Nervous Conditions Themes Essay Example for Free

sick Conditions Themes EssayTambu was born a girl and thus faces a fundamental disadvantage, since traditional African social practice dictates that the oldest male babe is deemed the coming(prenominal) headspring of the family. All of the familys resources argon poured into developing his abilities and preparing him to lead and provide for his kindred. When Nhamo dies, the tragedy is exclusively the more profound since no boy exists to take his place. Tambu steps into the role of future provider, yet she is attach with the prejudices and limitations that shackled most African girls of her generation. Her fight for an education and a better life is compounded by her gender. Gender disparity and sexual discrimination form the backdrop of altogether of the female characters lives. In the novel, inequality is as infectious as disease, a crippling attitude that kills ambition, crushes womens spirits, and discourages them from supporting and rallying future generations and o ther female relatives.The Influence of ColonialismThe essential action of the novel involves Tambus experiences in a Western-style educational setting, and the mission school two provides and represents privileged opportunity and enlightenment. Despite MaShingayis strong objections, Tambu knows the solely hope she has of lifting her family out of poverty lies in education. However, the mission school poses threats, as well Western institutions and systems of mentation may cruelly and irreversibly alter native Africans who are subjected to them. Nyasha, who has seen firsthand the effect of being immersed in a foreign culture, grows suspicious of an unquestioning bankers acceptance of colonialisms benefits.She fears that the dominating culture may eventually stifle, limit, or eliminate the long-established native culture of Rhodesiain other words, she fears that colonialism may force assimilation. The characters lives are already entrenched in a national identity that reflects a s ynthesis of African and colonialist elements. The characters struggle to stop and integrate the various social and political influences that shape their lives forms the backbone and central conflict of uneasy Conditions. customs duty vs. ProgressUnderpinning Nervous Conditions are conflicts between those characters whoendorse traditional ways and those who look to Western or so-called modern answers to problems they face. Dangarembga remains noncommittal in her portrayal of the divergent belief systems of Babamukuru and his brother Jeremiah, and she shows both men behaving rather irrationally. Jeremiah foolishly endorses a shamans ritual cleansing of the settle, while Babamukurus belief in a Christian ceremony seems to be rooted in his rigid and stubborn confidence that he is always right. As Tambu becomes more fixed and established in her life at the mission school, she begins to embrace attitudes and beliefs different from those of her parents and her traditional upbringing. N yasha, ever the voice of reasonable dissent, warns Tambu that a wholesale acceptance of supposedly progressive ideas represents a dangerous departure and too radical of a break with the past.MotifsgeographicsPhysical spaces are at the heart of the tensions Tambu faces between life at the mission and the world of the homestead. At first, Tambu is isolated, relegated to toiling in the fields and tending to her brothers whims during his infrequent visits. When she attends the local school, she must locomote a long way to her daily lessons, but she undertakes the journey willingly in order to dumbfound an education. When the family cannot pay her school fees, Mr. Matimba takes Tambu to the first city she has ever seen, where she sells green corn.Tambus increased awareness and experience of the world coincides with her growth physical distance from the homestead. The mission school is an important location in the novel, a bastion of possibility that becomes the centerpiece of Tambus world and the source of many of the changes she undergoes. At the end of Nervous Conditions, Tambus life has taken her even farther away from the homestead, to the convent school where she is without family or friends and must commit solely on herself.EmancipationEmancipation is a term that appears again and again in Nervous Conditions. Usually, the term is associated with being released from slavery or with a country finally freeing itself from the colonial world power that once controlled it. These concepts figure into the broader scope of the novel, as Rhodesias citizens struggle to amass and assert their identity as a people while still under British control. When the term emancipation is applied to Tambu andthe women in her extended family, it takes on newer and richer associations.Tambu sees her life as a gradual process of being freed of the limitations that have antecedently beset her. When she first leaves for the mission school, she sees the move as a temporary emancipati on. Her growing knowledge and evolving perceptions are a form of emancipation from her old ways of thinking. By the end of the novel, emancipation becomes more than patently a release from poverty or restriction. Emancipation is equated with freedom and an assertion of personal liberty. multiple PerspectivesDual perspectives and multiple interpretations appear throughout Nervous Conditions. When Babamukuru finds Lucia a job cooking at the mission, Tambu is in admiration of her uncles power and generosity, viewing it as a selfless act of kindness. Nyasha, however, believes there is nothing chivalric in her fathers gesture and that in assisting his sister-in-law he is merely fulfilling his duty as the head of the family. In addition to often wildly differing interpretations of behavior, characters share an unstable and conflicting sense of self. For Tambu, her two worlds, the homestead and the mission, are often opposed, forcing her to divide her loyalties and complicating her sens e of who she is. When she wishes to avoid attending her parents wedding, however, these dual selves offer her safety, protection, and an escape from the rigors of reality. As her uncle chides her, Tambu imagines another version of herself watching the scene safely from the foot of the bed.SymbolsTambus Garden PlotTambus garden plot represents both tradition and escape from that tradition. On one hand, it is a direct tie in to her heritage, and the rich tradition has guided her people, representing the essential ability to live off the land. It is a direct connective to the legacy she inherits and the erudition and skills that are passed down from generation to generation, and Tambu fondly remembers helping her grandmother work the garden.At the same time, the garden represents Tambus means of escape, since she hopes to pay her school fees and further her education by growing and selling vegetables. In this sense, the garden represents the hopes of the future and a break with the past. With a new form of wisdom acquired at the mission school and the powerand skills that come with it, Tambu will never have to toil and exertion again. Her mother, however, must water the valuable and fertile garden patch despite being exhausted from a long day of work.The MissionFor Tambu, the mission stands as a bright and shining beacon, the repository of all of her hopes and ambitions. It represents a portal to a new world and a turning away from the enslaving poverty that has attach Tambus past. The mission is an escape and an oasis, a whitewashed world where refinement and sophistication are the rule. It is to a fault an exciting retreat for Tambu, where she is exposed to new ideas and new modes of thinking. The mission sets Tambu on the path to becoming the strong, formulate adult she is destined to become.The OxIn the familys lengthy holiday celebration, the ox represents the opulence and shape Babamukuru and his family have achieved. Meat, a rare commodity, is an in frequent treat for most families, and Tambus parents and the rest of the extended clan willingly partake of the ox. At the same time, they secretly resent such an ostentatious display of wealth, since the ox is a symbol of the great gulf that exists between the educated branch of the family and those who have been left after part to struggle. Maiguru closely regulates the consumption of the ox and parcels out the meat over the several days of the familys gathering. in the end the meat starts to go bad, and the other women chide Maiguru for her poor judgment and overly strict control of its distribution. At that point, the ox suggests Maigurus shortcomings and how, in the eyes of the others, her education and comfortable life have made her an futile provider.