ENG2603

SEMESTER 1 - 2015
ASSIGNMENT 1 -570634
STUDENT NUMBER - 53647629
ENG2603

SEMESTER 1 - 2015

ASSIGNMENT 1 -570634

STUDENT NUMBER – 53647629

ESSAY- NERVOUS CONDITIONS by Tsitsi Dangarembga

The word patriarchy represents a system of practices and structures in which men
have more power than women and are able to use their power to dominate and
oppress women. In this essay I am going to compare and contrast how Tambudzai
and Nyasha deal with patriarchy. The male characters Nhamo, Babamukurus and
Jeremiah are some examples of the men who have dominated and oppressed
women in the novel that is set in the country Rhodesia.

Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions novel is about the development of

Tambudzai as she fights to obtain an education in Rhodesia. Perhaps the most vital
issue dealt with in the novel is that of gender roles, especially regarding the
expectations of women in Rhodesian society. Her brother Nhamo asks Tambudzai if
she knows why, he is the one who has to go to school. Nhamo is expressing his
belief he has been raised with, this meaning he thinks he is entitled to all benefits
and gains because he is a man. When Tambudzai asks her brother why it is that she
cannot attend school, he informs her that it is because she is a girl. It is at this point
that she loses all her respect and care for her brother. Her brother Nhamo has been
socialised into a system that is both sexist and patriarchal and he continues to
embed those behaviours and beliefs in his relationship with Tambudzai. Nhamo
sabotages her efforts to go back to school, by deliberately stealing her maize cobs
that she had planted to sell and raise money to go to school. When Tambudzai finds
out what he did this leads to a fight between them. She uses violence to show him
how she feels about what he has done.

Her father Jeremiah did not like her to go to school. So she set out pleasing herself,
which then had upset him even further. Jeremiah did not like to see her engaged in
intellectual pursuits. He became very disturbed after he had found Tambudzai
several times reading the newspaper in which bread from Magrosa had been
wrapped in. On the home coming of Babamukurus from England, she had decided
to busy herself with housework and cooking, so that she would not be with the
visitors they made her feel uncomfortable and excluded. She preferred to be on her
own to avoid any conflict. She was praised by the women on her cooking, this made
her feel better and her confidence returned. She then helped her aunties and cousins
cook the Sadza and this helped her to stop feeling excluded and her feelings of
superiority disappeared too. Her brother told her that he was chosen to live and
study by his Babamukurus house, because he was older and much more advanced
academically and also insisted that there were other criteria that had disqualified
her. He says, “I was meant to be educated.” ( Dangarembga 49) When she heard that
from her brother she was disappointed. Tambudzai is so shocked with what her
brother has become at the time of his death that she says, "I was not sorry that he
had died, but I was sorry for him because, according to his standards, his life had
been thoroughly worth living" (Dangarembga 56). She sees him as having been
content with his life even though, to her, it was corrupted and would have only hurt
her life in the long run. This point is only reaffirmed when she is able to obtain her
education solely because of her brother's death. In a Patriarchal society such as the
Shona have, Babamukuru has control over what Tambudzai fate will ultimately be.
On the morning of the her parents wedding Tambudzai didn’t want attend the
function. Babamukurus told her that she was growing up to be a bad child and she
must be ready but she denied his request and refused to go. A day later
Babamukurus had a talk with Tambudzai and told her that she has become
rebellious and that she will be punished for her disobedience. She received 15
lashes and took over Anne’s duties for two weeks. She accepted the chores with
deep grateful delight and considered the punishment as the price of her new
acquired identity. It was the result of having stood up for herself.

Nyasha dealt with patriarchy different compared to Tambu. Her father,

Babamukurus was obsessed with control over Nyasha, of becoming a woman, how
much she eats, how she dresses and speaks to elders and what she reads. The role
of food is used in struggle, for control over the body is primary a symbol of social
worth. Nyasha refuses to be what her father expects her to be. Although Nyasha
attempts to challenge her father’s control, she cannot escape her relative
powerlessness in his patriarchal household and she starts suffering from anorexia
and bulimia. Nyasha was engrossed in reading but her book was taken by her
mother, after she felt that it was not age appropriate for Nyasha to read. This lead to
a disagreement with her father and she had woken up and walked away from her
meal to her room. She then goes and smokes a cigarrete to relax. Another incident
that happened that has to do with patriarchy is when she had returned home from
the rave dance alone. Her father had seen her with a boy and was convinced that
she had sexual intercourse. Nyasha denied it. Her father did not like the way she
spoke and this lead to another disagreement where the father started slapping
nshaya and hit her. Nyasha punched him in the eye and then father and daughter
started to fight on the floor. The father says that Nyasha is challenging his authority.
Finally the mother stops the fight. Nyasha walks out of her room and goes outside
and smokes a cigarette secretly. The cigarrete is a used as a rebellion act, as she
knows her parents forbid her from smoking. She ate her food at the table with her
family but, after each meal every day she went straight to the bathroom and spewed
out everything. She admits to Tambu that she did it herself with her tooth brush, this
was her way of gaining control of herself. Nyasha told Tambu she did not mind the
arguments with her father, as it helped them to be able to communicate together
effectively.

Nyasha unlike Tambudzai however, is not willing to be subdued by the patriarch.

She is constantly challenging the authority of her father, whether it is to his face, or
not. Her suffering stems from her exposure to the ways of the colonizer. Her time in
England instilled in her a rebellion based on seeing what life is like outside of the
Shona traditions. At the end of the novel Nyasha goes into a rage screaming,
"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" (Dangarembga 201). Nyasha is associating, perhaps not unjustly,
being a good girl with being trapped. She is not ignoring what else is out there.
Nyasha is willing to deny the patriarchal society, but even doing this gains her
nothing. There is no escape for her at all. She is then, after coming to this moment
of simultaneous clarity and rebellion, institutionalized by her father, denying her
even the escape of death. Nyasha is a symbol of those women who refuse to be a
part of patriarch, yet she is silenced. Dangarembga makes Babamukuru the
oppressive silencing force as he has the final say on any and all things. Earlier in the
novel, he beats Nyasha because she punches him. He embodies a system built to
keep the females in submission and silence.

Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions tackles the issue of gender roles, within a

patriarchal society under the English colonizer. Tambudzai is the only one to escape
and her life changes when she is given the scholarship. She has to escape the
patriarchal society influence that lurks almost silently in the background, but is an
obvious motivation for her actions, and the actions of others. Simultaneously, she
has to negotiate trying to be true to the tradition of her people, but also escaping the
oppression imbedded within the patriarchal society of the Shona. Tambu’s mother
told her, “The problem is the Englishness, so you just be careful!” (Dangarembga
203) Her suspicion of the English influence that destroyed Nhamo and Nyasha
allows her to avoid a similar fate, and her story affords her the opportunity she is
denied by the society she was born into. Though she may never see a resolution to
the problems that plague the women of Shona society, her words in this novel
provide an outlet for their frustration. This novel possesses so much despair, yet by
the end, the book itself is a symbol of hope, and this is Tsitsi Dangarembga's great
achievement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dangarembga, Tsitsi. 1988. Nervous Conditions. London: Ayebia

Colonial and Postcolonial African Literature- Unisa Eng2603 Study guide