Nervous Conditions Essay

Most often, societies generate expected social roles that are inflicted upon the people, and are passed on through generations. “Nervous conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga is a representation of those societies. The construction of social roles and gender in Rhodesia are based on ideology. The Patriarchal system expects all women to be the same, to dress the same, to be universal and natural, as well as inferior to all men. The men are expected to be dominant and educated. It is through the marginalization and the Patriarchal system that women’s rights are excluded and silenced.

Tambu bears the struggle of being ideologically stereotyped as a woman all throughout her life. Attempting to go against what would be “naturally feminine”, would

She stands out because she actually is educated and has a Master’s Degree from England. Maiguru is a paradox, and has to cope between both her cultural traditional African roots and from the Western life she had experienced in England. Her contradictory views evidently suggest the division that exists in her perception as a woman and as an African. Maiguru, like every other woman is constantly reduced to the traditional character of a domestic worker, when she returns to the homestead, realizing she will always be inferior because she is a woman. It is only at the end of the book that she starts to realize the consequences of having had the experience of living in both worlds. Moreover, most of the money Maiguru had attained was silenced. This was why Tambu was so surprised by Maiguru’s educational achievement. Maiguru is not expected to achieve so much intellectually, therefore she must hide it and tell no one. “What it is,” she sighed, “to have to choose between self and security”. Maiguru’s argument recapitulates the sacrifices she has made in order to live in Rhodesia and fit into the expected social role of the black woman. She, as well as Tambu’s mother endures the burden of being a woman in Rhodesia in silence. Nyasha’s violent argument with Babamakuru reinforces the idea that women don’t have a say, and need to accept to live up to the social expectation of