Nervous Conditions

Nervous Conditions by Tsiti Dangarembga so far has been extremely interesting. I think it is very interesting to read about African culture. I am not sure about my other classmates, but for me this novel was a lot different than I expected. The novel taught me a lot about how important school is for children in Africa, something I believe as Americans we often take for granted. The novel also showed me the connection as a family they have. The way their family interacted with one another is a lot different than I think families in America are today. The main reason the family interacted with each other was through work. They did not have much of personal relationships with one another, unlike my mother and I who are best friends. On the other hand tradition is something that I believe is largely cherished in African culture. My family personally doesn’t respect the thought and beliefs in tradition like Tambu and her family do.

               The largest connection I felt with this novel was when Tambu speaks about her cousin Nyasha being a victim of her femaleness. She speaks about have being a victim is universal and I agree with her completely. She speaks about how she thought a lack of education or poverty were the reasons why women were discriminated against. She also believed that only certain men did this. After what Babamukuru did to Nyasha though she knew this was wrong. I loved the last two lines in the paragraph it states, “What I didn’t like was the way all the conflicts came back to this question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness.”