what she’s known, she does know what her beliefs are, and refuses to let anyone take them away from her. Tambu mentions how she wasn’t sorry about the passing of her brother Nhamo. This was because of the poor way he treated her. Nhamo had expressed how he wanted to replicate the successes of Babamukuru, one of which was the promise he had made to take care of his siblings. Tambu had confronted Nhamo about that, and how he does nothing but make her life miserable. His response was “I am busy. You know that.” There have been many sexist comments that both Nhamo and her Father had made towards her, specifically around idea of education. She does not let these words stop her from being educated, so, she perseveres. Babamukuru: Babamukuru is expressed as very strict and one-track minded, yet very successful as well. This comment was made by Tambu on page 199: “Babamukuru was still and would always be the closest thing a human being could get to God.” In the eyes of Tambu’s family, Babamukuru was someone everyone wanted to be when they grew up, even the adults. The author makes it so that the reader understands the things Babamukuru says or does, but not necessarily so that the reader agrees with him. Nyasha: Nyasha is depicted as very smart, bright, kind, and contentious. Her studies are vital to her, and so are her looks. Nyasha has many issues with her father, most of the time surrounding but the different ways they view things. For example, forcing Tambu’s parents to be married didn’t just bother Tambu. Nyasha was also in disagreement with the marriage but was obviously in a different position than Tambu, so felt as though it wasn’t her place. Although Tambu and Nyasha have been best friends for the majority of the book, they differ in one major way: Tambu’s determination is truly due to her ignoring the expectations that have been set for her, while Nyasha has a difficult time walking away from unrealistic ideals, but more so becomes consumed by them. On page 196, Nyasha says this about her classmates: “I find it more and more difficult to speak with the girls at school.(...) They don’t like my language, my English, because it is authentic and my Shona because it is not!” During Nyasha’s psychotic episode, she says many things about “them” taking over her life and the lives of others and it is inferred she is talking about her European classmates. Theme: There are many themes within the novel, some of which are more obvious than others. One of the main themes being the influence of colonialism. In the story, Tambu’s uncle, Babamukuru, is very different from her immediate family, which lives in an impoverished homestead. Babamukuru also lives in Zimbabwe, which at the time was under British minor rule. However, he differed in that he was much more “modern” than the rest of Tambu’s family. His wife, Maiguru, was highly educated, which was very foreign to Tambu since no woman she had ever known went to school. Babamukuru was the headmaster of the missionary school Tambu would be attending, meaning both of her cousins, Nyasha and Chido, went to school since early age. This had many beneficial effects on Babamukuru and his family, they were financially stable, were all educated, and had very detailed futures when that was not common for the area in which Tambu was born and raised. However, the colonialism of Zimbabwe did also have some negative impacts as well. At the end of the novel, Tambu makes the difficult decision to attend the convent missionary school she had been offered out of her academic abilities, and lost touch with her cousins. When she returned, Nyasha had seemed to be suffering from bulimia, making her extremely thin and unrecognizable. One night, Nyasha, having drained all her vitals and been vigorously studying to pass her exams, had what seemed to have been a psychotic episode. There are a few quotes alluding to the (white) students at her missionary causing her distress: “ ‘They’ve trapped us. They’ve trapped us. But I won’t be trapped. I’m not a good girl, I won’t be trapped.’ Then as the raged passes. ‘I don’t hate you daddy,’ she said softly. ‘They want me to, but I don’t’.” Although it is not confirmed that this traumatizing event in Nyasha’s life was due to the European peers of hers, she did mention “not being enough” for her classmates on page 196. How did the author’s life influence his writing in this novel? (2-3 paragraphs) Since Nervous Conditions identifies in the historical fiction category, Dangarembga was able to influence her life and the life of many others through the novel. In a 2013 “Brick” interview, Dangarembga says : “There was so much invested during the Rhodesian era in educating Africans only up to a certain level and for certain tasks. An illusion had to be created, however, that there was some sort of mobility and fairness in the system. People like Tambudzai were swept up in that illusion. She had to find her own painful way out of it.” She says that Tambudzai views herself as a “superwoman” kind of character, which was important to Dangarembga seen as imperialists have put limitations on many indigenous citizens of Rhodesia, so she wanted to make Tambu limitless. Aside from creating Tambu as the representative for all Rhodesian peoples, Dangarembga also had a different hope for Tambu’s character. In a 2015 interview with “Makosi Today”, Dangarembga expresses how growing up, all the literature she was exposed to had European girls as the main protagonist. She wanted to change that. She says that she had never seen a colored girl be the hero in the story, so she decided to make her own. Tsitsi Dangarembga is an amazing author and writer. I feel as though she is a very complex human with many layers and many things to say, but maybe since she is not well-known in the U.S, there isn’t much information about her. I’ve been trying to find a way to reach her (email, social media, anything) to ask her some of the following questions I’ve generated while doing my author study:
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5 Comments
Ms. Minto
1/28/2019 05:39:02 am
It would be so amazing to talk to the author- great questions! Let me see if I can help in any way :)
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rachel kirby
1/31/2019 10:03:55 am
I really like the way you wrote about and summarized this story.
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Kylie Logan
1/31/2019 10:06:29 am
Do you think that the oppression that Tambu faced sculpted her to be ambitious, or do you think she would have been ambitious with or without people constantly pushing her down?
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Chelsea
1/31/2019 10:09:29 am
Did Babamukuru's religious beliefs have a play into his treatment of his family as well, and what were their religious beliefs? I think from what you said they followed the Bible but I'm not sure.
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Matt Marano
1/31/2019 10:13:38 am
The theme of the influence of colonialism is very accurate for your book and the entirety of Africa at the time.
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