Nervous Conditions
Published in 1988, Nervous Conditions is Tsitsi Dangarembga's first novel, and it is by any measure a very fine first novel. In fact, it wears the laurel and the burden of being the first novel in English by a woman from Zimbabwe. In addition to beautiful descriptions of the setting, the characters are drawn with bold yet nuanced strokes, and then set in rotating contrasts to each other.
The narrator Tambu is contrasted with her slightly older brother Nhamo, and, when he dies, takes his place as the family's hope at the mission school. Tambu is then contrasted with her cousin Nyasha, who has just returned from England with her parents. Tambu is bent on obedience, education, and self-improvement, but Nyasha kept distracting her with larger questions. Tambu's father may be compared to Nyasha's father, only to make clear the apparent gulf between them. The former is lazy and weak whereas the latter was strong and authoritarian.
Tambu's mother is also contrasted with Nyasha's mother, and then with Tambu's aunt Lucia, in a study of how women and wives cope with patriarchy. The first is uneducated and conforming, the second is educated and conforming, and the third does exactly what she wants, with herself and her body. The novel is very interested in the situations of women under patriarch, and not just patriarchy, but a patriarchy heavily colored by colonialism. As Nyasa, near the end of the novel, who is wasting away due to anorexia, cries out over her alienated family in a powerful lament:
The novel gets its title from Frantz Fanon, who wrote in his book-length tract The Wretched of the Earth: "The condition of native is a nervous condition." Like Fanon, Dangarembga worked as a psychologist, and her diagnosis of the postcolonial condition agrees with his.
The narrator Tambu is contrasted with her slightly older brother Nhamo, and, when he dies, takes his place as the family's hope at the mission school. Tambu is then contrasted with her cousin Nyasha, who has just returned from England with her parents. Tambu is bent on obedience, education, and self-improvement, but Nyasha kept distracting her with larger questions. Tambu's father may be compared to Nyasha's father, only to make clear the apparent gulf between them. The former is lazy and weak whereas the latter was strong and authoritarian.
Tambu's mother is also contrasted with Nyasha's mother, and then with Tambu's aunt Lucia, in a study of how women and wives cope with patriarchy. The first is uneducated and conforming, the second is educated and conforming, and the third does exactly what she wants, with herself and her body. The novel is very interested in the situations of women under patriarch, and not just patriarchy, but a patriarchy heavily colored by colonialism. As Nyasa, near the end of the novel, who is wasting away due to anorexia, cries out over her alienated family in a powerful lament:
'They've done it to me,' she accused. whispering still. 'Really, they have.' And then she became stern, 'It's not their fault. They did it to them too. You know they did,' she whispered. 'To both of them, but especially to him. They put him through it all. But it's not his fault, he's good.' Her voice took on a Rhodesian accent. 'He's a good boy, a good munt. A bloody good kaffir,' she informed in sneering sarcastic tones. Then she was whispering again. 'Why do they do it, Tambu," she hissed bitterly, her face contorting with rage, 'to me and to you and to him? Do you see what they've done? They've taken us away, Lucia. Takesure. All of us. They've deprived you of you, him of him, ourselves of each other. We're grovelling. Lucia for a job, Jeremiah for money, Daddy grovels to them. We grovel to him."
The novel gets its title from Frantz Fanon, who wrote in his book-length tract The Wretched of the Earth: "The condition of native is a nervous condition." Like Fanon, Dangarembga worked as a psychologist, and her diagnosis of the postcolonial condition agrees with his.
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