Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions: A Quest into the Time-honoured Mindsets About Feminineness Scuffle in the Context of Colonization and African Patriarchy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to cast light on the ideology expressed within the lines of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous conditions. The author in her trial to reflect upon the Zimbabwean community tends implicitly to invite the reader to consider the social status and by virtue the social sufferings accorded to the African woman in a society that decides to minimize the womanist presence to a mere asset exploited by men. Some of Dangarembga’s concerns in the novel touch upon gender, the African social dogmata, the roles stipulated to women by their macho counterparts and the taken for granted responsibilities of men, and their identities and personal ambitions apart from their stated roles. The paper launches a claim on gender and its upshot on marginalizing women and strengthening the knot of racism. Then, it tackles gender roles and the respective sociocultural dictations of rights and duties of African men and women. Under the same heading, gender identities and the internal and external conflicts of the characters throughout the way of self-realization are attached due heed. The paper tends to confer a virtual view to the intentions of the novel in making explicit the harrowing effect of the chauvinist community on squashing the feminine identity. Considerations of the colonial influence on the original African identity are also thought through. The paper aspires in the meantime to consider interdisciplinary issues by incorporating the field and theoretical views vis-a-vis the points mulled over in the work.