ENG2603
Assignment 1 2025
Unique number:
Due Date: May 2025
This document includes:
Helpful answers and guidelines
Detailed explanations and/ or calculations
References
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+27 68 812 0934
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, QUESTION 1: NERVOUS CONDITIONS BY TSITSI DANGAREMBGA
2 ESSAYS PROVIDED
Tsitsi Dangarembga‘s Nervous Conditions (1988) opens with a powerful
statement by the protagonist, Tambudzai: ―I was not sorry when my brother
died.‖ This startling line introduces a novel that explores the deep-rooted
societal and familial conditions that shape the lives of Zimbabwean women.
Tambu‘s reference to ―escape‖ and ―entrapment‖ in the opening paragraph
sets the thematic tone for the entire narrative, which closely interrogates how
patriarchy, colonialism, and tradition intersect to limit women‘s freedom.
Through the experiences of Tambu, Maiguru, Lucia, and Nyasha,
Dangarembga highlights different forms of entrapment—economic,
intellectual, cultural—and the various strategies of resistance and escape that
women pursue. This essay explores how each of these women navigates the
structures that bind them, showing that escape is complex, sometimes partial,
and often fraught with contradiction.
Tambu, the narrator of the novel, is perhaps the most compelling
representation of both entrapment and the desire to escape. As a young girl
growing up in a rural environment, she is confined by poverty and the belief
that education is a privilege reserved for boys. Her father openly asserts that
educating a girl is ―a waste‖ because she will ultimately marry and benefit
another family (Dangarembga, 1988:15). Tambu‘s first act of rebellion is to
grow and sell maize to pay for her own school fees, demonstrating both
initiative and a refusal to accept the limitations placed on her due to her
gender. Her opportunity to attend the missionary school at the mission, and
later the convent, offers her a path toward intellectual and personal liberation.
However, Dangarembga complicates this escape by showing that education
itself is entangled with colonial ideology, which alienates Tambu from her
roots and encourages assimilation into Western norms. Tambu‘s escape,
then, is not total; while she resists domestic entrapment, she enters another
system that controls her in more subtle ways.
Maiguru, Tambu‘s aunt and the wife of Babamukuru, is an educated woman
with a master‘s degree—an uncommon achievement for African women of her
© Study Shack 2025. All rights Reserved +27 68 812 0934
Assignment 1 2025
Unique number:
Due Date: May 2025
This document includes:
Helpful answers and guidelines
Detailed explanations and/ or calculations
References
Connect with the tutor on
+27 68 812 0934
,© Study Shack 2025. All rights Reserved +27 68 812 0934
, QUESTION 1: NERVOUS CONDITIONS BY TSITSI DANGAREMBGA
2 ESSAYS PROVIDED
Tsitsi Dangarembga‘s Nervous Conditions (1988) opens with a powerful
statement by the protagonist, Tambudzai: ―I was not sorry when my brother
died.‖ This startling line introduces a novel that explores the deep-rooted
societal and familial conditions that shape the lives of Zimbabwean women.
Tambu‘s reference to ―escape‖ and ―entrapment‖ in the opening paragraph
sets the thematic tone for the entire narrative, which closely interrogates how
patriarchy, colonialism, and tradition intersect to limit women‘s freedom.
Through the experiences of Tambu, Maiguru, Lucia, and Nyasha,
Dangarembga highlights different forms of entrapment—economic,
intellectual, cultural—and the various strategies of resistance and escape that
women pursue. This essay explores how each of these women navigates the
structures that bind them, showing that escape is complex, sometimes partial,
and often fraught with contradiction.
Tambu, the narrator of the novel, is perhaps the most compelling
representation of both entrapment and the desire to escape. As a young girl
growing up in a rural environment, she is confined by poverty and the belief
that education is a privilege reserved for boys. Her father openly asserts that
educating a girl is ―a waste‖ because she will ultimately marry and benefit
another family (Dangarembga, 1988:15). Tambu‘s first act of rebellion is to
grow and sell maize to pay for her own school fees, demonstrating both
initiative and a refusal to accept the limitations placed on her due to her
gender. Her opportunity to attend the missionary school at the mission, and
later the convent, offers her a path toward intellectual and personal liberation.
However, Dangarembga complicates this escape by showing that education
itself is entangled with colonial ideology, which alienates Tambu from her
roots and encourages assimilation into Western norms. Tambu‘s escape,
then, is not total; while she resists domestic entrapment, she enters another
system that controls her in more subtle ways.
Maiguru, Tambu‘s aunt and the wife of Babamukuru, is an educated woman
with a master‘s degree—an uncommon achievement for African women of her
© Study Shack 2025. All rights Reserved +27 68 812 0934
