Nervous Conditions Paper

"Pass the Brainwash Please, On Second Thought…"

"Quietly, unobtrusively and extremely fitfully, something in my mind began to assert itself, to question things, and to refuse to be brainwashed…" The main character, Tambudzai, in the novel Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, is determined to get a white education without losing her native tongue and ways. However this proves to be more difficult that she would expect and seeds that are planted in her mind by the whites begin to take shape, and greatly affect her existence. I will begin by giving an overview of the story leading up to the point where Tambu heads off to begin her education at the missionary school. Next I show how Tambu has already been brainwashed into believing that the white's educational system is better than her own. Following I will discuss the influences that Tambu had to overcome in order to refuse to be brainwashed further. Finally I will give exam to the insight that Tambu's story offers on the situation of a person in her position. Tambu, as we shall call her, wants very badly to attain an education. Since her brother is the oldest and male he is given the first opportunity to attain an education. Because Tambu is a female it is thought by her family that attaining an education would not benefit her family, but some other man outside of her family, because she will marry, therefore she is not given an opportunity to be educated. Tambu fights this oppression by cultivating mealies in her grandmother's old garden, and then taking them to the city to be sold. While there she is told by a white woman that she should be in school, and her teacher who was with her states that Tambu would very much like an education but can not afford it. The woman gives Tambu ten pounds which pays for her education at the local village school for a long time. Her brother then dies, creating a opening for a student from their family at the missionary school where her uncle Babamukuru is