Limitations on a Female African in Nervous Conditions
In Nervous Conditions, the main character, Tambudzai, feels restricted within her family and culture because she is female. The people of Rhodesia assert very traditional roles for men and women; the women cook and clean, while the men go to school and earn money. In this culture, females are not supposed to desire an education or a career, they are to get married and be a good homemaker. Tambu decides not to abide by this way of life, the life her mother and father expect of her. She is eager to leave the homestead and live a British life. What she doesn’t realize is that she is at the lower end of the spectrum because she is a female and an African. She is treated unequally within her own society because she is female, and she will be treated unequally in a British society because she is African. Even if her family permits her to attend school, what will she be able to achieve with her education? Tsitsi Dangarembga, in Nervous Conditions, conveys the idea that the society that introduces opportunities for a better education for African women, is the same society that limits these women’s potential. She does this through the British education system in Rhodesia, the patriarchal role of women in the Rhodesian culture, the...
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