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.
I also found the lack of support from Tambu’s family for her education frustrating and confusing. The familial relationships in the novel also interested me because I noticed moments of female bonding that reflected some of the ideas we discussed when reading Their Eyes Were Watching God. We had explored ideas about the ideal female listener for Janie being another woman and I felt that the sisterly bond in Nervous Conditions echoed this need for right female companionship. Pages 9 and 11 spoke to the desire for each younger woman to ease her elder’s burden – Tambu for her hardworking mother and Netsai for her older sister. Tambu compliments Netsai’s caring efforts, “touched by her concern” and “her pretty little face lit up from the inside” (11). This moment seemed exemplary of the ways in which these young sisters understand each other’s plight as a woman in this society. It also embodied their work to support one another even though they face the same oppressive system. The mother, on the other hand, had lived a lifetime in the role of both laborer and housewife, so did not express the same compassion for her daughters, knowing that this was their role as women. I found the bond of sisterhood and mutual understanding helpful in easing my discomfort with Tambu’s family’s lack of faith in her. Relationships between women have been very important to all the books we have read so far, so I feel that they are worth tracing throughout Nervous Conditions, especially as they differ in the contexts of age and class.
ReplyDeleteI think her father found it to be unnecessary for her to go to school if she eventually was going to be married and end up a wife and in the domestic sphere. Her aunt, Maiguru, is educated, unlike her mother, and still remains in the domestic sphere and her mother tells her that her “father was right because even Maiguru knew how to cook and clean and grow vegetables” (16). I think her mother sees some sort of inevitability in the role her culture has ascribed to her, and for that reason doesn’t really encourage her daughter to be more independent. Her mother has seen that even educated women still end up doing domestic work as wives, and tries to temper her daughter’s dreams so that she does not end up too disappointed. Rachel, I don’t think that there is necessarily a lack of compassion from her mother, but a resigned attitude towards the future in some ways. I think she definitely tries to encourage her daughter as much as she can to grow her own crop, but still tries to instill a sense of realism about how she knows her world works.
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