It was always very quiet, except on moonlit nights. The slower rate at which Dangarembga presents her story allows the reader to slow down and digest each image or idea at her or his leisure.
She comments continuously on a character or situation, attempting to evaluate her subject fairly, and then bites with an unexpectedly bitter observation:. Perhaps I am being unfair to [my brother], laying all this blame on him posthumously, when he cannot defend himself and when I have seen enough to know that blame does not come in neatly packaged parcels….
Thinking about it, feeling the injustice of it, this is how I came to dislike my brother, and not only my brother, my father, my mother — in fact everybody. Tambu tells the story of Nervous Conditions as an adult looking back on her youth with a more informed perspective.
The baroque voice that the elder Tambu inherits from Dangarembga first sets her apart from almost all the other characters in her novel and secondly reveals the sort of person that she has become as a result of the transformation that she undergoes between the events of this novel and her telling of them.
Though this sophisticated voice belongs to the elder Tambu, her ability to recount so much detail and to make such keen observations about other characters shows the curiosity that carried her to the top of her class and set the stage for her transformation.
I felt guilty about it. As he was our brother, he ought to be liked, which made disliking him all the more difficult. That I still managed to do so meant I must dislike him very much indeed! Tambu is highly self-aware, and her constant analysis of herself and others sets her apart from all of the other characters—with the possible exception of her anglicized cousin, Nyasha.
She's born and raised on a homestead in Rhodesia where her family lives in poverty. Because her uncle Babamukuru is wealthy and educated, he insists that Tambu and her older brother, Nhamo , attend school. When Jeremiah and Mainini run out of money to send Tambu, she feels the injustice sharply and raises the money herself. When Nhamo tries to thwart her attempt to raise money, Tambu begins to hate him, a feeling that persists until Nhamo's death.
At this point, Babamukuru decides to take Tambu to the mission school so that she can pull her family out of poverty. Tambu takes this responsibility very seriously and believes that, unlike Nhamo, she won't fall prey to the grandness of Babamukuru's house and make her look down on life at the homestead. Tambu is only partially successful in this endeavor. While she never stops loving parts of the homestead, such as the river Nyamarira , and continues to respect her parents, she's shocked when she discovers that things at home aren't as clean as when she left.
Tambu becomes friends with her cousin Nyasha , who introduces her to her library and engages her in conversation about poverty, racism, and sexism. Though Tambu finds these interesting, because she idolizes Babamukuru and believes that her job is to excel at school, she understands that thinking outside the box is dangerous. She refuses to stand up for herself when it comes to Babamukuru until he decides that her parents need to marry.
She believes the wedding will make a joke of her parents and refuses to go, but can only do so because she has an out-of-body experience. Tambu notes that her idolization of Babamukuru kept her from developing critical thinking skills. Despite this, Tambu is accepted to a prestigious Catholic school and is thrilled to attend, as she believes it'll help her help her family.
She doesn't realize until later, when she writes the novel, that the school system brainwashed her. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:.
Chapter One Quotes. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Nhamo. Related Themes: The Limits of Education. Page Number and Citation : 7 Cite this Quote. Explanation and Analysis:. Related Themes: Men vs. Page Number and Citation : 12 Cite this Quote. Chapter Two Quotes. Related Characters: Jeremiah speaker , Tambu , Nhamo. Page Number and Citation : 15 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 16 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 34 Cite this Quote. Chapter Three Quotes.
Related Symbols: England. Page Number and Citation : 38 Cite this Quote. Page Number and Citation : 56 Cite this Quote. Chapter Four Quotes. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Nyasha. Page Number and Citation : 63 Cite this Quote. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Babamukuru. Page Number and Citation : 64 Cite this Quote. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Babamukuru , Maiguru.
Related Themes: Colonialism. Page Number and Citation : 68 Cite this Quote. Related Themes: Obedience vs. Page Number and Citation : 70 Cite this Quote. Chapter Five Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 79 Cite this Quote. Chapter Six Quotes. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Chido.
Page Number and Citation : Cite this Quote. Chapter Seven Quotes. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Mainini , Lucia. Chapter Eight Quotes. Related Characters: Tambu speaker , Babamukuru , Nyasha. Chapter Nine Quotes. Related Characters: Maiguru speaker , Tambu , Babamukuru.
Chapter Ten Quotes. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Kwame Anthony Appiah introduces the novel by repeating its opening line: Tambu tells the reader that she wasn't sorry when her brother died.
Tambu goes on to She struggles to reconcile her moral upbringing with the Conditions doesn't in any way do this. Dangarembga uses Shona vocabulary with no explanation, and Tambu 's assessments of white people are uncomfortable. He suggests that in particular, the book's primary issue— This, Appiah suggests, is why Nervous Conditions has received so much worldwide Chapter One.
Tambu explains that she wasn't sorry when her brother died and has no intention of apologizing Nhamo dies when Tambu is thirteen. She and her family expect Nhamo to arrive from the mission by bus, Tambu doesn't understand why Nhamo feels this way. The walk home winds through fields where friends Tambu explains that it was Babamukuru's idea to enroll Nhamo at the mission in , as On this day in , Babamukuru has a meeting and therefore can't drive Nhamo, though Tambu suspects that Babamukuru secretly wants Nhamo to take the bus.
She explains that except for In the evening, Mainini goes to her vegetable garden and Tambu returns to the homestead. She expects to find Nhamo, but he's not there. Her younger Tambu knows that Nhamo is just exerting his power when he makes Netsai fetch his luggage Without a chicken to kill, Tambu turns to preparing the evening meal of sadza and vegetables. Netsai brings Tambu out of Chapter Two.
Stepping back in time, Tambu explains how they got to the point where she hated Nhamo. He begins school at Tambu asks her family members about the events surrounding Babamukuru's departure for England, as she doesn't Jeremiah told Tambu that she shouldn't mind not being in school, since she'd never be Jeremiah refused to work and earn the school fees himself, but Tambu had a plan: if he'd give her corn seed, she'd grow corn and raise the In addition to teaching Tambu how to grow corn, Tambu 's grandmother also taught family history.
She moved to the area Tambu tended her cornfields and completed all her other chores. Mainini began to discourage Tambu to Late in February, as Tambu 's crop ripened, the cobs began to disappear. Nhamo asked her what she expected. Tambu decided Tambu told Mr. Matimba the whole story. He suggested that Tambu sell her corn to Whites On Tuesday, Tambu climbed into the truck with Mr. He explained to her why the bumps on Finally, they got out of the car and stopped on a corner.
Tambu arranged her corn as Mr. Matimba tried, in English, to flag down an old white Matimba helped Tambu pack up and explained that he'd told Doris that Tambu was an orphan trying to Finally, they called in Mr. He pointed out that someday, Tambu will be able to earn more than ten pounds per month if she's educated. Tambu desperately wants to be a part of the travel preparations, and Jeremiah eventually tells her Chapter Three. Babamukuru arrives in a cavalcade of cars.
Netsai, Tambu , and their cousin Shupikai watch the cars approaching from miles away. When the cars get Tambu turns away, disgusted by Nyasha's inappropriate dress. She can't pinpoint why she also dislikes Chido, Tambu decides that the event is ruined because she wasn't allowed to go to the airport The other women are pleased when they discover Tambu cooking.
Tambu feels superior because she believes Nyasha wouldn't be able to cook such a Before the relatives can eat, Tambu has to carry a water dish for the relatives to wash their hands. She doesn't Tambu is offended; she never expected her cousins to change so much, and she can't fathom He struggles to remember Tambu 's name.
The family praises Babamukuru's Jeremiah tells Nhamo the plan the next day. Nhamo feels extremely important and tells Tambu about it as she waters vegetables with water from Nyamarira. He insists that there's nobody Tambu throws a rock towards Nhamo but misses.
She begins to charge him, but he runs Tambu ignores Nhamo for a while after that. Mainini is very upset about it, especially since Nhamo's absence also means that when Babamukuru comes to visit on the weekends with Nyasha, Tambu is able to try to be friends with Nyasha. Tambu is unsuccessful, as Nyasha refuses He leaves to tell the neighbors and let them spread the news.
Tambu finds that she's not sad about Nhamo; she's mostly sad for him because his life He suggests that Tambu come to the mission to be educated so she can support them until she marries Chapter Four. Tambu can barely describe her feelings as she gets into Babamukuru's car. She feels as though Tambu remembers her first car ride to sell her corn and thinks about what life will Despite having heard stories about the grandness of Babamukuru's house, Tambu is still shocked when they turn up the drive.
She thinks of her own home Tambu 's spirits begin to fall when she notices a smaller house by the grand one; she Tambu descends into self-pity and then worries about it, but nothing can lift her spirits. It sounds like she is desperately trying to prove to Nhamo and those who doubted her that she is better than Nhamo and is a good investment for her family. Too bad Nhamo is dead, yet she is still fighting this battle with herself and Nhamo on whether she will be smarter and better at maintaining her humility being already exposed to a better life.
Gender inequality and sexual discrimination was a big issue in the novel. Tambu is raised in her family to believed that she should became a good housewife in the future. She was denied the education opportunities that was available to her brother just because he was a male and the eldest in the family. All she wanted was to let her see herself when she fails in the end.
It kind of sad how the only opportunity that she has to become someone great came from the death of his brother. When Nhamo dies, since there is no other boy to take his place. Tambu is the only one in the place for the role of future provider. Giving her the education opportunity that she always wanted. Men in society is portray as strong, protective and the ones who makes big decision. Men are not supposed to show sign of weakness, Men are not supposed to show sympathy for other men.
Even in society today, men are often the one who makes big decision in the household. While a lot of women nowadays are still in the house being housewives. Their duty in family is to do house work and take care of their kids. It assimilates everything it touches into itself through various methods, but the most powerful converter to Westernism is language, and Frantz Fanon seems to have a healthy respect or maybe disdain is a better word for this aspect of communication.
Achebe makes a great point, with what weapon is he to fight back with? This is a very practical, pragmatic viewpoint. For the scars of Westernism run deep, in fact, they probably will never heal. Peel back the scab of Imperialism and you will find the language, art, and economic and social structures of Europe festering. But this idea relates to a point I was trying to make in class about Babamukuru and the education system in Rhodesia. Even though he is viewed as a positive character, a godsend to his family, and a man of great social stature, I see him as perpetuating the gradual cultural take-over of the Natives.
Think about it, the driving conflict within the narrator is one of a yearning for education and breaking away from the patriarchal structure of her family, and yet this education she so sorely desires is actually propagating the social differences between her people. As her extended family becomes more and more enamored and dependent on her uncle, they are actually becoming addicted to Western culture, to the monstrous machine that is slowly dissolving their native culture and making their children forget their language literally.
But, can something so inevitable, something so set in stone in our 21st Century Global Village, be viewed as negatively as I portray it here? The mind reels. One major difference that struck me is the fact that Ngugis main focus is the disruption of his peoples by the British Colonizer. Plot wise I feel nervous conditions focuses more on the family than the British settlers, at least so far.
Although A Grain of Wheat was also family based it involved many, many different types of characters all taking shape in one form or another unlike nervous conditions where there is a central family with a character detailing her own hardships. In addition it seems as if the story is about a more prosperous African sect. I feel there is going to be a drastic change in the plot of nervous conditions but, either way I appreciate now having a female account of the state of emergency and how gender differences played critical roles in the shaping of Africans during imperialism.
Tambu the protagonist of the story is trying to break free of this society. In her attempts to educate herself and become more than what is predetermined and expected of her because of her gender, she is belittled and degraded by the men in her family father and brother.
As a parent her father should want to see his child succeed, regardless of gender, but he sees his daughters education as being of no use to him, which makes him a very selfish man. Her father says she should stay home and learn to cook and be a good wife and mother. Her mother agrees with the father, but also tells the father to let Tambu go about on her road to achieving her desire to become an educated woman so Tambu can witness failure and disappointment on her own. Even though the mother says these things, I believe she is using reverse psychology on the father.
At first I was a bit confused and saddened by the opening sentence, but then as I read on I understood Tambu and felt sympathy for this young girl. Tambu, regardless of her abilities and talents was second in the family, not by choice, but by gender. Gender plays a huge role in the opening chapters of this novel. That was why I was in Standard three in the year Nhamo died, instead of in Standard Five, as I should have been by that age.
They were to work strictly for the men. Stay home with your mother. Learn to cook and clean. Grow vegetables. If Tambu wanted to be educated, she should be proud of that choice. Tambu loved going to school it was a shame that she had to sacrifice that because she was a women. I loved Tambus strength towards her father. She knows what his response will be when she tells her parents she will go to school again, but she says it anyway. She tells him she has a plan to raise money for her fees but he just laughs at her.
I think if Tambus mother shared in her strength they could fight for a better life. From the beginning of the book, the divide between men and women is painted. Both Tambu and Nhamo were attending school, but when finances went south and the family could only afford to send one child to school, they choose Nhamo.
That in itself is a controversial issue because why is it that when it comes to education, men are deemed superior over women? This book was written at least 20 years ago and women are still behind men in various ways. Throughout the first 34 pages of the novel, Dangarembga makes it apparent that she is going to tease out the distinctions between what women are said to do and what women actually want to do.
At the end of chapter 2, Tambu tells us that her father grows agitated with her reading and thinks that it is making her useless for the real tasks of feminine living Dangarembga After reading that passage I laughed because he is ignorant. Even though they are living in a different age and in a patriarchal society, old traditions die hard. When he goes to school and becomes a scholar, he thinks he is better that his family that stays home working to live.
Nhamo wants to change his class and will stop at no costs. It goes headfirst into the gender distinctions as evident within the characters of Tambu and her father. Those two characters are one of the main examples but not the only example. We also get a sense of the role of women from the characters of the mother, Nhamo, Maiguru, and the grandmother. I especially liked the interactions between Tambu and her grandmother. Not only did was she and her children banished from her farm, her husband dies and she is left to support six children.
As her extended family becomes more and more enamored and dependent on her uncle, they are actually becoming addicted to Western culture and making their children forget their language literally. Tambu desires to educate herself because she is dissatisfied with her role in the family, imposed on her by the male dominated society she has been born into.
Nhamo displays an inability to speak his native Shona with his family preferring to speak English. He has made a deliberate attempt to suppress his language, and in doing so, his culture. She knows this but that is not her only reason for wanting to be educated.
Tambu remarks that her aunt, Maiguru, always smells good, wears clean clothes and appears rested. Tambu knows that by educating herself she can provide a life of basic comfort for her family, especially her mother who is married to a lazy, moocher. His brother Jeremiah takes advantage of this role.
There is no evidence that he is encouraging his children to abandon their native language.
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