His Woes are Her Woes

A passage that holds many truths and connections to other themes we have discussed in our class is on page 50.

“But in those days I took a rosy view of male nature. After an episode like that, grotesque and sad picture of my father and Nhamo in relation to Babamukuru and my cousin would come to my mind. I wanted my father and Nhamo to stand up straight like Babamukuru, but they always looked…………..He didn't need to be bold any more because he had made himself plenty of power. Plenty of power. Plenty of money. A lot of education. Plenty of everything.”(50)

It is of ones best interest to reread the entire passage. This passage discusses similarities in the plight of African American women and other women who are considered Black. Nervous Conditions speak on the plight of Black women being more than about race and gender, but about poverty and gender too. The passage gives room to compare the treatment of wives and daughters by husbands/fathers of poverty and wealth. Black men of poverty have more woes that are inflicted by other institutions, which lead them to inflict this same pain on their families. The narrator suggests, “They had to bully whoever they could to stay in the picture at all.”(50) Dangerembga compares Babamukuru to Jeremiah by their wealth, education, power possession, “evil wizards spell”, and composure.  

The passage insists that these men of poverty, who struggle,  need to have some sense of power. First, we have to define power. What is power? One is who has power is described as being male, being educated, having money, and being a good lover. Babamukuru is described as being powerful and educated, however, his brother Jeremiah does not have power nor education in the community. So, he attempts to proclaim his throne of power by bullying his wife and daughter. The lack of power in the “outside world” and the struggles and hardships of these men cause them to intensify the woes of their families such as Tambudzai and Ma’Shingayi. But, a powerful man like Babamukuru, who does not endure the struggles of a man of poverty because he is educated, wealthy, and powerful, does not bully his wife or children to give himself a sense of power and control since he has power in the “outside world”. The narrator exclaims, “Through hard work and determination he had broken the evil wizards’ spell. Babamukuru was not a person to be reckoned with in his own right. He didn't need to bully anybody anymore.”(50) He has no need to bully Maiguru or Nyasha because he lacks woes inflicted by other institutions like men who are impoverished and lack power in the “outside world”.  

It is an intra vs inter type of system. We are able to compare the plight of African American men, heaving the burden of African American women and other Black men presented in the novel. The branches of the the tree are different, but still bear the same fruit, in which Black men of America woes during this time (60s) stemmed from White America placing obstacles in their path. However, the novel presents a different oppressor. It seems as if it’s an intra system. The oppression is indirect and involves change and adaption. Overall, the wives and daughters of these men who lack power and struggle are bullied because of his wounds.

Do you agree with my analysis of this passage? What are your thoughts? Are you able to make other connections?

Nervous Conditions-Burdens and Sacrifices

It does not take long for readers to understand the first sentence of the novel and how at the end of chapter one Tambu grows to dislike everybody. (12) Tambu suffers from a problem we have seen a lot of our female characters struggle with, being regulated as unimportant based on their race and gender. One part of the novel that really caught my attention was the passage on page 16.  In this passage Tambu’s mother gives her a speech about the burdens that they as black women have to carry and how it is important to carry these burdens “with strength.’”(16). This part really frustrated me because it seems that in all the novels that we have read that many women recognized that they are oppressed and hindered by their race and gender but  few except the main characters of the story are truly bothered by these circumstances. I was curious why any mother would want their daughter to struggle under these burdens and learn to deal with them instead of throwing them off and striving to be more.  I see this type of thinking in many different characters such as Janie’s, Jacobs’, and Sula’s grandmothers and Nell’s mother. There are probably even more characters that fit this description.

The other part that frustrated me about this speech is the section about sacrifices. Why does Tambu have to learn how to sacrifice at an early age? Why are women the ones who have to accept and be the ones to sacrifice? A part of the speech is something that also seems like a repeat for me especially when I think about Janie’s grandmother speech about love. I think it is interesting who we are constantly seeing similar themes in stories about women who live different lives and even live in different parts of the world. 

Education in Nervous Conditions

In Nervous Conditions, we see the pedestal that education is put on, but it is only seen as a male opportunity and obligation. Babamukuru specifies this, “we need to ensure that at least one member from each is educated, at least to Form Four standard, because after that he will be in a position to take a course”(44). The emphasis is put on he, thus only affording males the right to be praised and put in positions of power. Babamukuru’s homecoming shows the extent that his family praises him as they refer to him as God and kneel in his presence.

The relationship between Babamukuru and the rest of the village reminds me of colonialism, where European ideology of non-western cultures contribute to intraracial dynamics. Babamukuru comes back from England with concerns and expectations of his people on how to achieve success in their lives, as he sees education is the only way to obtain success. Interestingly enough, when Jeremiah suggests that everyone graduates, Babamukuru is quick to shut him down, “that is not a useful contribution. We must look for useful solutions. We cannot afford to dream”(45) Babamukuru represented two colonial aspects: the disregard for native thoughts/opinions and the justification of biases. In the one breath, Babamukuru solidified the hierarchy of education by denouncing his brother’s statement and attributing the want of education for all as a dream. We see the effects of euro-centric ideology with Nhamo and his distancing himself from his native ways and we see Tambu struggle with not succumbing to English influences.

Much like the colonial pressure of educating "primitive people", Babamukuru's intentions establishes values of classism and the detachment of native practices and traditions. Education is important, but is it the answer for all cultures? Can it be implemented in ways that do not establish hierarchies and social statuses? 

Nervous Conditions

Dangerembga’s text certainly does stress the gender stereotypes of men and women. I was having trouble understanding why Ma’Shingayi’s (the daughter) parents were so unsupportive of her going to school and only supportive of her brother, Nhamo. A passage to refer to would be on page 15:

“In this way she [the mother] scraped together enough money to keep my brother in school. I understood that there was not enough money for my fees. Yes, I did understood why I could not go back to school, but I loved going to school and I was good at it. Therefore, my circumstances affected me badly. My father thought I should not mind.  ‘It that anything to worry about? Ha, its nothing,’ he reassured me, with his usual ability to jump whichever way was easiest. ‘Can you cook books and feed them to your husband? Stay at home with your mother. Learn to cook and clean. Grow vegetables.’”

Ma’Shingayi’s mother and further intentionally try to discourage her from wanting to go to school. Her mother reminds her that since she is a female that she will have to learn to sacrifice so that the male will have the opportunity instead, for instance her having to sacrifice her education so that her brother may have one instead. It was puzzling to me that her father was unsupportive of her going to school and telling her she will have her husband to rely on but that was not the case in their own family. Ma’Shingayi’s mother seemed to be doing most of the manual labor, such as tending to the crops and selling the vegetables to make sure that Nhamo could continue going to school, but the father failed to make an attempt to help. Jeremiah depended on his own brother’s education in order to support his own family and even Ma’Shingayi’s mother hoped that once Jeremiah’s brother left for England, it would give him the opportunity to become more responsible.             

                             

If Ma’Shingayi’s parents knew that this was what their life consisted of, especially her mother, why would she try to discourage her daughter from going to school and allowing her to be more independent? Their situation proves that relying on the man of the house is not always the ideal situation. Ma’Shingayi’s mother, father and brother consistently remind her that she cannot go to school because she is a girl and that that is just a burden that she will have to accept. 

Nervous Conditions and Gender Roles

A central theme of Nervous Conditions is Tambu's inability to attend school, due to the gender and racial constraints placed on her. Throughout the first few chapters, she points out that this came from all facets of her life -- her father, her brother, and her mother all tell her that she cannot go to school, that she will never be able to make it, that even if she could the skills that she will be learning will not be useful to her. Rather than internalize this, she fights against it from a very young age. "My mother said being black was a burden because it made you poor, but Babamukuru was not poor," she tells us. "My mother said being a woman was a burden because you had to bear children and look after them and the children. But I did not think this was true. ... [Maiguru] was altogether a different kind of woman from my mother. I decided it was better to be like Maiguru, who was not poor and had not been crushed by the weight of womanhood" (Conditions 16).

She looks at what her family are telling her and does not internalize the restrictions placed on her. When she wishes to sell her maize, she does so even though there is no one to encourage her, and grows resentful of the idea that she can only be a wife and never educated. When she is told that she cannot go to school because there is no money, she does not think of how unfair this is; she decides that she will make it for herself since her family will not provide for her. At the age of eight, she has learned that self-sufficiency is the most important thing. While she still faces backlash, in the end she manages to make the money that her parents did not provide. At every turn there are attempts to thwart her made by her brother and her father (and, more passively, her mother) but she does not allow herself to be deterred. What is important to her is education, and she does not see a difference between herself and her brother, even though she is a girl. When, in fact, her brother points out that the reason she cannot go to school is because she is a girl, she says, "I was no longer listening. My concern for my brother died an unobtrusive death" (Conditions 21).

Importantly, however, the restrictions being placed on her by the different members of her family are coming from different points of concern. Her father wishes to keep her under his thumb; he does not want her to make money on her own because when she does she will leave him and he will not receive any of the benefits. When she has made ten pounds from selling her maize, he fights with the headmaster on it, saying, "Have you ever heard of a woman who remains in her father's house? ... She will meet a young man and I will lose everything" (Conditions 30). He does not want his daughter to succeed unless he will see some of the rewards coming from it. Her mother, on the other hand, is coming from a place of resignation and the idea that women should take care of the household because it is the more moral thing to do. In her long paragraph on page 16, she asks her, "Aren't we the ones who bear children? When it is like that you can't just decide today I want to do this, tomorrow I want to do that, the next day I want to be educated! ... And these days it is worse, with the poverty of blackness on one side and the weight of womanhood on the other." There is not the selfishness here, but a concern for her daughter's future and a sense of obligation. Finally, her brother is simply doing as he has been taught. "Perhaps I am making it seem as though Nhamo simply decided to be obnoxious, when in reality that was not the case; when in reality he was doing no more than behave, perhaps extremely, in the expected manner" (Conditions 12). While she is angry at him, and has lost concern for him, she recognizes now, later in life, that he was not entirely in charge of the things he said and the way he treated her.

Regardless of the different perspectives, Tambu solemnly tells us, "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" (Conditions 12). With all of the different pressures and her inability to freely do as she wished, she grew to dislike and resent her whole family and everyone standing in her way.

Sacrifice and Self-Esteem in Nervous Conditions

     Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions highlights different yet converging themes of feminism in a transnational context. A principle premise of Conditions is Tambu's inability to attend school. The reason for this obstacle is mostly described as a sort of sacrifice. "I understood that there was not enough money for my fees. Yes, I did understand why I could not go back to school, but I loved going to school and I was good at it," the narrator writes (15). Perhaps viewing this as a sacrifice for her family's livelihood would've alleviated Tambu's pain. However, this sacrifice was not described to her as a familial duty or even a result of unfair structural issues. On the contrary, the sacrifice to not attend school was accepted and articulated as an expected norm as oppose to a necessary action for the wellbeing of the family. Indeed, it was supposed to be "natural" for Tambu to reject the whole notion of going to school. The narrator writes, "My yearning to go must have shown...because my father called me aside to implore me to curb my unnatural inclinations: it was natural for me to stay at home and prepare for the homecoming" (33). The use of the word natural deserves further analysis. 

     This essentialism attached to being a woman is fascinating. According to both her father and deceased brother Nhamo, Tambu should possess a natural affinity to the home. Even further, she shouldn't possess any interest at all outside of it. Her brother states this plainly to Tambu in an conversation arguing that, "I go to school. You go nowhere" (21). Members of Tambu's family are consistently reiterating the gender norms of her society. It is unnatural for her to go to school, her responsibilities as a woman already being established. 

     Even when Tambu finally is given the chance to go to school, she realizes the "self-esteem curb" she has to overcome. She was well aware of the shame her brother had for their way of living and had even accepted it as a shameful thing (12-14). Reflecting on her appearances as she heads to school, Tambu describes herself as a peasant, albeit physically almost exclusively. "It was evident from the corrugated black callouses on my knees, the scales on my skin that were due to a lack of oil, the short, dull tufts of my malnourished hair" (58). In this passage, the narrator describes the characteristics of a laborer as opposed to a student or scholar. This physical class status is a source of shame for Tambu, which is already layered with the fact that she is a young woman going to school. Regardless of these forces, Tambu takes full advantage of this opportunity to be educated. What I appreciate most about this text is the intersectional narrative that is embedded from the very beginning. It seems as if blackness is often conflated with class, a notion I look forward to deconstructing within our discussions. 

Nervous Conditions

There were instances of gender inequalities and I think that topic is something that is very fresh and very relevant in also today’s society. During the book it was very obvious that inequality played a tremendous factor in crushing the ambition of girls while also making them think twice before assisting future female generations.  During her book she is faced with times of hardship as females have little opportunity to succeed.

“And these days it is worse, with the poverty of blackness on one side and the weight of womanhood on the other. Aiwa! What will help you, my child, is to learn to carry your burdens with strength.”

She argues that being a black female is twice as hard. And I would agree, as if life of all females wasn’t hard enough I could only imagine how hard the life of a black female would be. Having even less opportunities because of their skin colors. Ma’Shingay tells her daughter that rather than fighting against the conditions she wants her to accept the conditions. In this quote I think it also shows the difference in the women and the tradition behind it as each attitude is very different. Ma’Shingay may seem very traditional but she also grows jealous of her brother in law an she is very much against how much society cherishes men over women and she sees the inequality. I thought this was a very important quote because it went along perfectly with the representation of inequality throughout the book as well as the strength black women need to having seeing that they have twice as much of a burden due to their gender and race.

-Sierra Romero