Nervous Conditions
Dialogues
Notes
Links
Teaching
Citations
Nervous Conditions, written by
Tsitsi Dangarembga in 1989, is a
semi-autobiographical coming of
age story about a young woman
in modern Africa. The story takes
place in Rhodesia in the late
1960s and early 1970s. The story
centers around Tambu and
Nyasha, female cousins who, until
their early teens, lead very
different lives.
Tambu was raised on her family's farm in Umtali
where she was responsible for household chores,
gardening, and caring for her younger siblings.
Tambu's dreams of getting an education are only
fulfilled when her brother dies and she becomes next
in line for school since she has no other brothers. She
is allowed to stay with her aunt and uncle while she
attends school at the mission. While there, Tambu
shares a room with her cousin, Nyasha and the girls
teach each other many lessons.
Nyasha spent most of her formative years in England
while her mother and father were getting their
education. When she comes back to Africa she
realizes the vast differences between European
culture and African culture--especially where women
are concerned. She experiences inner turmoil as she
tries to come to terms with being a woman in Africa.
As we see Nyasha's struggles through the eyes of
Tambu, we begin to understand the continuing
devastation countries are experiencing as a result of
colonization by another culture.
About the Author
Tsitsi Dangarembga was
born in Rhodesia, now
called Zimbabwe in 1959.
She lived in England from
age two through age six.
She then returned to
Rhodesia and finished her
schooling in a missionary school there. She returned
to England to pursue a degree in medicine at
Cambridge University but homesickness soon drove
her back to Africa. She continued her education in
Africa studying first psychology and eventually film
production and direction. Nervous Conditions is
Dangarembga's first novel. She has also written a play
entitled She No Longer Weeps.
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Dialogues
The Duality of Oppression: African Women
Fighting for Voice
Women in Africa must not only liberate themselves from
the influences of colonial rule--they are also fighting the
effects of patriarchal traditions in the history of their
culture. Tsitsi Dangarembga's portrayal of five women
in her novel Nervous Conditions is a striking reminder
that African women are under a double yoke when it
comes to making their voices heard. Pauline Ada
Uwakweh, in her essay, "Debunking Patriarchy: The
Liberational Quality of Voicing in Tsitsi Dangarembga's
Nervous Conditions," proposes three categories of
women characters in the novel: " the 'escaped' females,
the 'entrapped' females, and the rebellious females"
(Uwakweh). Uwakweh presents Tambu and Lucia as
escaped females, Tambu's mother and Aunt Maiguru as
entrapped females, and Nyasha as the rebellious female
although there has been some discussion of whether
Lucia is truly "escaped" because she is still dependent
on Babamukuru's money to gain her independence.
Tambu's mother is one of the entrapped females. She
is bound both by the laws of her culture and the social
stratification of colonialism. Because of her gender she
will never be seen as more than a possession of the
men in her family even though it is through the fruits of
her labor that her son is able to go to school and food it
put on the table. Because of her poverty, she will never
reach an equal status with whites or the educated
Africans. In addition, she is consumed with the fear of
the fatal attraction of Englishness which, in her eyes, is
devouring her family one by one.
Maiguru, although educated, is as entrapped as
Tambu's mother. Her education only serves to make her
more resentful of her entrapment. Maiguru is still
subjected to the demands of her husband and the men
of her community. She knows and understands the
"European way" but years of ingrained culture and
patriarchy force her to keep silent and obedient.
Maiguru's education is viewed as an oddity. The people
of her village assume she was simply taking care of her
husband and her family while they lived in England.
Nyasha is the rebellious female. She has had the
benefit of a British education and knows first hand what
kind of lives women in Europe lead. She is ever aware
of the differences in the way Shona women are treated
compared with the treatment of British women. Unlike
her mother, Nyasha has no memories of traditions and
customs to silence her voice. Instead she finds herself
caught between two worlds. Her schoolmates shun her
for her white mannerisms and she has no Shona
mannerisms to fall back on. Nyasha is truly a woman
without a home, and as she struggles to make a place
for herself in society, she finds that the effort just may
kill her.
Lucia can be seen as either escaped or entrapped. She
is escaped because she doesn't care what people think.
She is set on gaining an education and bettering herself
and will use any means available to achieve those goals.
She is entrapped, however, because she still relies on
the men in the family, primarily Babamukuru, to fund
her education.
Tambu is the promise of the escaped female. She views
the cultural differences in social status and gender
equality from a vantage point. She has experienced
secondhand through her female relatives the effects of
patriarchal rule on women's self-worth and the effects
of cultural conflict when Africans allow colonial ideals to
displace their African roots. Tambu comes close to
forgetting her culture but her mother's caution always
returns to remind her and ground her in the reality of
her ethnic heritage.
Dangarembga chooses to portray these five women in
this way because she is one of them. She is an African
woman trying to find her voice in a male dominated
world. Considering the double yoke of the effects of
patriarchy and colonization that African women must
overcome, it is little wonder that more and more African
women writers are creating characters like those in
Nervous Conditions.
The Effects of Gender on Education in The
Joys of Motherhood and Nervous Conditions
"Can you cook books and feed them to your husband? Stay
at home with your mother. Learn to cook and clean. Grow
vegetables" (from Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi
Dangarembga).
In contemporary America it is often difficult for us to
comprehend the acceptance of status relative to gender,
yet, in both of these books we are hit in the face with
the reality of gender "discrimination" in the African
education system. (I put discrimination in quotation
because I am viewing this from an ethnocentric
background which believes in equality regardless of
race, religion, gender, etc.)
In The Joys of Motherhood, Nnu Ego and her husband,
Nnaife, give up everything so that their eldest son,
Oshia, can have the benefit of an education. The
leftover money, if there had been any, would go to
educate their second son, Adim. There was never any
thought given to educating their daughters. Daughters
were looked at as an investment. Hopefully, they would
marry well and bring in a good bride price (which would
most likely go towards their brothers' education). Nnu
Ego assumes that her sons will come home to live and
will care for her as she ages. "Nnu Ego realized that
part of the pride of motherhood was to look a little
unfashionable and be able to drawl with joy: "I can't
afford another outfit, because I am nursing him, so you
see I can't go anywhere to sell anything." One usually
received the answer, "Never mind, he will grow soon
and clothe you and farm for you, so that your old age
will be sweet"" (Emecheta 80).
Nervous Conditions, although it takes place in an
entirely different area of the African continent, reflects
the same values of gender education. Nhamo, the only
male heir, was selected by the elders of his family to
receive an education. He was then expected to get a
good job and provide for his family. When Nhamo dies,
the family eventually decides that it will be acceptable
for Tambu, the eldest daughter, to receive an education
since there were no more male sons. Tambu is also
expected to provide for her family after she graduates
and there is quite a bit of discussion among her family
members about the worthlessness of her education
since she would eventually only be helping out her
husband's family and not her own.
Both of these books seem to reflect the experiences
women have had all over the world as they fought for
their independence and equality. We have a difficult
time accepting that these beliefs are still being practiced
in some areas of the world. Adeola James goes so far as
to suggest that "the real reason for the tragic disruption
of society depicted in Things Fall Apart [by Chinua
Achebe] is because the female principle is neglected
whilst the male principle, with its strong-headedness
and inflexibility, is promoted above all else" (James 42).
In her interview with James, Buchi Emecheta responds
to James' assertion: "I discussed that idea in my latest
book, The Rape of Shavi, which is about the rape of a
culture. At the end of that rape we find it is women who
bring things together. Whereas, if they had allowed
women to take part all along, maybe the rape would not
have taken place" (James 42).
Through their writing both of these authors attempt to
bring to light the unfairness that still exists between
genders regarding education in Africa. Although both
writers were able to eventually receive an education,
they realize that many of their African sisters do not
and will not have the same opportunities unless
someone speaks up for them--at least until they learn
to speak for themselves.
Top
Notes
Why Dangarembga Chose Anorexia
There has been a lot of discussion over Dangarembga's
choice of Anorexia as Nyasha's disease. Anorexia is
usually not associated with African women and that is
precisely why it was chosen. Most African cultures
encourage their women to have rounded curves. Weight
is often seen as an indicator of wealth. Some cultures
even had a traditional "fattening-room" where
adolescent girls were sent to be groomed into "robust
marriageable maidens" (Uwakweh). Nyasha, on the
other hand, had spent her formative years in Europe
where the fashion industry and media promote thinness
as a virtue. What disease could better portray the
anxiety that Nyasha was experiencing? Used as a
metaphor, the cultural ideals of the colonizers were
virtually killing the colonized.
The Importance of Hygiene
When Tambu's brother, Nhamo, comes home to visit,
he brings his toothbrush which he "brandishe[s] as a
weapon of civilization" (Bhana). Cleanliness and hygiene
are symbols of progress in the beginning of the book.
Another instance is when Tambu doesn't want to wash
her menstrual rags in the toilet because she doesn't
want to dirty it. By the end of the story, however, these
instruments of civilization become instruments of
destruction. The toothbrush becomes the tool that
Nyasha uses to make herself vomit, and she "was
grotesquely unhealthy from the vital juices she flushed
down the toilet" (Dangarembga 199). Dangarembga's
use of two highly sterilized and valued, yet common
commodities of the European lifestyle as the
instruments of Nyasha's destruction shows the reader
how pervasive and subversive the elements of
colonization are in the lives of the colonized.
Two African Novels
Jessica Powers, a Master's degree student studying
African History at the University of New York, has
written an essay for Suite 101.com comparing
Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and Emecheta's The
Joys of Motherhood entitled "Two African Novels."
Recurring Themes in Stories about
Colonization
The following theme pages may further develop your
understanding of post colonial literature as it relates to
Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions.
Assimilation
The question of assimilation is omnipresent in post
colonial literature. How has being colonized affected the
colonized? The colonizer? When is someone
"assimilated" into a new culture? How do they influence
the culture they are assimilated into?
Audience
The audience an author has in mind for a written work
inevitably influences the way in which the author writes
it. Here we will start to look at how authors' intentions
can be discussed in relation to the audience they
address.
Literary Influences
Books fit into the evolution and progression of a
preexisting body of literature. Where do they fit? How
have they been influenced by previous literature? How
do they influence literature to come?
Emancipation
Many authors utilize written material to influence social
and political currents. Here we will begin to look at
different means of social change authors write about,
and how they are differently portrayed.
Literary Style or Historical Fact
Here we will begin to examine how authors--James,
Equiano, and Zinn in particular--combine techniques of
historical documentation with literary styles, and the
effect this has on the interpretation and impacts of their
works.
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Links
***All Africa is a website that is continually updated
with stories from over 80 African news agencies. You
can search the site by region, by country, or by subject
matter. There is a site dedicated to African books and a
site for women and gender issues.
***Zimbabwe Page through the African Studies
Library at Columbia University has many researched
links to enhance your understanding of Zimbabwe past
and present.
**Another page about Zimbabwe is presented by the
University of Pennsylvania. This site includes a map of
Zimbabwe.
Top
Teaching
Teaching African Literature
Books:
The book, Long Drums and Canons: Teaching and
Researching African Literature by Bernth Lindfors, is a
good resource for any teacher who wants to incorporate
African Literature into the curriculum. ISBN
0865434379.
Another excellent book is African Novels in the
Classroom edited by Margaret Jean Hay. ISBN
1555878784.
Video:
Africa is My Home: Atlantis Productions. This film
follows the life of an African girl who is born at the time
of Nigerian independence and grows to maturity while
Nigeria confronts the issues and conflicts of a
developing nation.
Born Into Two Cultures: BBC. R.K. Narayan and Chinua
Achebe read excerpts from their works and discuss their
experiences as writers--what it means to be born into
one culture and language yet to write in the English
language. They gives special insights into the problem
of operating in two distinct cultures.
In Search of Myself: United Nations, Narrated by Alistair
Cooke. Discusses the art and life of Nigeria; includes
dancing and folk opera sequences, from works by
Nigerian musicians and authors.
With These Hands: How Women Feed Africa: A
documentary presenting the stories of three women
from three African countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya and
Zimbabwe. Each woman tells in her own words of the
struggle to feed her family.
Discussion Questions For Nervous
Conditions
1. Why does Dangarembga choose Anorexia, a
disease very rarely found in African women, as
the way for Nyasha to exert her rebellion?
2. Why did Lucia, who seemed so self-centered
throughout the book, spend time and patience
caring for her sister when she was ill? What
lesson, if any, does Dangarembga want us to
learn from her acts of kindness.
3. What would Tambu's fate have been if she had
another brother? Would she have received her
education? If so, at what cost?
Lesson Plans
McDougal Littell has a site dedicated to providing
teaching resources for many different literature texts
including Nervous Conditions. They give a summary of
the text, some activities to use as theme openers, some
crosscurricular activities, and some ideas for research
assignments.
Relevant Information
Learn more about missionary activity in South Africa
during the 19th century by clicking on the above
picture of a missionary complex in Zuurbraak, Western
Cape.
Teaching Links
Central Oregon Community College's Humanities 211
class has an extensive site dedicated to Tsitsi
Dangarembga and Nervous Conditions. The site
contains excerpts from interviews with the author; links
to information about Zimbabwe, Southeast Africa, and
the Shona culture; a study guide that explains the
characters, family relationships, and places mentioned
in the book; several chapter by chapter reading and
study questions; links to scholarly articles available online; and a list of additional sources.
Top
Citations
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. Seattle: Seal
Press, 1988.
Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. New York:
Braziller, 1979.
Uwakweh, Pauline Ada. "Debunking Patriarchy: The
Liberational Quality of Voicing in Tsitsi Dangarembga's
Nervous Conditions." Research in African Literatures
26:1 (Spring 1995): 75-84.
Colonial & Postcolonial Literary Dialogues
Home -- Themes -- Texts -- Links -- Search -- About Us
Page Created by: Vicki L. Whisler
Last Updated: June, 2001
By Tsitsi Dangarembga
I can't seem to get an image from Michelle Cliff's "If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would
Write This in Fire" out of my mind. She tells a story from her school days of classmate who
had a grand mal seizure during the morning singing of hymns. "While she flailed on the stone
floor," writes Cliff, "I wondered what the mistresses would do. We sang 'Faith of Our Father,'
and watched our classmate as her eyes rolled back in her head." The white mistresses offered
only their typical response as aid: "keep singing." The grotesque hypocrisy of these
missionaries leaves me, as a Christian, frustrated and angry. Reading Nervous Conditions
only makes me madder.
Early in the novel, Tambu tells the story of her Uncle Babamukuru's rise to success. In doing
so, she makes her message clear: "endure and obey, for there is no other way." By twisting
the words of the popular Christian hymn, Dangarembga gives the reader a glimpse of the
colonized view of faith. Christian love is replaced with obedience, hope is abandoned for
endurance, and redemption is more like punishment. In Postcolonial Representations,
Francoise Lionnet writes of how the Christian era transformed traditional representations of
the body (the Greco-Roman emphasis on health and beauty) to those that emphasize suffering
and death (Christ being the ideal representation). "The body," writes Lionnet, "thereby
becomes a text on which pain can be read as a necessary physical step on the road to a moral
state, a destiny, or a way of being" (88). Necessary? It repulses me to think so.
Yet throughout Nervous Conditions Lionnet's thoughts are exemplified as Tambu,
Babamukuru, and the other African characters are dehumanized by the whites. Baba is called
a "good boy, cultivatable in the way that land is, to yield harvests that sustain the cultivator"
(such a beautifully detestable metaphor). He is forced to take his family to England so that his
position might not be given to "another promising young African." And he is taught to breed
"good African children." Similarly, when Tambu receives the great honor of attending Sacred
Heart (the Roman Catholic Church being the one which creates the most virtue), she is
quickly relegated to a cramped room with the other Africans. Those professing to be servants
of God, charitable workers, treat the Other collectively. There is no Tambu, Nyasha, Baba, or
even Zimbabwean. There is only African.
The other snapshots of religion offered in Nervous Conditions are equally disturbing.
Through Tambu we see a child's image of God. She speaks of being caned on Monday
mornings for not attending the previous day's Sunday School class. She waits in line as she
and the other Africans are inspected for missing buttons and dirty socks. She sees her beloved
uncle chastise his daughter for the embarrassment she causes him at church. And worst of all,
she accepts it.
Tambu (representative, obviously, of all colonized) is a character fighting to find her place in
two worlds. She struggles to reconcile the traditional beliefs of the homestead with the
teachings of the missionaries (and their contradictions). Her family says grace to begin a
celebration then offers "much clapping of hands" and "praising of the gods for their
providence." When Tambu eats dinner with her aunt and cousin she only knows that their
prayer has ended when she hears "Amen." This white God, it appears, only hears the white
language.
The results, unfortunately for the colonizer and colonized, are miscommunication, confusion,
and damage. For Tambu, this means that she mistakes the message of the whites for the
message of the Bible. (Actions, they say, speak louder than words.) It's no wonder that she is
unable to comprehend the stories of the Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene. Undeserved
forgiveness is as alien to her as physical resurrection.
Trinh T. Minh-ha redefines anthropology as "gossiping,"—us talking about them. She
criticizes anthropologists for their "prejudices as well as scientifical-professional-scholarlycareerist hypocrisy" and recommends that they(we) write "close to the other." In my
discussion of religion, this means (I think) that it is ridiculous for whites to plan ways of
converting the natives (to use a cliché). They(we) should instead examine critically what they
believe and live accordingly. It seems that this is what Tambu begins to do at the close of
Nervous Conditions. A dramatic change occurs when Baba decides that Jeremiah and Mainini
must marry: Tambu disagrees. She struggles with her opinions of Baba and her understanding
of sin ("It had to be avoided because it was deadly, I could see it. It was definitely black, we
were taught"—wow). She struggles with the notions of witch doctors and marriages. But she
is persuaded by her family pride, by the thought of her parents made comic relief, by the
absurdity of the idea. In one passage, Tambu examines her beliefs and begins to grow:
Babamukuru did not know how I had suffered over the question of that wedding. He did not
know how my mind had raced and spun and ended up splitting into two disconnected entities
that had long, frightening arguments with each other, very vocally, in my head, about what
ought to be done, the one half maniacally insisting on going, the other half equally
maniacally refusing to consider it. I knew it was not evil to have endured all that terror in
order to be sure of my decision, so when Nyasha asked whether I would go, I was able to tell
her clamly, 'No.' But I accepted that I had forfeited my right to Babamukuru's charity.
Focus on Zimbabwe: Nervous Conditions (2)
Tambudzai:
While this is the central character of the book, I held on to her until this point
because she puzzled, excited and reminded me of me so many times I felt dodgy and
guilty. Tambu has (had) so much spirit and ambition, and did not mind her brother
dying for her to achieve her dreams (not the part that reminds me of me). But
Tambu’s sense of rebellion is mapped around a concept of progress that has been
handed to her by circumstances. First, she sees the poverty in which her family
exists, and is given ample opportunity to discover the other side of the coin through
her observation of her uncle’s family. She is constantly comparing herself with those
who are celebrated as being worthy, and questions why she herself has not been
found so.
One has got to admire her determination when she makes that trip to the town centre
to sell maize that she has painstakingly planted, even against Nhamo’s evil attempt to
destroy what she had worked so had for. One has also got to admire how much she
wants to get into school, for she is able to see that it is because of education that
Babamukuru has been able to achieve all that she has. Of all the characters in the
book, she is surprisingly the one who most resembles Babamukuru. She is a real
rags-to-riches case, but has a whole lot of determination that drives her towards her
goal. The author of The Secret and any Obamaniac would be proud of
Tambu!!!!!!!!!!!
But Tambu, like Maiguru is a tragic figure. In all her determination, and in all her
willingness to obey Baba, she is under-appreciated by him. He refuses to see her
potential beyond the fact that she will get a good husband and be in a position to help
the rest of her family. Also, and this is the part of her that most reminds me of me,
she is quite uncritical of what is going on, and when she knows she should be critical,
she struggles to push these thoughts to the back of her head. I say it reminds me of
me because often, I found that fighting the system was so much harder,
such hard work. It was often easier just sitting back and accepting what was going
on.
No, I am not proud of this, but that is the truth. Often, you want to get there so badly,
you are willing to ‘suffer’, punish yourself to reach there. Always, an invisible hand is
swinging opportunities in front of you, and you have to humiliate yourself to get
there. Sounds pathetic but that’s exactly what Tambudzai and to a large extent most
of us have had to go through to get to where we are. But I do not necessarily blame
myself for it, just like I do not blame Tambu. What were her options? Defying
Babamukuru like Nyasha did is a luxury of course she could never have afforded!
Only Nyasha, whose blood ties disabled Babamukuru’s powers had the audacity to
challenge that blanket god-like power when no one else could.
Perhaps also, Tambu’s being a child also worked against her. Look at Lucia who
countered Babamukuru all the way but still got what she wanted out of him.
I suppose the weakness of Tambudzai is even more tragic because she was helpless in
her limited knowledge of what she could or could not do. Like an overwhelming
power against her, she had to suffer an intense patriarchy to get to what she wanted.
Eventually, Tambudzai just suffers from the fate of ending up in a catholic boarding
school. I remember going to a catholic boarding school, and some of those things
that Tambudzai heard about these places are actually true. There were often young
girls who were marked for entry into the convent. Their school fees were paid by the
church and when they were ‘ready’ they would discreetly be recruited into the
schools. It was always funny when some of them actually fell pregnant because that
always meant the end of their careers in the nunnery and of course a huge
disappointment on the part of the nuns. But maybe we are yet to uncover new forms
of resistance!
One last focus on Tambudzai: her relationship with Babamukuru. Particularly that
fateful day when she dared to say she did not want to be part of the wedding
procession!!! Babamukuru’s generosity is finally and completely put to the test at
that point: he begins by torturing Tambudzai with ways in which he had been
generous to her, and Tambu can only stammer in reply. That GUILT that she feels at
that point would be a source of interesting reflection. It is a guilt filled with fear, the
fear of that invisible hand taking away everything you had ever dreamed of….
But in the end, just like in the case of all the other women, Babamukuru decides not
to push it too far, because he knows deep down, Tambudzai is so much more than he
had expected. However, he punishes her, because she dared to defy him, a god! The
character of Tambudzai is therefore one of guilt, fear and most of all extreme
punishment and humiliation that she has to endure just to get to where she wants to
go! Mppph!
Nyasha:
I had to leave her for last. There is a book I read in my high school, it was a set book,
chosen for purposes of being examined on it at the end of the year. I think it was
called Mashetani, ‘The Devils’. The details of it are hazy now, but I remember
someone who suffers from a nervous breakdown because he or was it a she could not
understand why everyone was so readily accepting socialism when he could see
through the evil behind the architecture. I think it was that. The book was written by
a famous Tanzanian writer whose name I forget now, but it was a stunning book, the
kind we should be reading more and more rather than watching sex and the city:-)
Anyway, what I got from that book reminded me of Nyasha, or is it that Nyasha
reminded me of that book? Either way, it is with great sadness that I regard such
characters, the geniuses who think ahead of their times, the intellectual who suffers
because she can see beyond what is blanketing the truth. While the theme of the
alienated intellectual is pretty common in African writing, it is still normal one of the
most tragic characters.
Mohammed Said Abdallah. That is the name of the author of Mashetani. (Sorry, had
to put that in).
Anyway, Nyasha is a beautiful creation. She says and identifies those aspects that are
wrong with the system, the colonial and patriarchal systems. Unlike Tambu, she has
the language and tenacity to identify these things and naturally falls out of favour
with her father. However, the author refrains from using her forcefully as the voice of
reason but uses her to explore the dilemma of the intellectual born way ahead of her
time. In a tightly and unapologetically patriarchal society such as hers, clearly there’s
no winning the war with Babamukuru and the rest of the men (and women, think of
Tete), but she goes ahead and says what she thinks is right.
Unfortunately she has a nervous breakdown, and during her moments, it’s clear she
takes issue with the system and how people are accepting what in her mind is poison
to their society. That she is Babamukuru’s biggest critic should not go unnoticed. She
criticizes the power of capitalism, male power, presence of white people, the way in
which the system is all for consuming the minds of the natives. Perhaps the whole
book is about her, and Tambu and their inner turmoil’s, as they are the two
characters most explored in this regard.
I think I need to re-read the Wretched of the Earth before I undertake the arduous
task of reading the sequel to this book, The Book of Not. Eish!
Genre Novel (204 pp.)
Keywords Acculturation, Adolescence, Aging, Body Self-Image, Child Abuse, Chronic Illness/Chronic
Disease, Colonialism, Communication, Death and Dying, Depression, Developing Countries, Disease
and Health, Domestic Violence, Eating Disorder, Family Relationships, Father-Daughter Relationship,
Freedom, Human Worth, Illness and the Family, Individuality, Loneliness, Love, Marital Discord,
Memory, Mental Illness, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Poverty, Power
Relations, Racism, Rebellion, Sexuality, Society, Women's Health
Summary Tambudzai, the heroine of this female bildungsroman, travels from her small Rhodesian
village to live in Umtali town with her successful, British-educated uncle and his family. She gets this
chance for change and formal education when her brother dies suddenly from a mysterious illness a
year after entering the mission school.
The novel, set in 1968, unites a classic coming of age narrative with the particular tensions of an
African colony under European rule. While Tambu struggles to assimilate into her uncle's family, her
cousin Nyasha becomes a compulsive student and develops a serious eating disorder while
struggling with the biculturalism of her childhood, spent mostly in the United Kingdom. Tambu's
university-educated aunt gradually rebels against her domineering husband.
Commentary Illness, and particularly eating disorders, are both a literal and metaphoric result of
colonialism in this novel. The title, the book tells us, derives from an introduction to Frantz Fanon's
The Wretched of the Earth: "The condition of a native is a nervous condition." Nyasha's anorexia is
convincing both as a sociologically oriented representation of an eating disorder, and as a metaphor
for cultural imperialism, the subtle and insidious domination of one culture by another--in this case,
Rhodesian village culture by British colonials.
Dangarembga focuses not only on domesticity and family life (including the more complex
hierarchical structures involving uncles and aunts), but also on education, as sites in which cultural
imperialism takes place. It's a particularly interesting examination of the complicated dynamic
between British-educated parents who want their children to surpass them but feel betrayed when
those children are so successfully assimilated as to have shallow or no African roots.
The connection between colonial Africa and anorexia surprises students, and as culturally specific as
this narrative is, it also strikes a chord in particular with students, who have assimilated enough
academic/pre-professional culture to become somewhat strange to their families and friends, while
not yet familiar to established professionals in their discipline.
Tsitsi Dangaremba exposes a different facet of this dynamic in her book, Nervous Conditions, as
she reveals the struggles she experienced with her brother, who was allowed to go to school,
while her own inability to attend school was not regarded with any seriousness. The traditional
view of her family and tribe held that the woman’s place was in the home and the fields.
According to such an ideology, she would not have the time to think about school after she had
finished planting, harvesting, and housechores. In an effort to raise funds to attend school, she
plants her own corn to grow and sell. Comparatively, Shaw addresses the woman’s role in the
production and distribution of foodstuffs. The Lost Sister, which comes from the ethnographies
that Shaw draws from, focuses on a brother’s dependence of his sister’s independence. This
underscores the entire system in which the male becomes a “big man” because of the female’s
hard work. A twisted example of this is presented when Ngamo gives away mealies to the other
people in their age group, and gains favor from others by stealing them from Tambu. Ngamo
makes himself look impressive to others at the expense of his sister. Between Tambu and
Ngamo, an underlying kinship connection also exists. Ngamo’s death leads their mother to
conclude that Western education not only deprived him of his native tongue, but that it also
caused him to drift further apart from his family, from familial duties (which Tambu finds
disrespectful and lazy), until it eventually claimed his life. For this reason their mother was
opposed to Tambu “taking Ngamo’s place”.