Nervous Conditions Essay
Nervous Conditions
The choice to resist or comply in situations greatly affects the success and personal relationships of Tambu and Nyasha throughout the Nervous Conditions. Tambu arrives at her uncle’s school initially embracing her education and passion for learning, while there she begins to notice the relationships that existed between the settlers and native, males and females in society. Nyasha understood how awful these relationships were as a young girl. She suffers from severe depression and an eating disorder while trying to cope with and understand these relationships. There are many different decisions made with a variety of strategies that either helps them advance or causes them to fall victim to the controls of colonial society.
An educated woman was very uncommon in Zimbabwe during the 1980’s. Tambu decided to pursue her education against her mothers will. You notice the generation gap when her mother says ‘’Can you cook books and feed them to your husband? Stay at home with you mother. Learn to cook, clean and grow vegetables’’(Ma Shingayi, 15). She decided not to follow the traditional path of women and began selling corn at the market with her teacher to pay for her schooling. Tambu decided to resist fait at a very young age and continued not listening to her family throughout the novel. She felt weighed down by the burdens of womanhood and would not tolerate settling into that lifestyle.
Nyasha’s resentment for her parents results in her lashing out and developing an eating disorder. When her mother takes the D.H Lawrence book form her without asking Nyasha begins an argument with her at dinner and storms off without eating. This is the first sign of her nervous condition and foreshadows the escalating problem of her eating disorder. The decision to become bulimic is an attempt to control her life. She feels that her parents are preventing her from becoming the person she wants to be. ‘’ They’ve done it to me’’ (Nyasha,
The choice to resist or comply in situations greatly affects the success and personal relationships of Tambu and Nyasha throughout the Nervous Conditions. Tambu arrives at her uncle’s school initially embracing her education and passion for learning, while there she begins to notice the relationships that existed between the settlers and native, males and females in society. Nyasha understood how awful these relationships were as a young girl. She suffers from severe depression and an eating disorder while trying to cope with and understand these relationships. There are many different decisions made with a variety of strategies that either helps them advance or causes them to fall victim to the controls of colonial society.
An educated woman was very uncommon in Zimbabwe during the 1980’s. Tambu decided to pursue her education against her mothers will. You notice the generation gap when her mother says ‘’Can you cook books and feed them to your husband? Stay at home with you mother. Learn to cook, clean and grow vegetables’’(Ma Shingayi, 15). She decided not to follow the traditional path of women and began selling corn at the market with her teacher to pay for her schooling. Tambu decided to resist fait at a very young age and continued not listening to her family throughout the novel. She felt weighed down by the burdens of womanhood and would not tolerate settling into that lifestyle.
Nyasha’s resentment for her parents results in her lashing out and developing an eating disorder. When her mother takes the D.H Lawrence book form her without asking Nyasha begins an argument with her at dinner and storms off without eating. This is the first sign of her nervous condition and foreshadows the escalating problem of her eating disorder. The decision to become bulimic is an attempt to control her life. She feels that her parents are preventing her from becoming the person she wants to be. ‘’ They’ve done it to me’’ (Nyasha,
Cited: Tsitsi, Dangaremba. Nervious Conditions. London: The Women’s Press Ltd, 1988