Nervous Conditions

Question 1

What are themes in novels?

Answer 1

The dominant ideas of the text -
the main ideas the writer wants to explore
through the novel

Question 2

What are symbols in novels?

Answer 2

Recurring ideas which allow the writer to explore the themes through concrete things such as objects or colours

Question 3

List the main themes of Nervous Conditions

Answer 3

• Gender/Racial Inequality and its effect on the human body
• Colonialism: Africa vs the West
• Self discovery, education and growth
• The price paid for “progress”

Question 4

What passages in the novel give the impression that black Zimbabweans were “created” as inferior?

Answer 4

p14 - “trained to become useful to their people”; “they would have taken under their wing another promising young African”
p63 - “The new crop of educated Africans that had been sown… was now being abundantly reaped”
p28-29 - the attitudes of the white Rhodesians; use of the racially derogatory term “kaffir”

Question 5

Where do we see gender inequality in the novel?

Answer 5

p21 - Nhamo’s attitude towards his sisters; “You go nowhere… because you are a girl”
p16 - “This business of womanhood is a heavy burden”
p49 - Nhamo says “I was meant to be educated”; it is seen as a right of men to have an education

Question 6

Where can Babamukuru be seen as a patriarchal figure in the novel?

Answer 6

p50 - “He had made himself plenty of power. Plenty of power. Plenty of money. A lot of education. Plenty of everything”
p84-85 - Babamukuru’s physical assertion of power to maintain order
-The BINARY opposition of male and female
p118 - “femaleness as opposed to and inferior to maleness”

Question 7

What effect does this inequality have on Nyasha?

Answer 7

-Title of the novel; from Franz Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth”; “the condition of a native is a nervous condition”
-Nyasha’s reaction to this condition is in her anorexia/bulimia
p119 - “You’re trapped. They control everything you do.” (“they” referring to men)
-The weight of expectations on women; p193 “it’s all the things about boys and men being decent and indecent and good and bad”
-p205 - end of novel; “There’s nearly a century of it”

Question 8

Describe the growth of Tambuzai

Answer 8

-The novel is a Bildungsroman, describing the emancipation and growth of the main character
-The novel plots Tambu’s growth from peasant girl to educated lady (perhaps a reference to GB Shaw’s Pygmalion?)
p58-59 key in understanding this
-Growth into education comes at a cost to her relationships with her family and her attitude to the homestead
-p94-95 Tambu’s growth to womanhood

Question 9

What is a character

Answer 9

A character is a vehicle through which an author explores themes and ideas about the world

Question 10

What does Nyasha’s character explore?

Answer 10

The effect of gender and race inequality; anglicisation; colonisation and pressure on young women

Question 11

What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Answer 11

A pyramid which lists the needs of human beings to reach ultimate self realisation, in the order of:

• Physiological needs (e.g. food)
• Safety and Security
• Love and Belonging
• Esteem (e.g. acceptance)
• Self Actualisation

Question 12

How does Maslow’s hierarchy apply to the Novel?

Answer 12

The novel could be considered Tambu’s journey towards self realisation and enlightenment passing through all of the steps in the pyramid.

Question 13

What does Babamukuru represent?

Answer 13

• The novel’s patriarch, Babamukuru represents the male need to shake of the “poverty of blackness” and raise his family’s social status.
• His turbulent relationship with Nyasha shows readers the fragility of his (and in general, male) power.
• Although in the novel he is portrayed as a powerful figure, he is but a pawn in the game of colonialism, having no say in his role.

Question 14

Find examples of where Babamukuru appears powerful or weak in the eyes of Tambu

Answer 14

p44 - “He had done what he could for the family’s status by obtaining a Master’s degree”
p64 - “He had pushed up from the weight of the white man”
p70 - “Babamukuru was God, therefore I had arrived in heaven”
p82-83 and p114-117 Nyasha confronts Babamukuru - shows his weakness
p193 - The “sinister drama”

Question 15

Describe Maiguru’s attitude towards the Anglicisation of her children.

Answer 15

Maiguru is initially pleased with the Western education gained by her children, however, when the family returns to Rhodesia, she notices the adverse effects that Anglicisation is having on Nyasha’s mind and body.

Question 16

MAIGURU

Answer 16

Character driven by contrasts between Africa and the West.
Like Nyasha, the West had changed her views about the world
Educated with a Master’s degree from England, she isn’t happy to be a domestic drudge
After she leaves Babamukuru, she returns with a more confident voice, more in control of herself.

Question 17

What philosophical ideas does Maiguru’s character explore?

Answer 17

The ideas surrounding feminism; becoming a powerful role model to girls.

Question 18

Important Maiguru quotes?

Answer 18

p74 - “They [her children] are too Anglicised… they picked up all these disrespectful ways in England… and it’s taking them time to learn how to behave at home again”
p176 - Maiguru leaves, but Nyasha knows that she’ll return; “It’s everything, it’s everywhere. So where do you break out to?”
p178 - “most of her baby talk had disappeared”

Question 19

What contrasts does Nyasha represent?

Answer 19

• Meeting of two worlds; Africa and the West.
• Nyasha is full of binary oppositions; black/white; boys;girls; tradition;modernity.
• These oppositions lead to her “nervous condition” (anorexia and bulimia)

Question 20

What does Nyasha realise at the end of the book?

Answer 20

That she is trapped between both worlds, and that she cannot escape. The end is Dangarembga’s comment on how difficult it is to break out of a society which has conditioned your way of thinking all your life.

Question 21

Describe the symbolisms in Nyasha’s outburst in page 205.

Answer 21

• The history book which she shreds in her mouth represents the influence of the West, trapping her on one side.
• The clay pots represent African tradition which traps her on the other side.
• The mirror pieces with which she stabs herself represent her own image contributing to her own destruction.

Question 22

Describe the vicious circle in which Nyasha finds herself

Answer 22

She prefers reading to eating - The more she reads, the more she is educated about the injustices of her world - The ideas which she gets from reading affect her behaviour, which is severely punished by her father - As a form of rebellion from the punishment, she eats even less, and reads even more

This continues until Nyasha’s self destruction at the end of the novel.

Question 23

Why is Nervous Conditions a paradigm shifting book?

Answer 23

It rebels against the conventional view of the documentation of history; it teaches the popular history of a country as narrated by a black girl rather than a white man. “Herstory” instead of “history”

Question 24

Important Nyasha quotes

Answer 24

p84- relationship regarding food and books - “I don’t mind going to bed hungry… when I can’t sleep usually what I need is a good read”
p116 - Nyasha is called a “whore” by Babamukuru
p119 - “You can’t go on all the time being whatever’s necessary… once you get used to it… it just SEEMS NATURAL… You’re trapped
p175 - “It’s difficult when everything’s taken care of you. Even the way you think”