Zambezia (1994), XXI (I).TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONS:AN ATTEMPT IN THE FEMINIST TRADITIONROSEMARY MOYANADepartment of Curriculum and Arts Education, University of ZimbabweAbstractThis article discusses Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions as an attemptin the feminist tradition. It begins by examining the meanings of the words'gender', 'female', 'feminist' and 'feminine' and then goes on to analyse theroles of the men and women in the novel to show why it should be categorizedas feminist. It is basically through these roles that Dangarembga gives strengthto the woman's voice.IN NERVOUS CONDITIONS1 Tsitsi Dangarembga has portrayed men and womenwho interact with each other in a certain way. Women in particular havebeen portrayed from a different perspective from that portrayed in earlierZimbabwean Literature in English.2 The woman's voice here is significantlyfeminist and the evidence for this is found at the end of the novel whereTambudzai asserts herself with neither fear nor apology.It is a process of becoming that she describes. Treva Broughton hascorrectly observed that Nervous Conditions 'is a hopeful book, both in itssense of impending change... and in the scope and subtlety of its critiqueof gender relations within and beyond the boundaries of race and class'.3The women in the novel clearly undergo some struggle and they emergeas different persons at the end. It is the nature of this struggle and changewhich we need to study and understand so that we can appreciate thekind of new woman created by Dangarembga in her work; so that we canunderstand why we say that this woman's voice is significantly feminist.To begin with, let us formally decide whether or not this novel isindeed written in the feminist tradition. That would help us to understandthe position of its female characters vis-a-vis its male characters. To dothat, we should first define gender because it is central to our analysis ofthe issues in the novel. Anthony Easthope has pointed out three bases forconsidering gender, namely: the biological body; our social roles of male1 Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (Harare, ZPH, 1988). Further references to thistext will be simply by page number.2 See discussion of some of these women In Rudo Galdzanwa's Images of Women inZimbabwean Literature (Harare, The College Press, 1985).3 Treva Broughton, Southern Africa Review of Books, blurb at the beginning of TsitsiDangarembga's Nervous Conditions.2324 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSand female; and, thirdly, the way we internalize and live out these roles.4These three ways of considering gender interact at different times in thelives of people and that interaction can determine a person's outlook andtreatment of others. On the same issue, Greene and Kahn state:Feminist literary criticism is one branch of interdisciplinary enquiry which takesgender as a fundamental organizing category of experience . . . [and that] theinequality of the sexes is neither a biological given nor a divine mandate, but acultural construct and therefore a proper subject of study for any humanistic disci-pline.5 (emphasis mine.)The 'inequality of sexes' being referred to here comes about becausedifferent fields of knowledge and different cultures have been dominatedby the assumption that the male perspective is the 'universal' perspective.6Greene and Kahn argue that that is why the feminist perspective 'leads toa critique of our sex-gender system', the 'sex-gender system' being:'that set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex andprocreation is shaped by human social intervention'7 ... [The fact] that men havepenises and women do not, that women bear children and men do not, are biologi-cal facts which have no determinate meaning in themselves but are invested withvarious symbolic meanings by different cultures.8 (emphasis mine.)The above statements clarify Easthope's consideration of gender as itpertains to Dangarembga's work to be discussed here. Gender incorporatesboth the biological and the social constructs in humanity. However, thesocial construct often has an upper hand in determining people's interactionwith one another, which explains the reason why feminists always findthemselves confronting one universal truth: 'that whatever power or statusmay be accorded to women in a given culture, they are still, in comparisonto men, devalued as "the second sex".9 This is a crucial statement for us aswe shall see later in our discussion of Dangarembga's novel. The statement4 Anthony Easthope, What a Man Gotta Do? (London, Paladin Grafton Books, 1986), 1.5 Gayle Greene and Coppelia Kahn, 'Feminist scholarship and the social construction ofwoman', in Gayle Greene and Coppelia Kahn (eds.), Making a Difference: Feminist LiteraryCriticism (London and New York, Methuen, 1985), 1.6 Ibid., 2.7 Here Greene and Kahn refer to Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in her article, 'Placing women'shistory in history', New Left Review (May-June, 1982), 14-15; and to Gayle Rubin's article, 'Thetraffic in women: Notes on the "Political economy" of sex', in Rayna Rapp Reiter (ed.), Towardan Anthropology of Women (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1975), 165.8 Greene and Kahn, Making a Difference, 2.9 Ibid.R. MOYANA 25is further elucidated by Simone de Beauvoir's thesis that 'one is not born,but rather becomes a woman... it is civilization as a whole that producesthis creature'.10Our second task is to pursue the question of whether the novel is inthe feminist tradition. For this we need to understand the meaning of thatterm. Toril Moi has made a pertinent distinction between "feminism" asa political position, "femaleness" as a matter of biology and "femininity" asa set of culturally defined characteristics.11 She goes on to elaborate that'feminist criticism... is a specific kind of political discourse: a critical andtheoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism,not simply a concern for gender in literature ...'12 Greene and Kahn saythe same thing in different words:Feminist scholarship both originates and participates in the larger efforts of femi-nism to liberate women from the structures that have marginalized them; and assuch it seeks not only to reinterpret, but to change the world.13It is 'characterized by its political commitment to the struggle againstall forms of patriarchy and sexism [and] not all books written by womenon women .. . exemplify anti-patriarchal commitment'.14 The question istherefore, whether or not we can place Dangarembga's novel comfortablywithin the feminist tradition, or whether it is merely within the feminine orfemale tradition.According to Toril Moi, female writing is that which simply describeswomen's experience and in most cases such experience is 'made visible inalienating, deluded or degrading ways';15 experience exemplified by theMills and Boon stories or for that matter, the kind of experiences describedby Flora Nwapa in her two novels, Idu and Efiiru,16 which tend to reinforcethe belief in the universal truism of man's dominance and superiority overwoman and in the rightful place of the woman being in the kitchen. Suchworks are obviously not emancipatory reading for women even thoughthey are written by women. Thus, the latter are within the female traditionand 'to believe that common female experience in itself gives rise to a10 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex trans. H. M. Parshley (New York, Vintage, 1952),301.11 Toril Moi, 'Feminist literary criticism', in Ann Jefferson and David Robey (eds.),Modem Literary Theory, A Comparative Introduction (Totowa, New Jersey, Barnes and NobleBooks, 1982, 2nd edn., 1986), 204.12 Ibid.13 Greene and Kahn, Making a Difference, 2.14 Toril Moi, 'Feminist literary criticism', 206.15 Ibid., 207.16 Flora Nwapa, Idu (London, Heinemann, 1970); Efuru (London, Heinemann, 1978).26 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSfeminist analysis of women's situation, is to be at once politically naiveand theoretically unaware',17 as Moi declares. The differences betweenthe two traditions are clearly marked and the two traditions may not bemixed.By the same token, many feminists have regarded the word 'feminine'as representative of social constructs, i.e., 'patterns of sexuality andbehaviour imposed by cultural and social norms'. Hence, "feminine"represents nurture, and "female" nature in this usage.18Having examined the meanings of the terms gender, feminist, feminineand female, I would argue that Dangarembga's novel is in the feministtradition. The author does not merely describe women's experiences andleave them there; neither does she simply describe the socialization ofwomen into their roles. Rather she depicts some women who try toprotest against their usual socially accepted roles while others engage in adebate on how they are being used or misused by the men-folk. Chiefamong the women who protest against their feminine roles are Tambudzai,the fictional narrator and protagonist of the novel, Nyasha, her cousin,and Lucia, her aunt. Nagueyalti Warren has called Dangarembga a"womanist" writer (as opposed to feminist), committed to the survivaland wholeness of an entire people, male and female .. ,'19 By 'womanist' Ibelieve Warren is placing Nervous Conditions closer to the female tradition,but I hope to show that the novel goes beyond that level. In myunderstanding of it, it is closer to Bessie Head's Maru20 or Buchi Emecheta'sSecond Class Citizen2* (though the protagonist is still a young girl by theend of the novel). Let us then discuss the gender issues at play in thenovel and try to show why its woman's voice is significantly feminist.It is my contention that Tambudzai, the fictive narrator of NervousConditions, and Nyasha protest and rebel against their gender or feminineroles, which their society normally accords female children. Lucia, on theother hand, simply acts and behaves in the way that pleases her, commentson issues that affect women and female children and knows how to useand manipulate the men in her life, namely Takesure, Jeremiah andBabamukuru, to get what she wants. In the end she escapes from povertyand illiteracy to become an emancipated woman in her own way.Right from the beginning of the story, Tambudzai categorizes thewomen in her story: a story which is not 'about death, but about myescape and Lucia's; about my mother's and Maiguru's entrapment; and17 Toril Moi, 'Feminist literary criticism', 207.18 Ibid., 209.19 Nagueyalti Warren, 'Nervous Conditions', in Sage, A Scholarly Journal on Black Women(Summer 1990), vii, 1, 69-70.20 Bessie Head, Maru (London, Heinemann, 1987).21 Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen (London, Fontana, 1977, repr., 1982).R. MOYANA 27about Nyasha's rebellion Š Nyasha, far-minded and isolated, my uncle'sdaughter, whose rebellion may not in the end have been successful' ( p.l).So Tambu and Lucia 'escaped'; her mother and aunt (Maiguru) got'entrapped'; and Nyasha, her cousin 'rebelled'. Except for the mother andaunt, these other three women's (or girls') life story is not just a narrativeof their socialization and submission to social norms. It is a story in whichthey have a say in how that life is to be lived and shaped; a story thatcatapults them beyond the kitchen and into a world of their own. Eventhough Tambu says Nyasha does not succeed in her 'rebellion', she has atleast rebelled as opposed to accepting conditions she feels are entrapping.It is precisely that struggle against those conditions which causes hermental and nervous breakdown. We shall discuss that entrapping conditionlater. So clearly the novel cannot just be womanist or female. It goesbeyond that because these two young female children and Lucia, thegrown-up woman, question and escape or rebel.The next inevitable series of questions which come to mind are: fromwhat or whom do Tambu and Lucia escape; against what or whom doesNyasha rebel and what or who traps Tambu's mother and Maiguru?To answer these questions we need to go back to the first page of thenovel where Tambu says,I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologizing for my callousness, asyou may define it, my lack of feeling... Therefore I shall not apologize but begin byrecalling the facts as I remember them that led up to my brother's death, the eventsthat put me in a position to write this account, (p. 1 Š emphasis mine.)The equation here then is logically that brother's death = Tambudzai'sescape and subsequent liberation through the pen. I will indeed call it aliberation and explain what I mean below. Tambu escapes or gets liberatedfrom what her brother, Nhamo, stands for in this novel: patriarchy andsexism. These are the gender issues which concern this novel and asGreene and Kahn assert,The social construction of gender takes place through the workings of ideology.Ideology is that system of beliefs and assumptions Š unconscious, unexamined,invisible Š which represents 'the imaginary relationships of individuals to theirreal conditions of existence . . .'; but it is also a system of practices that informsevery aspect of daily life Š the clothes we wear, the machines we invent, thepictures we paint, the words we use . . . it authorizes its beliefs and practices as'universal' and 'natural', presenting 'woman' not as a cultural construct but aseternally and everywhere the same.22 (emphasis mine.)22 Greene and Kahn, Making a Difference, 2-3.28 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSTambudzai suffers from such stereotyped ideological indoctrinationearly in her life. When she debates with Nhamo, her brother, why hecannot help her with her plot so she can also go to school as she desperatelywants to, he argues that 'wanting [to go to school] won't help'. So she askswhy not, and for an answer Nhamo says, 'It's the same everywhere.Because you are a girl...' Tambudzai stops listening to him at this pointand in fact, she informs us that her concern for her brother died anunobtrusive death from that moment (p. 21). It is also Nhamo who stealsTambu's maize cobs when they are ripe, just to prove that she could neversend herself to school. It is Nhamo who asks Tambu, 'Did you ever hear ofa girl being taken away to school? You are lucky you even managed to goback to Rutivi. With me it's different. I was meant to be educated' (p. 49).It is Nhamo who further practises his sexism and male chauvinism onboth Tambudzai and Netsai by always asking them to go and fetch some ofhis luggage from the nearby shops even when he could have carried it all(pp. 9-10). It is no wonder therefore, that Tambudzai feels relieved whenNhamo leaves for further education at the Mission and does not feelremorseful when he dies. But we should question why a mere boy woulddisplay such chauvinistic, sexist tendencies. It is as if Nhamo gets socializedinto his gender role even before he is born. Here we can agree withEasthope who asserts that,Every society assigns new arrivals [i.e. newly borns] particular roles, includinggender roles, which they have to learn. The little animal born into a human societybecomes a socialized individual in a remarkably short time . . . This process ofinternalizing is both conscious and unconscious.23This seems to be the case with Nhamo. The process of internalizinghis gender role as a male personality who automatically looks down on thefemale persons has been done consciously and unconsciously 'in aremarkably short time'. Carol McMillan has also expressed the same viewwhen she says,The thrust of feminist argument has ... for the most part, rested on the belief thatsince (apart from reproduction) there are not important differences between thesexes, nothing can justify a segregation of their roles. Any differences which mayexist are said to be fostered culturally by forcing women to concentrate theiractivities exclusively in the domestic sphere. This in turn leads to the developmentof supposedly feminine traits such as self-sacrifice and passivity, which has theadded consequence of inhibiting the development in women of their potential asrational, intellectual and creative beings.2423 Antony Easthope, What a Man Gotta Do? 3.24 Carol McMillan, Women, Reason and Nature: Some Philosophical Problems with Feminism(Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982), ix.R. MOYANA 29Having been socialized as early as possible and liking, even enjoying,his gender role thoroughly, Nhamo goes about trying to socialize Tambudzaiinto her feminine gender role with relish, and of course, with the help oftheir father. The two of them are trying to develop the required femininetraits of 'self-sacrifice and passivity' in Tambudzai and the other femalechildren in their home like Netsai. The father goes on to advise Tambudzaito stop worrying that she cannot go to school because, after all, shecannot cook books and feed them to her husband. Instead, she shouldstay at home with her mother, learn to cook, clean and grow vegetables (p.15). When she yearns to accompany him and Nhamo to the airport towelcome Babamukuru and family from England, the father once again callsher aside to implore her to curb her unnatural inclinations. For it wasnatural for her to stay at home and prepare for the home-coming (p. 33).This is the attitude to which McMillan refers when she says thatwomen are forced culturally to concentrate their activities exclusively inthe domestic sphere, thereby inhibiting their development into creativeand intellectual people. Indeed, Tambudzai's father gets agitated when hesees her reading a piece of newspaper used to wrap bread by the groceryshop people, thinking that she was emulating her brother and that thethings she read would fill her mind with impractical ideas, making herquite useless for the real tasks of feminine living. In order for him to getenough cattle for her bride price at the time of her marriage, her conformityis absolutely mandatory (pp. 33-34). What the father is doing here then, isto socialize Tambudzai into her gender role using the ideology he knowsbest as described by Greene and Kahn. He is thereby oppressing Tambudzaias a girl/woman and Greene and Kahn are correct when they argue:The oppression of women is both a material reality, originating in material condi-tions, and a psychological phenomenon, a function of the way women and menperceive one another and themselves. But it is generally true that gender is con-structed in patriarchy to serve the interests of male supremacy. Radical feministsargue that the construction of gender is grounded in male attempts to controlfemale sexuality.25It is true that the father is worried about Tambudzai's behaviour notonly immediately, but also for the future when she becomes a wife to someother man: hence the need to control her as father and custodian of herpersonality and sexuality on behalf of the next authoritative man in herlife, the husband. Babamukuru does the same to her and sees it as his dutyto ensure that she 'develops into a good woman [which is necessary he25 Greene and Kahn, Making a Difference, 3.30 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSsays] because there is nothing that pleases parents more than to see theirown children settle in their own families' (p. 88). Even the education shegets is seen in terms of preparing her for marriage as he says,In time you will be earning money. You will be in a position to be married by adecent man and set up a decent home. In all that we are doing for you, we arepreparing you for this future life of yours and I have observed from my owndaughter's behaviour that it is not a good thing for a young girl to associate toomuch with these white people, to have too much freedom. I have seen that girlswho do that do not develop into decent women (p. 180).To emphasize the difference between girls and boys, Chido, his son,associates so much with Whites that he is hardly home and he is totallyalienated from his family as a result. But because he is a boy, it is all rightas far as Babamukuru's expounded ideology is concerned!So the radical feminists' view above is pertinent; these are indeedmale attempts to control Tambudzal's sexuality, which should be practisedand lived out in a particular way prescribed by man. We see also the truthin the above statement that 'gender is constructed in patriarchy to servethe interests of male supremacy'. To put it another way,woman is traditionally a use-value for man, an exchange value among men, ... acommodity. As such, she remains the guardian of material substance, whose pricewill be established in terms of the standard of their work and of their need/desire,by 'subjects'... Women are marked phallicly by their fathers, husbands, procurers26Tambudzai is constantly made to feel that 'the chosen standards for"femininity" are natural' and so when she seems to resist conformity sheis labelled unfeminine and unnatural27 by Nhamo and her father.Tambudzai therefore consciously refuses to be compartmentalizedinto this gender apartheid from an early age, which is why she escapes (touse her own expression). The question is how she escapes. She does sofirst, by questioning things and ideas where every other girl including hersister would conform and take things for granted (see pp. 5, 15-16); byresisting oppression from her brother and trying unsuccessfully toconscientise her sister Netsai who is perhaps too young to understand(pp. 9-10); and chiefly by sending herself back to school at a time whenthe parents say they can only afford Nhamo's fees (pp. 16-34). For a childof eight to work on her own plot determinedly and successfully, in spite of26 Luce Irlgaray, This Sex Which is not One trans. Catherine Porter et al (Ithaca, N.Y.,Cornell University Press, 1985), 31.27 Toril Moi, 'Feminist literary criticism', 209.R. MOYANA 31all the attendant problems and disruptions, to earn enough money tofinance her whole primary education is a feat few could achieve. YetTambudzai achieves that feat with inspiration from her late grandmother(p. 17-19). That self-dependence and determination are what enable herto escape from the throttling patriarchal sexism and catapults her into adifferent world where she achieves her liberation, a liberation marked bythe demise of her brother (as circumstances in her favour would have it Šthe author's form emphasizes this point here when she practicallyeliminates Nhamo from the scene to make way for Tambu's educationaladvancement) and her success in getting Babamukuru's help to go to theMission school for upper primary education, and Sacred Heart forsecondary education; a liberation marked, most importantly, by the abilityto tell her own story which is the book itself, Nervous Conditions. It allstarted with that maize field as she herself acknowledges (p. 91).For as Ann Rosalind Jones argues,What are the sites of resistance or liberation in this phallocentric universe? One iswriting. If women have been entrapped in the symbolic order, they will mark theirescape from it by producing texts that challenge and move beyond the law-of-theFather.28Helene Cixous vehemently endorses this idea of writing as a liberatingfactor in a woman's life when she writes:[woman] must write her self, because this is the invention of a new insurgentwriting which, when the moment of her liberation has come, will allow her to carryout the indispensable ruptures and transformations in her history.29That is why I said above that Tambu's escape leads to her subsequentliberation.Indeed, Tambudzai ruptures and transforms her world in a painfuland halting process to the point where she is able to declare thatquietly, unobtrusively and extremely fitfully, something in my mind began to assertitself, to question things and to refuse to be brainwashed, bringing me to this timewhen I can set down this story. It was a long and painful process ... that process ofexpansion (p. 204).This is the liberation we are talking about for this girl. She is free toarticulate her feelings and even to declare that she did not feel saddened28 Ann Rosalind Jones, 'Inscribing femininity: French theories of the feminine', in Greeneand Kahn, Making a Difference, 85.29 Helene Cixous, 'Utopias', in Elaine Marks and isabelle de Courtivron (eds.), NewFrench Feminisms, An Anthology (New York, Schocken Books, 1980), 250.32 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSby her brother's death, something she could never say within her culturalconfines or without the newly acquired freedom. From this point of view,Dangarembga can be said to be feminist in her approach in this novel.One would have expected Nyasha to have a better deal; to be betterunderstood at least within her nuclear family environment. Here isTambudzai who is emulating life of an educated, more enlightened andmore civilized girl. She admires Nyasha who lives in the environment of amission school, whose work is less burdensome than her harsh rural life.Yet ironically, Nyasha suffers from this very education and life. Before shewent to England with her parents she was a different, even if younger,person who had definite roots and a definite identity (pp. 42-43). Whenshe returns from England, she and her brother Chido are alienated and fora start, they no longer understand or speak their mother tongue, Shona(pp. 42, 51-52). Nyasha's problem is compounded by the fact that she is agirl whom her parents expect miraculously and automatically to conformto their traditional ways. It appears that the education that her parentshave acquired is extremely alienating. Their traditional culture isconservative, sexist, patriarchal Š regarding women as second classcitizens and therefore as people who should work at home, tending theirhusbands and children with no opinion of their own to be vocally expressed.Her mother tries to play that feminine role and succeeds to a certainextent. So that even if she is educated with an M.A. degree, she has nocontrol of her world, a situation she deeply resents. Her resentmentshows in her sometimes sarcastic comments (pp. 72-76, 162); her refusalto help with shopping for Jeremiah's wedding as a protest (pp. 162-164);her rebellious outburst against her husband and subsequently leaving theMission (pp. 172-174); her articulating her opinion about Tambu's goingto Sacred Heart, an opinion she would never give before (pp. 180-181),etc.Nyasha on the other hand, is modern, carefree, unpretentious andfeels she must be able to speak her mind. The main obstacle to herhappiness is her father, Mr. Sigauke and Tambudzai's uncle or Babamukuru.There is a vagueness in the novel about the kind of education that thisman acquired. He too came back from England different (pp. 80-82; 102),and his whole behaviour is abnormal. He no longer interacts with hisfamily freely and naturally. He is always aloof and people should not talkor make noise in his presence . . . his nerves are bad, we are told. Whengreeted he merely 'grunts' (p. 80), yet at the slightest excuse he flies atNyasha to scold or reprimand her or to order her to shut up or generallyto do what he says. The author here has not described enough reasons forthis nor given enough background to Mr. Sigauke for us to understand whyhe has turned out this way. Whatever it is, it has to do with his educationwhich has alienated him in a different way from the way it has affected hischildren.R. MOYANA 33The children, especially the boy Chido, and the cousin, Nhamo, turnout snobbish but happy and carefree. Babamukuru, on the other hand,has become much more severe, intimidating, less flexible and visibly moresexist, patronizing, unfriendly and ready to perpetuate the patriarchalvalues in the homestead which he claims to be his own with suchexaggerated firmness that the inmates of that homestead feel helpless,powerless and some even feel emasculated by his severe presence.So far as women are concerned, perhaps we can agree with Lemmerwhen she explains that we should not assume:Education is the only nor even the most important variable in gender equality.Neither [should we] presume that society or the school is gender neutral; rather,[we should look] at schools as patriarchal institutions which have served toperpetuate women's position in society.30Certainly this applies to Mr. Sigauke who does not consider women tobe his equals, but second class citizens who should do what men like himsay. He always feels he must subdue Nyasha for instance; she must do ashe says. When she tries to tell the truth about herself, he feels she ischallenging him (see p. 193). She must not read certain books. She must sitdown at table and eat all her food because he says so, but must wait tillher mother has finished serving him (or to use his expression, she mustwait until her mother has finished waiting on him).This home at the Mission, which should be pleasant and liberatingphysically and spiritually as imagined and visualized by Tambudzai, endsup being very stifling. In the village, at least Tambudzai could talk to herfather and even ask questions sometimes. At the Mission Nyasha can donothing of the sort. Her mother is nervous, unsure of herself, scared of herhusband, appears delicate and childish, even though she definitely doesnot like her lot. Nyasha suffers more from these stifling, nervous conditionsthan her brother because being a boy, he can do what he wants. He israrely at home, does not visit the village often and gets totally assimilatedinto the White people's culture as he associates more and more with theBakers. This leaves Nyasha at the crossroads, not knowing which way toturn: either to the inhibitive new home culture, or to the African culturewhich these same parents neglected to teach her, or to the freer Westernculture for which she is reprimanded time and again. The father does notapprove of the words she speaks or the clothes she wears like mini-skirts,while the mother does not mind them and in fact buys the mini-dresses forher (which could be her way of protesting against the father's values Šsee pp. 37 and 109).30 Eleanor M. Lemmer, 'Gender issues in education', in EMse I. Dekker and Eleanor M.Lemmer (eds.), Critical Issues in Modem Education (Durban, Butterworth Publishers, 1993), 6.See also Greene and Kahn, Making a Difference, 19-20.34 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSEach time Nyasha works late at school, she is said to have beensocializing with boys (p. 189). The day she comes home late from a dancebecause she wanted to learn a few more dance steps from Andrew Baker,she is accused of being a whore because 'no decent girl would stay outalone, with a boy, at that time of night...' (p. 113).It is these kinds of accusations, assumptions and orders that Nyasharebels against. She cannot simply take them sheepishly, obediently,placidly. For example, on the Andrew Baker dance problem, in anger andfrustration she ends up shouting, 'What do you want me to say? . . . Youwant me to admit I'm guilty, don't you. All right then. 1 was doing it,whatever you're talking about. There. I've confessed.' (p. 113) When hebeats her, Nyasha cannot just stand there, taking it (c.f. p. 190). Shereturns the blow to her father's horror, who vows that he will kill her forchallenging him that way (pp. 114-115). Ironically, because of her ruralbackground and different cultural understanding of how children shouldtalk to their parents, Tambudzai finds herself not approving of Nyasha'scarefree nature either, particularly of the way she interacts with herparents.There is also the pretence and hypocrisy in Mr. Sigauke, He worriesmore about 'what people would say' than what he is and what he shouldbe or should do truthfully for his family regardless of outsiders' opinion.The author has not been explicit as to the source of this attitude in him,but it surfaces each time he 'disciplines' Nyasha (pp. 113-114). ApparentlyNyasha should appearto be decent by not befriending or associating withboys, not for her own or her family's sake, but more to impress the peoplearound the mission as he angrily pronounces,What will people say when they see Sigauke's daughter carrying on like that? . . .How can you go on disgracing me? Me! Like that! No, you cannot do it. I amrespected at this mission. I cannot have a daughter who behaves like a whore.' (p.114)This episode also helps Tambu to become more conscientized about thegender issues involving herself, Nyasha and all the women in her life. Sherealizes that it is not a question of rural backwardness, urban advancementor even education that matters. It is a problem of femaleness versusmaleness and that they are all victims as long as they are female (pp. 115-116).Nyasha is no whore, as the reader and the other characters in thenovel know She is an intelligent girl whose insight into social and politicalissues is very sharp. She analyses issues maturely and is the only othercharacter (besides Tambu's mother) who seems to understand thecrippling colonizing effect of Christianity. For example, she criticizes herfather's solution to Jeremiah's poverty when the latter suggests a ChristianR. MOYANA 35wedding. She gets quite annoyed with this and delivers a lecture on thedangers of assuming that Christian ways were progressive ways: 'It's badenough... when a country gets colonized, but when the people do as well!That's the end, really, that's the end.' (p. 147) She sees through Mr.Baker's interest in having her brother, Chido, attend a multi-racial schoolin Salisbury on a full scholarship, 'to ease his conscience . . . you knowhow it is, bwana to bwana: The boy needs the cash, old man!...' (p. 106).She forbids Tambu to join Lucia and her mother in over-praising her fatherfor offering Lucia a job: 'Don't you dare [ululate]... Thank him, yes... butnot make him into a hero.' It was the obligation of all decent people inpositions like Babamukuru's to do such things (pp. 159-160).Sadly, in the effort to assert this kind of human truth, to assert herrights and herself generally, she gets brutalized. She wastes away andfinally succumbs to a mental and nervous breakdown which comes outthrough the food battle with her father. He constantly forces her to eat allher food as evidence of his authority over her and believes that shechallenges him if she does not eat even if she is full or not hungry (p. 189).This makes Nyasha equally determined to gobble up the food and thenthrow it up, a symbol of final defiance of her father's maniacal oppressionand she rebels against this ultimate symbol of patriarchal authority (pp.189-199). In her delirium though, she partially but accurately identifiesthe cause of her and her family's misery... it is 'them [Whites, missionaries,colonizers]... they did it to them [i.e. her parents] but especially to him.They put him through it all...' Her anguish comes through when she says,'Look what they've done to us,... I'm not one of them but I'm not one ofyou'. The real cause of her breakdown then is a combination of colonizationand the father's desire to uphold his African tradition's patriarchal, sexistvalues. The latter is what really makes him feel that he cannot and shouldnot listen to women or girls like Nyasha or children in general. After all, heis the man of the house, 'the father' (p. 189). He even fails to notice thesymptoms of his daughter's suffering! (p. 199) In the end, Nyasha becomesa psychotic who suffers from not knowing what or who she is at the levelof being.31 It becomes worse for her after Tambudzai leaves for SacredHeart because then she has no-one to laugh with and the latter being soyoung and still naive and impressionable, forgets to write comfortingletters to her desperate cousin or even to respond to her letters (pp. 196ff).Tambudzai points out that Nyasha's rebellion fails and perhaps she iscorrect because Mr. Sigauke does not recognize Nyasha's illness to be aresult of his treatment of her. He is not changed by it and neither is the31 Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, 'The sexual masquerade: A Lacanian theory of sexual difference',in Ellie Ragland-Sullivan and Mark Bracher (eds.), Lacan and the Subject of Language (New Yorkand London, Routledge, 1987), 151.36 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSmother. So that while the child has made a strong statement to the reader,the parents have remained exactly the same, unmoved, and perhaps willeven blame her for getting ill! The fact remains that Nyasha has not beensubdued. She has rebelled and that is a strong enough statement to pushthe novel beyond being mere womanist or female. Because she has noother place to go or a different home to run to, her rebellion becomes apsychological one Š as if to say if she cannot physically get away, she willpsychologically not be tied down to these repelling conditions. So sheends up under psychiatric care.Although Tambudzai's and Nyasha's mothers are entrapped, they donot like their woman's lot. The problem for both women, however, is thatthey do not know how to get out of their situations. Tambudzai's motherreacts in a variety of ways: in support of her daughter's project of themaize field though in an indirect, subtle way that fools the father intothinking that she is against it (pp. 17, 24-25); by trying to convince herdaughter to accept her lot and enjoy it the best way possible (pp. 16, 20);by accusing Baba and Maiguru (especially the latter) of killing her son,Nhamo; and venting her frustration by ridiculing Maiguru (pp. 54, 139-140). When all her protest seems futile, she simply resigns herself to hersituation (p. 153), withdraws into herself and suffers from 'unlocalisedaches all over her body which she thought was a bad omen for the babyshe was carrying'32 (p. 129). She also stops cleaning the home, includingthe toilet, and eventually stops washing herself and her baby, and becomesa psychological invalid as she suffers from a serious depression. She evengoes through the wedding ordeal mechanically, without interest (pp. 129,162,184-185). It takes Lucia, her more aggressive sister, to jerk her back tolife (p. 185).Yet Tambu's mother is quite a clever, intelligent woman; she is thesecond person in the novel who is aware of the racism in the country andhow it makes the woman's position doubly burdensome (see p. 16). She isalso aware of the alienating effect of Western education which she says'took [her son's] tongue out so that he could not speak to [her]', referringto Nhamo who claimed that he could no longer speak Shona after being atthe Mission for a few weeks or months. When Tambudzai tells her aboutNyasha's illness, she identifies the problem immediately as 'the Englishness... It will kill them all if they aren't careful ... to look at him [i.e. atBabamukuru] he may look all right, but there's no telling what price he'spaying . . .' (p. 203). She proceeds to warn her daughter, 'You just becareful.' We know already the price Babamukuru is paying though he32 See Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969, repr. 1974, Book 2,Chapter 9), 225. This condition reminds one of Mrs. Gradgrind who also suffers the same way,more from a psychological than physiological illness caused by a stifling environment of fact,fact, factR. MOYANA 37himself is oblivious to that fact. So her assessment and conclusions arecorrect. It is just that she sees no way out of this womanly trap. Forinstance, she has no power or control over her fertility,33 a situationwhich, intentionally or unintentionally results in yet another baby,Dambudzo, and of course, he has to be a boy as if to replace Nhamo andplease the patriarchy (see Babamukuru's comment showing that he hasalready started saving for him without thinking about the other girls in thefamily Š p. 180). A lot of times, Maiguru reacts nervously and childishly toher situation of entrapment. Tambudzai thinks that because she iseducated, her life is a bed of roses. But to her surprise, she learns thatMaiguru does not even receive her salary! (pp. 101-102) She is childish inher talk at times, for instance when she coos, 'Nyasha-washa, my lovelydove' (p. 75); or 'my Daddy-dear... my Daddy-pie... my Daddy-d' (pp. 80-81) etc., and she does that when she is scared of her husband or when sheis nervously covering up something about Nyasha or trying to excuse herbehaviour. Yet she resents a lot of things that her husband does and howshe has to work hard for his family. The climax is reached when she toorebels in her own way and walks out of the house to go to Salisbury whereshe stays with her brother for a week, though Nyasha does not approve ofthe fact that she has to run away to a man (perhaps this symbolizes thetotal entrapment for this woman Š there is nowhere to go, she moves incircles Š pp. 172-173). However, given time, she may work out her lifedifferently.So these two women, Tambu's mother and her Maiguru (notice we donot even hear their names) end up locked up in their situations but theyhave shown us that they do not enjoy their circumstances. In the village,Tambu's mother leads discussion against the patriarchy who try Lucia inher absence (pp. 137-142). The only problem is that these women end upvictimizing Maiguru as if she is the problem, which demonstrates thewomen's fear of pointing at the real problem for them, the patriarchy. Thefact that we know this means that the author has not just described awoman's condition and left it at that. She has demonstrated a certain kindof unrest which threatens to explode at some future point in time. That iswhy these two women are said to be trapped: that future is too far. Wewanted it now!Lucia on the other hand, does and says what she wants. She disciplinesTakesure when he speaks nonsense about her (pp. 144-145); she flattersBabamukuru into finding her a job at the Mission (pp. 156-159); shefrankly tells Babamukuru off for punishing Tambudzai and for forcing herparents into a white wedding without seeking their opinion about it (pp.170-171); and she gives her sister a shock treatment to get her back tohealth when she degenerates into a psycho-physical invalid (pp. 184-186).33 On this issue of woman's control over her fertility, Lemmer argues that 'thedevelopment of the birth control pill in the early 1960s gave women an effective measure ofcontrol over their own bodies and their reproductive potential for the first time in history".Yet Tambu's mother is in no position to benefit from it. Obviously Maiguru is in a betterposition seeing she only has two children and a career even though that has not guaranteedher happiness. See Eleanor M. Lemmer, 'Gender issues .. . ', 6.38 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSGenerally, then, she asserts her rights without fear of anyone, even themost revered Babamukuru. She uses men to get what she wants in life,including Takesure (whom she calls a 'cockroach') and Babamukuru, andher final triumph is that she enrolls in Grade One in order to fight illiteracywhile working at the Mission. Hence, she escapes from poverty and maledominance. Her future is certain to be bright; she too has not been staticin the novel and perhaps it is significant that she remains unmarried. Butwe also notice that the men are not changed or conscientised by herdifferent attitude, with Takesure calling her 'vicious and unnatural . . .uncontrollable' (p. 145), and Babamukuru applauding her in her absencesaying, 'That one, he chuckled to Maiguru, she is like a man herself.' (p.171) It seems to be difficult for these men to acknowledge that Lucia is aperson with her own good opinion and style of living her life independentlyof the fetters that bind other women. So they take her as a joke.We must realize that in this novel it is not only the women who feeloppressed by the patriarchal system as enforced by Babamukuru. Other'lesser' men feel the oppression acutely, particularly when they find itdifficult to fulfil their masculine gender roles. These 'lesser' men areJeremiah and Takesure. The two feel castrated or emasculated in front ofthe towering image of Babamukuru. The aggression they display towardsthe women is typical of men who have lost the grip on their manhood.Babamukuru's aggression in turn is typical of a man who displays the side-effects that accompany loss of face, loss of grip on his own culture, andhumiliation elsewhere. He too has been emasculated or castrated by thecolonial system or by the educational system which blatantly displays itsinherent racism. He cringes to these foreign people (though we have toremember that the author has not been quite specific on this), so he hasto bully the women and the other younger and less successful men tocompensate for this emasculation. These are men who are no longer sureof themselves, of their gender roles within their own societies; it all seemsto begin with Babamukuru who then pretends that everything is all rightwith him. It is these other men who do not know what they are doing.Hence, Tambudzai wishes his brother and father couldstand up straight like Babamukuru, but they always looked as though they werecringing ... I used to suppose that they saw it too and that it troubled them somuch that they had to bully whoever they could to stay in the picture at all.34 (pp.49-50)34 See the same situation of female victimization by an emasculated or 'castrated' man in theshort story, 'Man', in Alexander Kanengoni, Effortless Tears (Harare, Baobab Books, 1993), 107-114.R. MOYANA 39One symptom of this emasculation is, for instance, Jeremiah'simprovidence. He does not work hard to fend for his family, so that in ayear when all people around have a bumper harvest, his family's is poor(pp. 14-15, 45-46). It is his wife who then works hard enough to obtainenough school fees for at least one child and of course, that child has to bethe boy not the girl, Tambudzai, even though the money has been generatedthrough woman's toil, a situation Irigaray explains by saying,. . . From the very origin of private property and the patriarchal family, socialexploitation occurred. In other words, all the social regimes of 'History' are basedupon the exploitation of one 'class' of producers, namely women, whose reproduc-tive use-value (reproductive of children and of the labour force) and whose consti-tution as exchange value underwrite the symbolic order as such, without anycompensation in kind going to them for that 'work.'35The other symptoms are that Jeremiah constantly begs fromBabamukuru and others (p. 31); he takes credit for what he has notactually done but which is normally man's responsibility. For example, hetakes credit for sending Tambudzai back to school when it is her ownearnings that enabled her to do that (p. 46); he claims Tambu's money ashis by virtue of his being her father (pp. 29-30); he and Takesure takecredit for rethatching the huts at the village home (or the homestead as itis called in the novel), when in fact the latter had flatly refused to do soleaving Tambu and Lucia to do the thatching (p. 154), etc. In his turn,Babamukuru who commends these improvident men, does not even askwho did all these things, assuming automatically that it had to be the menof the house! I think the women here are far too modest. They could haveset the record straight.To further understand the behaviour of men and women in this novelwe should also refer to Toril Moi's discussion of Beauvoir's main thesis (inthe latter's book, The Second Sex), where she says:... throughout history, women have been reduced to objects for men: 'woman' hasbeen constructed as man's Other, denied the right to her own subjectivity and toresponsibility for her own actions. Or, in more existential terms: patriarchal ideol-ogy presents woman as immanence, man as transcendence.3635 Luce Irigaray, 77iis Sex Which is not One, 173. One is also reminded of men likeOkonkwo in Achebe's Things Fall Apart (London, Heinemann, 1977 Š see especially Chapters4 and 19), who are helped by the women to grow yams, yet the yam is then regarded as theman's crop, women having no authority in its distribution to their own households.36 Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London and N.Y., Methuen,1985), 92.40 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSThese are the fundamental assumptions thatdominate all aspects of social, political and cultural life and . . . how womenthemselves internalize this objectified vision, thus living in a constant state of'inauthenticity' or 'bad faith' as Sartre might have put it.37Babamukuru exacerbates the other men's condition by his patronizingattitude towards them and virtually everyone and everything else (see pp.86-88). For instance he forbids his brother, Jeremiah, to kill oxen becausethey are his (i.e. Babamukuru's Š p. 122); he orders Takesure to leave 'myhouse' meaning the village home (p. 124). Generally, he calls the homestead'his' home (p. 127) and poses and acts as the benefactor for all thesepeople who have also come to believe (seriously or in mock seriousness)that without him they would all die (see pp. 158-159, 166-169, 183 amongother examples). Men like Takesure therefore succumb completely to thispressure and become totally useless, which is why Lucia can even disciplinehim in public. He has a family but cannot fend for it and so runs away tothe homestead to enjoy Jeremiah's company as they go drinking (after all,Babamukuru was even saving money for him to finish marrying one of hiswives Š so why should he worry?).To show that Babamukuru's presence oppresses these men, when heleaves the homestead after Christmas, they all give a sigh of relief: 'Whew!It was good to have Mukoma here, it was good ... but it puts a weight onyour shoulders, a great weight on your shoulders!' (p. 152) Besides feelingthe weight on their shoulders, they no longer have a good self-image,which is necessary for one to function securely in society. As Jeane Blockargues,Sexual identity means ... the earning of a sense of self that includes a recognitionof gender secure enough to permit the individual to manifest human qualities thatour society ... has labelled [manly].38In the absence of this gender role, the men suffer and feel they must makeothers suffer too.There are other women, 'the paternal aunts', who have been describedby Tambudzai as having 'a patriarchal status' and so have the privilege ofsitting with the men, not doing any house work and endorsing the men'sdecisions. It is a duty these aunts must perform. They rarely offer any oftheir opinions though, because the men, of course, do not expect that (seepp. 132, 136,143). This is not to say that these women agree with the men37 Ibid.38 Jeane H. Block, Sex Role Identity and Ego Development (London, Jossey Bass Publishers,1984), 2.R. MOYANA 41in all they do, as shown by Tete's ridiculing Babamukuru's 'cure forJeremiah's indulgence', whether it should be by 'a cleansing or a wedding'(p. 148). Thus, Toril Moi correctly points out:The fact that women often enact the roles patriarchy has prescribed for them doesnot prove that the patriarchal analysis [of woman's position vis-a-vis man Š seenotes 33 and 34 above] is right.39To conclude this discussion, we can say that both men and womensuffer at the hands of the patriarchal system in this novel and both sexesalso suffer from the effects of colonialism. However, women suffer more atthe hands of the men as they are often abused and denigrated. EvenChido, Nyasha's brother, denigrates women implicitly in the one statementhe utters when he says, 'I hope Nyasha has made my cake,' and whenassured she has, he continues, 'Good. Because you never know withNyasha.' ( p. 88)By placing this novel in the feminist tradition, one understands theissues more clearly, as Nelly Furman argues,Feminist criticism unveils the prejudices at work in our appreciation of culturalartifacts, and shows us how the linguistic medium promotes and transmits thevalues woven through the fabric of our society.40Certainly this happens when one reads Nervous Conditions through feministeyes. For as Mary Eagleton argues,the problem is not only who is speaking and how she is speaking but to whom sheis speaking and on whose behalf. . . not merely who am I? but who is the otherwoman? How am I naming her? How does she name me?41Tambudzai the narrator of this novel has made it plain who she is, towhom she is speaking and about whom she is speaking.In the final analysis, however, I feel that it is not a question of men andwomen fighting each other for dominance. Rather, it is a question of menand women cooperating and working together to achieve emancipationfrom stifling traditions. This point is demonstrated in the novel byTambudzai getting assistance from Mr. Matimba, the teacher who helpsher sell her mealies and then convinces her father that the money earned39 Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, 92.40 Nelly Furman, 'The politics of language: Beyond the gender principle?', in Greene andKahn, Making a Difference, 59.41 Mary Eagleton, 'Finding a female tradition', in Mary Eagleton (ed.), Feminist LiteraryTheory, A Reader (Oxford and New York, Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1986, repr. 1987), 5.42 TSITSI DANGAREMBGA'S NERVOUS CONDITIONSis hers. She also gets assistance from Babamukuru (with all his faults),who affords her the opportunity to complete her primary school and tocontinue to secondary school. These are positive actions from men toadvance a girl's cause.