Nervous Condition is a novel written by Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga in 1988, and it is situated in imagined Rhodesia. Nervous Conditions derives its title from Jean-Paul Sartre’s renowned introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961), which states that ‘The colonial condition is a nervous condition’. Dangarembga’s female characters (Nyasha, Maiguru, MaShingayi and Tambu) experience nervous conditions brought about by gender discrimination, social class and the cultural norms, which downgrade these women to inferior positions.
The story starts its development after the death of Nhamo. The elder brother of Tambu’s father, Babmukuru, proposed educating a member of each family, focusing especially on the neediest branch, Tambu’s clan. The family chose Nhamo to go to the mission school, but after his sudden death, Tambu is selected to replace him.
Sympathy or “no ego” concept is the basic idea that is raised under the theory of Nego Feminism. The notion of this aspect is Africa had a culture of sympathy. People are characterized by exceeding the needs of others than self-interest. The proposer of the theory Obioma Nneameka found this approach to be the principle of examining women and men relationship based on this factual trait of the continent. Especially African woman is supposed to be sympathetic and cooperative with others at the expense of own interest and individual-based benefit. This idea had emanated from the principle of shared culture of the continent. The logic behind this aspect is when the woman becomes sympathetic for others around her she can preserve or even change the environment into peaceful and harmonious destiny. Her sympathy can also help her get what she wanted from people if she is too strategical in her approach.
Though literary materials are creative and not found in the real world, the writer creates fictitious world based on the tangible and factual life of the people. The novel Nervous Condition as the writer Tsitsi Dangarembga said it in her interview, is written based on a true story partly of her during the colonial period. Thus the reflected phenomenon can show the real cultural practice of the people of the country. Here under are the detected references that portray the sympathy of the women in that period. Have a good read.
The major character is Tambu and the story revolves around this young girl thoroughly. Tambu’s family was poor and was not able to cover the school fees for her and her brother at a time. The family only paid Nhamo’s schooling. Teaching boys was preferred in that setting since it was believed that teaching girls could not help their family because when the girls got married, they are supposed to leave their salary for their husband. Thus, their own family could not get any benefit from them. In addition to this, the traditional patriarchy appreciates male sections to educate than females. Females are expected to stay home for household works. For these reasons, it was Tambu’s brother who was sent to school, and she was supposed to stay at home.
This was the decision of the family because women were not required in the fields of self-cultivation. On the contrary, what they were required to do was to be engaged in feminine jobs that were instructed and allocated by the family and the society. As Tambu narrated the story their mother had started boiling eggs and sold them to the passengers for covering Nhamo’s school payment. It was Tamubu’s mother who was responsible for working such jobs that could incur money for supporting the family but not their father who did take this responsibility. In this incident, Tambu did not insist on her family to send her to school in any way. Rather, she began to think about reasons that pushed her parents to make such a decision. “I understood that selling vegetables was not a lucrative business. I understood that there was not enough money for my fees. Yes, I did understand why I could not go back to school, … my circumstances affected me badly” (Dangarembga, 1988, p. 15).
Tambu was not selfish and ignorant about her family’s economic status. However, she didn’t stop thinking about her education too. Even if her goal was to continue her education, she logically tried to identify strategies that could help her go back to school without affecting the economy of her family. Instead of blaming her family and giving up her education, she looked for a solution for her financial problem. She had started planting maize cobs for sell. But her brother Nhamo was so selfish and inherited patriarchal ideology from the family and the society. He was not happy to see his sister going back to school. He wanted to be the only one who should get educated and respected in the family. This was evident that when Tambu’s crops of maize were ready for selling, they disappeared. The narrator told this to the reader as: “A few days later, when the cobs were ripe for eating, they began to disappear” (Dangarembga, 1988, p. 21).
Tambu was disappointed by the happening. It was her brother who stole them and gave them to school friends as her friends told her later on. He did this as he didn’t want Tambu to go to school. When she faced him about the matter, he responded that: “what did you expect?’ Nhamo said. ‘Did you really think you would send yourself to school?” (Dangarembga, 1988, p. 21).
This shows that Nhamo was very self-centered and insensitive about how Tambu would feel. She did not stop planting the cobs. She continued working hard on the farm since she had decided to continue her education in any way. Even if she was staying at home with routine house chores and besides he was her younger brother, she was serving him without any complain. Therefore, Tambu was not selfish and ego centric as he was. This helped her to create good relations with the family and at the same time this could teach the society about the relevance of selflessness. Here I can say that. Since Tambu respected her culture, she did not confront her family or her brother; rather she used the cultural production of maize to solve the problem.
In the novel, the writer describes two important situations through the characters. First, there are characters who hate their cultures and identities that they nurture from the family and the society in that specific setting. This was seen in Nhamo’s reaction to the news which was about his shifting to his uncle Babamukuru’s house so that he could have a decent education.
“I shall no longer be Jeremiah’s son. … I shall wear shoes and socks, and shorts with no holes in them, all brand new, bought for me by Babamukuru. He has the money. I will even have underwear – a vest and pants. I shall have a jersey in winter, and probably a blazer too. I shall stop using my hands to eat. I will use a knife and fork” (Dangarembga, 1988, p. 48).
Here what fascinated the boy was the values that he was going to astray from, and the values that he was going to hold in his uncle’s house. This means that this boy was not happy with the identity he had developed at his home. He went to the extreme of forbidding his father. His father was too poor and an-educated; that was why Nhamo has got such identity. The luxuries that he was eager to have did not belong to him. He did not rationally think about how he would handle the benefits he would get from the new situations, from his uncle Babamukuru. He was self-centered and material-centered.
Unlike her brother, Tambu was proud of being who she was, and she adores her culture which was the source of her identity. But she hated those consequences of poverty driven aspects. She didn’t hate the values she acquired from her family and the society. She dreams to see a new personality when she went to her uncle’s house; the new personality which was not irritated by economic insufficiency. This was mentioned in the extract under:
“Corrugated black callouses on my knees, the scales on my skin that were due to lack of oil, the short, dull tufts of malnourished hair. This was the person I was leaving behind. At Babamukuru’s I expected to find another self, a clean, well-groomed, genteel self who could not have been bred, could not have survived, on” (Dangarembga, 1988, p. 58-59).
The wish of Tambu was personal improvement. Since she was worrying about economic insufficiency, the only way out was education. After she got educated, she could help the family like Babamukuru. This can be inferred from the fact that she was frequently mentioning her uncle’s support to her family. She was always fully committed to education because she wished to be educated like him since education brings about social and economic advancement.
The essence of sympathy was also revealed through the wife of Babamukuru and other characters in the novel. Their no ego reflections will be examined in the coming article.
BY MEKDES TAYE (PhD)
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 25 JULY 2024
