Category: Nervous Conditions

Tsitsi Dangarembga‘s Nervous Conditions is a semi-autobiographical account on the story of Tambu’s experiences growing up as a woman in Rhodesia, in modern day Zimbabwe. The story begins after her brother’s death, expressing her lack of grieving over it. Her parents had sent her brother to school but did not have enough money to send her to school as well. While selling vegetables in an attempt to pay for her own education, she is offered ten pounds to pay for her education. At an extended family dinner, Tambu’s uncle Babamakuru proposes that she replace her dead brother as the family member receiving an education. Upon leaving for school, Tambu becomes fluent in English and excels in her studies. She is given a scholarship to a prestigious Catholic school. When she returns to her home, Tambu notices the effects that colonialism and westernization have had on her homestead. Westernization had profound effects on Tambu and her family; I think the most noticeable appearance of this westernization is Tambu’s cousin Nyasha’s behavior when she returns from England. While abroad, Nyasha lost her ability to speak Shona, her native tongue, and now speaks primarily English. Additionally, Nyasha develops an eating disorder and is reluctant to eat too much in fear of being fat.

Tambu also criticizes Nyasha’s new sense of fashion, which she deems to be inappropriately revealing. She has unlearned many of the values and practices that her African culture taught her early in her life. She begins to rebel against her parents, to the extent where Tambu criticizes her lack of gratefulness to her parents. Tambu emphasizes that Nyasha has had every opportunity given to her, but still chooses to disrespect her parents (68). These new rebellious behavioral changes reflect the westernization of Nyasha. The cause of the westernization going on in Rhodesia is the education they obtain, which stresses and enforces assimilation to Western culture. Tambu writes about the private school she attends. She states, “At that convent, which was just outside town but on the other side, to the south, you wore pleated terylene skirts to school everyday and on Sundays a tailor-made-two-piece linen suit with gloves, yes, even with gloves!” (178). Young Africa girls like Tambu and Nyasha have been thrown into a foreign culture and have been told to adapt to such Western ideals.

There is a very limited opportunity for African girls to get an education (179), and the places that do offer education do not allow Africans to express themselves as such. Nervous Conditions is very much written from a female point of view, which is made evident starting from the first page of the novel. Tambu begins the story by speaking of her brother Nemo’s death. Tambu’s parents only had enough money to send one of their children to school, and they chose Nemo because he was a man. From here it is clear that Tambu has been brought up in a society that does not value women. She writes, “The needs and sensibilities of the women in my family were not considered a priority or even legitimate (12). It is likely that if it weren’t for her brother’s death, she would not have received an education at all. Women in Tambu’s homestead were subservient to Tambu’s father; they are forced to assume traditional gender roles, including the responsibility of cooking and cleaning. Additionally, Tambu’s cousin Nyasha endures the harsh reality of patriarchal society that they live in. As punishment for wearing a short dress and talking to a boy, Babamukuru calls her a whore, beats her, and attempts to murder her. As Babamukuru attacks her, he shouts, “I cannot have a daughter that behaves like a whore” (114). This entire altercation is riddled with disgusting acts of misogyny and patriarchal oppression. It is evident from this event that women in this community did not have rights; they were to be subservient to the paternal figure in the family, do exactly as he says and do not question it. There is no freedom of association; there is no freedom of expression; women do not even have the right to their own bodies. Nyasha’s father quite simply tried to murder her for defending herself from his brutish attack.

After the attack, Nyasha silently walks out of the room and smokes a cigarette. This calm, almost nonchalant reaction is very indicative of the type of life to which Nyasha has been exposed. She was just called a whore, had her face spat in, was beaten and nearly killed, and her reaction is to simply sit down and smoke a cigarette. Nervous Conditions impeccably delineates the life of African people, particularly African women, in the era of decolonization. The term ‘nervous conditions’, originally coined by Jean-Paul Sartre, accurately depicts the psychological state of those entrapped in the adverse effects of decolonization. They are tossed into a cultural schizophrenia, being told to change while desiring to keep in touch with their roots. It is a commonplace belief to think that the 20th century was a time of social progressiveness, but Tambu’s story proves that the deplorable effects of decolonization remained well into the twentieth century. This novel exposes the harsh realities that the privileged did not know existed.

Published in 1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, Nervous Conditions, was the first novel published by a black Zimbabwean woman- not because African women were not writing novels, but because of the difficulties African women faced when attempting to publish works of literature. Due to the issue that African women were not previously given a voice in literature, Dangarembga’s novel unearthed decades of social oppression which hindered black women and kept them buried under colonization and African patriarchal dominance. Dangarembga’s novel focuses on “the colonized African clan,” specifically the “Siguake clan, part of the Shona people” (Mbatha). From an outside perspective, “colonialism is seen as a double-edged sword” (Mbatha). To Tambu, colonialism is “the ‘carrier of a discourse of western modernity which, in its emphasis upon education and democracy, enables a challenge to the African patriarchy” (Mbatha). Conversely, “a colonial education alienates its African subjects from their culture, with disastrous psychological consequences,” as seen in Nyasha (Mbatha).

Overall, Nervous Conditions presents a feminist critique from a woman that lived through this patriarchal dominance, through the unique points-of-view of several autobiographical female characters, primarily Tambudzai and Nyasha, who actively experience prominent issues such as gender inequality and oppression, revealing their burdens and struggles that are a direct result of their gender in a patriarchal culture. In 1989, while discussing her novel in an interview, Dangarembga “suggests that her role as an artist in southern Africa is to respond to the need for women’s self-definition,” something routinely smothered as a result of both colonization and patriarchal cultures, and so she chooses Tambu and Nyasha to convey her message and to “express those experiences so frequently muted by mainstream (male) urban voices” (Aegerter). Dangarembga translates her personal experiences and opinions into the two young Shona women.

Moreover, Nervous Conditions “displaces [Dangarembga’s] autobiographical self in dual protagonists in Rhodesia (pre-independent Zimbabwe)- urban, anglicized Nyasha and rural African Tambudzai- as a way to represent the split subjectivity and cultural alienation that are colonization’s consequence” (Aegerter). When viewing Tambu and Nyasha separately, they represent the darker inspiration behind the novel’s title. They are “alienated from themselves and from their traditional culture by the oppressions of their own culture as it intersects and collides with colonial patriarchy” (Aegerter). Separately, Tambu and Nyasha exhibit symptoms of nervous conditions.

First, the novel opens with the straightforward and, albeit shocking, line: “I was not sorry when my brother died,” narrated by the protagonist Tambu, who is emotionally unperturbed by the recent death of her brother, Nhamo (Dangarembga). The one line represents an “[anticipation] of the loss upon which Tambudzai’s emancipation from traditional African chauvinism is predicated” (Aegerter). The reader learns that Tambu has been forced to sacrifice her chances at an education so that her parents may send Nhamo instead, a trend that is not uncommon in Rhodesian culture. Women are expected to take care of a husband and children. Therefore, many consider it pointless for women to be educated, including, shockingly, Tambu’s own father, who jokes, “can you cook and feed books to your husband?” (Dangarembga). However, Nhamo’s death, which is “the death of the eldest son” of Tambu’s family, “conspires with Babamukuru and his increasingly Western ideals to remove Tambu from the fate of “woman” that has beleaguered her weary mother” (Aegerter).

Nevertheless, Tambu does not give up on her goals so easily. She decides to grow and sell vegetables in order to raise money to pay her own way through school, exhibiting a strong sense of determination to remove herself from her culture’s unfair patriarchal ideals. Whereas Nhamo, and many other African men are simply handed the opportunities to further their education, women such as Tambu must work hard to obtain these same opportunities. Within the Shona culture, Tambu is routinely restricted to specific roles that are meant to confine her and prevent her from rising above “domesticity” (Aegerter).

While the women are taught how to make suitable wives and mothers, young men such as Nhamo are able to study and go to school. Despite colonization, which has always manifested itself to oppress whichever country or culture that is being colonized with the pretense that the colonized country will benefit from it, Nhamo still maintains the “privilege” of attending school, “with the whites who were a part of the ruling colonial class” (Aegerter). Nhamo is still able to obtain an education despite his family’s struggling livelihood, which can only afford to send one child to school to receive a better education. This demonstrates how important it is to stay “consonant with the patriarchal beliefs of empowering male members of the family for perpetual domination” (Mbatha). However, following Nhamo’s death, “Tambudzai becomes the equivalent of the male first born, inheriting his privileges as a way to escape sexism” (Aegerter).

Similarly, Dangarembga and other women faced adversities when it came to the same opportunities as men. Dangarembga herself underwent difficulties in getting Nervous Conditions published. During the period in which Dangarembga was writing and publishing her novel, the African literary arena was heavily dominated by the male point-of-view, which was both ignorant and uncaring in regard to the perspectives and struggles of the real African women who were the inspiration for their literary characters. Instead, African women were portrayed in conventional and traditional “cookie-cutter” roles, such as the common and socially acceptable wife and mother. If a woman were written outside of one of either of these roles, she was normally discarded as a rebel and subsequently punished.

Contrastingly, Dangarembga challenged the patriarchal literary arena with her own unique style of writing, which incorporates the point-of-views of realistic women facing gender struggles and engages the toxic idea that women were meant to be subordinate to men. She represents formerly battered and stereotyped women as “agents and actors” that “engage in multiple experiences, maneuvering within and around oppression, certainly, but living their lives in spite of it” (Aegerter). Nervous Conditions became more than just a novel, ogled at due to the fact that it was written and published by a black woman from Zimbabwe; it represents a triumph over the patriarchal “social silencing” and “political disenfranchisement of African women in colonial and neocolonial communities” (Aegerter). “[Dangarembga’s] social feminist approach to material are evident in the portrayal of male power and its structures of dominance, gender stratification, female challenges or resistance to marginalization, and the dynamics of race and class relations” (Aegerter).

Dangarembga is able to pass along her triumph and message with the help of Tambudzai’s voice, which “gives her liberation from her patriarchal-imposed silence and offers hope in the resilience and success of the female challenge” (Uwakweh). Dangarembga essentially writes a critique of the overbearing patriarchal culture on the back of Tambu’s story “and the four women closely related to her and in their various responses to male power” (Uwakweh). “The stereotyping of women as being less valuable than men often results in women’s displacement, whereby young women are either married away or involved in some non-formal relationship with a married man”

Furthermore, Nervous Conditions has helped the world understand the extent of the African patriarchy, therefore making it a unique and significant voice for feminist literature. Through Tambu’s perspective, the reader is able to witness all of the ways in which male domination oppresses her experiences. In a typical Shona family, there is “a relatively strong influence of patriarchy and male dominance whereby the family is mostly male headed and male children are preferred to female children because male children can maintain the patriarchal system” (Mbatha). The idea that men valued certain children over others due to their gender is a mind-boggling one. The culture in which Tambu and her female relatives are raised is heavily influenced by family structures, where “men are placed firmly at the centre of the family and likewise the community, while women are marginalized and treated like second-class citizens” (Mbatha). Moreover, the poor treatment and toxic stereotyping of African women results in many of the issues the patriarchy resents, such as the women becoming involved in “some non-formal relationship with a married man” and the detested “rebellious” attitudes (Mbatha).

Dangarembga confronts this toxic cycle of oppression with her diverse cast of female characters. Formerly, African women were placed in conventional cookie-cutter roles and portrayed as victims. Although Tambu respects her culture’s traditions and the men in her family and community, she aims to reverse her situation so that she and other women in similar situations may have a chance at autonomy rather than be continuously governed by the patriarchy. Tambu believes she will be able to do so through education. To Tambu, an education represents an escape from her oppressive environment. Essentially, “the relationship between Tambu and Nhamo was reduced to that of the privileged and the non-privileged” (Mbatha). Nhamo was granted more opportunities because he was male, and because this upheld the patriarchal belief that male members of the family must be empowered to uphold patriarchal domination within the Shona community. Therefore, Nhamo was given every good opportunity, so that he would stay empowered, while Tambu’s father groomed her to be a suitable wife and mother.

Due to this, the relationship between Tambu and Nhamo became “mutually destructive,” as Nhamo attempts to spoil Tambu’s hard work and goals by stealing her maize, and “[dominating] over her as a male” (Mbatha). In like manner, Tambu develops a hatred for Nhamo, as seen in the opening line of the novel where she expresses no emotion over Nhamo’s passing as one would expect a sister to do. Rather than feel sadness, Tambu expresses an “apathetic attitude to Nhamo’s untimely demise” (Mbatha). Although Dangarembga did not allow the audience to know Nhamo very well, she gives a sense of what the relationship was like through Tambu’s memories; their relationship represents a fraction of a much larger issue in African and Shona cultures. Nhamo represents the patriarchy itself, as he is privileged due to his male gender, overbearing, and domineering towards Tambu, who represents the female “victim” of these issues and the resulting backlash.

This mindset is further corroborated by Tambu’s father, Jeremiah, when he asked her whether it was possible to ‘cook books and feed them to your husbands? Stay at home with your mother. Learn to cook and clean. Grow vegetables’ (1988:15).

Most importantly, Nervous Conditions places African women’s voices at the forefront to showcase their unique qualities and heterogeneity. This challenges the overwhelmingly negative roles normally constructed for women. Tambu and Nyasha are representative of real African women, which is what helps to transform the homogeneity that African women are subjected to. The African female body, accustomed to being battered and abused by African literary stereotypes, and “maligned and inscribed by patriarchal colonial practice, becomes a powerful site of resistance in the novel” (Patchay). This is due to Dangarembga’s “retrieval, rediscovery, and reinvention” of everything that represents African women, which she “harnessed through the narrative structure of the novel because, while Tambu quietly, unobtrusively, and extremely fitfully… [comes] to question things” she is pitted against the shifting focalization of a younger Tambu” in that she is forced to overcome the values instilled in her since childhood (Patchay). This “multi-vocality” lent to the four women the novel primarily focuses on “challenges the various ways in which African women’s stories have been silenced by both patriarchal and colonial meta-narrativity” (Patchay).

In “Girl Power in Nervous Conditions: Fictional Practice as a Research Site” author Ann Smith details the ways in which the highly sought-after education, which is supposed to be a means to empower Tambu and remove her from her oppressive situation, also serves as a way to oppress her. This is because a white, western education would not be beneficial to African people, as it offers nothing relevant to their specific culture, history, or livelihoods. For Dangarembga, “the clash between her first world education and her third world education finds some resolution in this novel in that it is her articulation of that consciousness of being a woman in Africa” (Smith). Tambu and Nyasha are forced to withstand the “double jeopardy” marginalization of being both black and female- regardless of superior education” (Smith). By seeking an education regardless of this notion, Tambu expresses a common occurrence for young African women in which “[they] learn to deal with the traumatizing events of [their] life as a colonized subject [by] desperately seeking an education” (Smith).

Moreover, Nervous Conditions “presents us with [an] investigation into the colonial co-option,” through “the educational system of the local community patriarch, Babamukuru… and offers some exploration of possible feminist strategies of coping with these complexities” (Smith).

One way in which Dangarembga demonstrates how the patriarchy is harmful to African women’s mental health is Nyasha’s eating disorder, which is a symptom of her desire for some sort of control over her situation. Nyasha’s character is portrayed as a “highly intelligent girl able to actively engage in discussions with others, but when she questions patriarchal values her father silences her” (Vizzard). Her attempts at questioning the wrongs of her father’s patriarchal is what plasters her with the label of a “rebel,” the same characteristic that is normally frowned upon in other works of African literature. While Nyasha’s “outward rebellions” are “silenced, an inner rebellion begins to take place and morphs into anorexia as she seeks some form of control over her own life” (Vizzard).

Furthermore, Nyasha is an example of “a culturally isolated young woman, caught between the expectations of two cultures” (Vizzard). She is also an example of the type of woman Tambu aspires to be in terms of education and intelligence. However, despite Nyasha’s education, she is still a victim of the African patriarchy, as well as a victim of isolation within her own culture. Although Tambu is determined to challenge her culture’s patriarchal values and overcome the oppression she grew up with, “Nyasha, in particular, challenges and deconstructs stereotypical representations of African women” (Aegerter). This is because “Nyasha recognizes that male privilege is a social construction rather than some indelible natural law,” meaning that it is able to be challenged and broken (Aegerter). “Her indignation and rage are at the refusal of those who benefit from the gender-based hierarchy to the Western ideals that revile the very man she is forced to revere, that make a slave of her father, her master”1. The sad irony “is that in turning from the unpalatable patriarchy of her father, she destroys her body through the eating disorder bulimia, a Western disease”, demonstrating how deeply she is confused and torn between both the effects of Western colonization and her father’s patriarchal values (Aegerter).

Nyasha is an example of why the sought-after western education is more harmful than beneficial to African men and women alike. After obtaining an education, Nyasha is no longer able to fit in with other people in her culture; rather, she becomes a sort of outcast and is ridiculed for the way she speaks and behaves. Tambu admires how educated Nyasha is and aspires to be the same, but overlooks the fact that Nyasha is still unable to remove herself from the confines of her father’s patriarchal values. Nyasha may be wordly and experienced, but once she sets foot back in the confines of her own culture, she is once more treated like a second-class citizen just like her female relatives.

Ultimately, Nyasha is arguably worse off after obtaining an education. Her character is somewhat reminiscent of a caged wild animal. She possesses the means which African women consider necessary to escape from their oppressive situations, but her father’s patriarchal values keep her caged and suppressed. This ultimately pushes her to become self-destructive. The reader notices that “periods or incidents of violence or repression by her father are generally followed by periods of starvation by Nyasha” (Vizzard). Despite all of this, “the patriarchal consequence of her race, sex, and class, Tambu has high aspirations for her own education” (Vizzard).

“[Dangarembga’s characters] engage in the interplay of traditional preservation and progress, dancing a dialectic of autonomy and community that leads them to the third point of the dialectic, one that synthesizes traditional notions of African community from a womanist perspective with women’s autonomy defined from an “African” perspective” “As it becomes clear in the novel, African woman’s autonomy is predicated upon and inseparable from her place within her community” (Aegerter).

“Alone, the young women are metaphorically severed from themselves and their culture, but together they symbolize the “wholeness” and “healing” of African womanist identity” (Aegerter).

Works Cited

1. Aegerter, Lindsay Pentolfe. “A Dialectic of Autonomy and Community: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 1 Oct. 1996, https://www.jstor.org/stable/464133?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
2. Mbatha, P. “A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions.” Research Space, https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10413/390/MbathaP_2009.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
3. Patchay, Sheena. “Transgressing Boundaries: Marginality, Complicity and Subversion in ‘Nervous Conditions.’” English in Africa, 1 May 2003, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40238980?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
4. Smith, Ann. GIRL POWER IN NERVOUS CONDITIONS: FICTIONAL PRACTICE AS A RESEARCH SITE. https://mje.mcgill.ca/article/viewFile/8539/6472.
5. Span, https://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/litserv/SPAN/36/Vizzard.html.
6. Uwakweh, Pauline Ada. “Debunking Patriarchy: The Liberational Quality of Voicing in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Conditions.’” Research in African Literatures, 1 Apr. 1995, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820089?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

This essay gives a brief summary of the novel The Book of Not and how the black Africans were treated badly at the hands of the whites by applying the Critical Race Theory. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel The Book of Not was published eighteen years after Nervous Conditions. It is a sequel to the story Nervous Conditions. It is a refined, skillful, competent and lyrical novel which deals with multifarious aspects specifically those of race, during the historical struggle for independence in Zimbabwe. It addresses about the effects of racism, imperialism, gender inequity during the destructive transfiguration from white- minority rule in Rhodesia in the 1970’s to the independent Zimbabwe in the 1980’s.

The Book of Not is a piece of the recent flourishing novel of Zimbabwean women’s writing, which is deeply involved with the war of liberation and its after efforts. Dangarembga creatively applies various devices like irony, humor and farce to present the absurdities of racism in the colonial society, by bringing into visibility what was unspeakable in the post colonial Zimbabwe. Her use of fiction to say clearly about the Rhodesian legacy of colonialism and racism is substantial.

The Book of Not, which is a sequel to Nervous Conditions, picks up where Nervous Conditions ends. It is narrated by Tambu as an adult storyteller who reminisces the thoughts and experiences of the younger Tambu. It continues the story of the protagonist Tambu which was began as a predecessor to this sequel. Her follow-up to Nervous Conditions is set against the backdrop of the liberation war and the first years of Independence in Zimbabwe.

The book spans Tambu’s high school days at the cusp of independence when the liberation war was at its vertex. Tambu is one among the few black girls who was chosen to attend the Sacred Heart College. The novel presents the story of Tambu from the young ladies College of Sacred Heart, where most of the novel is situated and later a position in the Advertising Agency set against the backdrop of the colonial Rhodesia.

The story proceeds further to describe the struggle underwent by Tambu in order to achieve a productive, fruitful and independent life immediately after Zimbabwe’s independence, and portrays her as an individual who is been obsessed with recognition and self- achievement. As Tambu starts her education in the school, she believes that she should be one of the best, and motivates herself by saying the words that, the average will not apply to her and she must be absolutely outstanding or nothing.

In The Book of Not Tambu narrates the story of her high school years during the war of liberation and her struggle to make an independent life for herself after the national independence. Tambu also recollects her ambitious optimism about her desires in the initial years when she joined the school. Her desire was always positive, and her only motive was to achieve, achieve, and achieve some more.

The novel opens with a scene where, her mother, Mai, takes Tambu and her younger siblings to a morari. Morari is a political gathering which aimed to raise support for the freedom fighters and instill loyalty among the villagers. Before going to the morari, Tambu anxiously walks around the homestead analyzing old and rusted objects that could be breaked and which cannot be fixed because of the force of wholeness has been abdicated. This hopelessness of repair figuratively signifies what lies ahead for her and the nation, as the war allowed violence and atrocities to happen which stood as a common factor. Tambu also senses her mother’s aversion toward her uncle, Babamukuru, the head of the family and Tambu’s well-wisher. Mai, who was skeptical about the Englishness and grieving for the loss of her son, was extremely displeased about Babamukuru when he allowed Tambu to attend the Sacred Heart. Tambu, like her uncle and aunt desires to escape from her homestead. And even though Tambu disregards her mother’s lack of ambition, her mother has a hold over Tambu so that she may not find ways to escape from the homestead.

On their way to the meeting Tambu’s mother warns the children not to say anything and should answer as everyone does or should remain silent. At the rally her uncle was beaten by the villagers for being a sell- out. Everybody was around him just standing and watching but did nothing to help him and Mai was totally happy seeing this and was breathing in catches of contentment. In an attempt to distance herself and remain safe, Tambu shuts down her senses by trying not to look at anything that is happening around her so that when she returns to school she will not make the mistake of saying that she has seen this or that and also tried not to hear any of the words so she will never repeat the words of the war anymore.

The beating of her uncle was stopped only by another destructive event. Tambu’s younger sister Netsai, who was in love with a comrade joined the guerrilla war and stepped on a landmine. When she stepped there was an explosion in the landmine and Netsai’s leg spun up, up, up in the sky. Tambu registered the explosion in the slow motion of traumatic time. As the older sibling of the family, she felt that she should do something, but she was overwhelmed and astounded by the unexpected events. Then they took Netsai in a car to the hospital. On their way, while passing through the rich white suburbs near the college, Tambu noticed the economic and material discrepancy in the activities of the white residents and black workers.

When Tambu returned to school after the morari, she was continuously pursued by traumatic flashbacks, and for her, the morari recalled the European images of Africans like, the cavemen dragging their women where they wanted them, by their hair and hands. Tambu was at a convulsion to differentiate her from European discourses of African state of nature, which she often related with the village and her mother. Yet despite her intentions, she and her dorm mate, Ntombi, frequently came to blows, hurting and scratching each other, even though they were aware of the risk of authorizing the European fantasies of racial difference.

Tambu always aspired to be recognized by the Europeans and the Africans as a person of value. At first, she aimed to achieve the honor roll in the Sacred Heart College. In order to achieve the honor roll she devised various strategies like memorization and mimicry to recollect each and every word said by the teacher and as a result she even scored high marks in her second year. She next set within herself the desire of achieving the silver cup for the best O- level results, which will be displayed in the school trophy cabinet.

In a quest to achieve her goal, she studied alone in a secret place rather than joining her dorm mates, as they often danced to African music without studying. While Tambu was obsessively preparing for the O-level exams, a terrific news came that, the parents of the Rhodesian twins at the school were brutishly murdered by the freedom fighters. In the assembly, the headmistress handed the newspapers to the students with the pictures of the girl’s slain father so that they may see it, and also announced that their mother died shortly thereafter.

This incident caused Tambu and the other black students a bit uncomfortable. The headmistress failed to confess the white-minority rule and the atrocities committed on the black victims by the white soldiers and the civilians, and so legitimatized the media’s positioning of black Africans as assassins of terrorism.

To distance herself from the terrorists, Tambu positioned herself with the white students, willing to knit for the Rhodesian troops. On Friday nights she used to have a ride into the town with the white girls in the bus, while they sang the song that the land belongs to Rhodesians. After this incident, she began to betray her race and even her relationship with the dorm mates became worse. Ntombi was angry on Tambu for being behaving in a rude manner with the dorm mates. And so one day, Ntombi snatched Tambu’s knitting needles from the cupboard, calling her a betrayer, and even accused her for putting them all at risk by joining hands with the white students.

When the O- level results were announced, Tambu comes first and Ntombi also excels, which helped them to restore their estranged relationship. But, Tambu encountered a devastating blow, when she learnt that the silver cup will be rewarded to Tracey, who excelled in sport as well as academics. After this crushing declaration, Ntombi offers to go with Tambu to question Sister Emmanuel’s decision. The denial of the trophy and the loss of recognition which she desired sank her into depression.

Yet Tambu frightfully wanted to speak up for herself. One day Sister Emmanuel calls the inmates of the African dormitory to inform them about the quotas and also that the government has asked the college to be cautious about the African students they have. Tambu, thoughtful of her one legged sister in the village panics about what the security forces might do if they find about her sister. Despite her anxiety about why she was not awarded the trophy she was even more aggravated by the manner Sister Emmanuel discussed the issue of quotas by making fun about their flesh.

Tambu’s preparation for the A- level went very badly. As the war intensified, the science teacher from Europe did not come to teach the students, so the students studying science subjects were transported to a segregated boy’s school from which Tambu was excluded. She was left to study on her own without a teacher. Tambu’s expulsion prompted her to question her own identity. She even fantasized about refusing to knit for the Rhodesian troops in revenge for her exclusion, but she did not have the courage to take such a decisive step.

Ntombi came to Tambu’s room one evening and Tambu showed off her by quoting Shakespeare. When Ntombi put her head on the desk wailing, Tambu mistakenly thought that she was laughing at her. As Tambu continued her recitation, Ntombi cried out to Tambu about the terrifying details of the vicious murder of her infant cousin by the Rhodesian soldiers. Although Tambu shared Ntombi’s grief and outrage, she was totally depressed in her own desolation, so she was unable to respond empathically.

After this encounter she succumbed to a strange behavior, convulsion and sobbing whenever she looked at the pine and wattle plantations which reminded her of Netsai. Her body affirmed the truth that she was not yet conscious of, that the colonial education system has not only separated her from herself and her community but also has led to ruin, destruction and despair as a result of colonialism and the war of liberation.

After independence Tambu takes a series of dispiriting jobs, eventually working as a copy editor in an Advertising Agency in Harare. Her associate Dick, supported by her old schoolmate Tracey, was an executive at the agency and he took the honor of Tambu’s creative work under the acting that she merely edited his copy rather than composing it. When he invited her for coffee, she anticipated the happiness she would feel when he congratulated her on a brilliant ad. Imagining that she and Dick will make a captivating new Zimbabwean couple, she recalled as if people gazing at them and nurturing their smiles like hope at the reconciliatory, post- independence harmony.

This mixed race coupling was in reality a repetition of the old colonial order in which the black woman was complicit with the white man in her oppression. Dick told Tambu that the boss loved her Afro- Shrine copy, but has asked him to present it to the client. Unable to break out of her habit of internalizing failure, she tried to convince herself by saying that the act that put Dick’s name to her work must be good for everyone, including herself as she had earlier justified Sister Emmanuel’s decision to award the trophy to Tracey.

Depressed by her lack of success to achieve the brilliant future of which she dreamt, Tambu decides to move into better accommodations. She moved to the Twiss hostel, an elegant old colonial building for single girls. The hostel though had only few black residents reflected the humiliations she experienced at Sacred Heart. In the dining room, discrimination was unofficially practiced and Tambu has to calculate when to arrive and where to sit so as not to appear unique. After resigning her job as the copy editor, Tambu was in a crisis about what she was going to do and whether there will be a way to go to the agency again.

Thus Tambu was in a confusion about where to stay after resigning the job and also thought that there is no use in staying in the Twiss hostel anymore without a job. She also thought that she cannot go and stay with her relatives in the mission anymore as Babamukuru has said that he will not provide anything to help her and she could not even go back to the homestead as Netsai, her younger sister was suffering there with a single limb.

Another thought of Tambu was that when she goes to the homestead her mother Mai would laugh at her as, she went to study outside opposing the whole family without the willingness of her mother and now when she goes back there without any success her mother would laugh and make fun of her. Thus the novel ends by questioning what the future holds for the new Zimbabweans.

Critical race theory is a theoretical mode which examines about the appearance of race and racism in a society. It attempts to understand how the victims of racism are being affected. Thus the novel The Book of Not can be analyzed using the Critical Race Theory, as many racist activities is been seen in this novel mostly between the whites and the black students in the college. The exploitation and oppression experienced by the African characters due to the racial inequality is clearly analyzed according to the Critical Race Theory. Here are a few instances from the novel which depicts about racism, racial segregation, racial discrimination, racial inequality and racial prejudice.

Fanon’s words insist that sin is black and virtue is white. Accurately these words echo the sense of guilt and terror Tambu felt of being black in a racist world. Thus Tambu desires for the other, a desire that transforms to a hatred of herself and anything that reminds her of her blackness, her skin, her people, her culture, her profession and her mind. This psychological battle that she encounters approves the reader to be compassionate with her, despite the selfish and outrageous projection of the whites.

Dangarembga’s investigation of racism discloses self- evident truths about the colonial experience. But these seem silly in the plight of Tambu’s various family members. In considering primarily on the whites racist engagement with black people, Dangarembga fails an opportunity to tell the darker story of the effect of the war on Tambu’s family. The two most significant characters who are absent in the sequel are Nyasha and Lucia. Lucia was the one who denied having her sexual needs as the concern of the men of the household. The other character is Nyasha whose disobedience ended her with debilitating bulimia. These two characters played the most memorable part in Nervous Conditions who are not present in its sequel.

The Sacred Heart College is said to be a humane, kind and benevolent place run by nuns. But still there were evidences of racism being prevalent, where there were white spaces at the school which the black girls cannot occupy, such as the whites- only toilet. Racial discrimination is also apparent in the fact that all the African students, despite of their form levels, were confined to one dormitory. This racial segregation is also evident from the daily insults the black girls encounter from Bougainvillea, one of the white students.

The events of racial prejudice are exhibited in the novel in most of the places where the blacks were totally rejected and not recognized for their hard work. We can find this when Tracey the white student, accomplishes the award for the best results at O- level even though she doesn’t score the required marks needed. When asked about this cruelty done to Tambu, the justification given by the Sister in charge was that every year the award will be given to the all- rounder of the college. So, as Tracey was an all-rounder the award was rightly given to her. This was not accepted by Tambu as a reason but as a black girl she could not do anything and just accepted everything. The black girls in the college were even prohibited for using their vernacular language within the school.

Most significantly, racial segregation is reflected when touching between the races was strictly forbidden at the school and when it occurred, it was considered abnormal. The awareness of this racial prejudice is what makes the African girls fear about touching their white counterparts in the corridors, at the assembly line and while they passed food to each other in the dining hall. Any kind of touch between the races was therefore translated into pain and humiliation.

Tambu brings out the terror the black girls felt dealing with their white counter parts. This terrifying psychological exposure to racism contributes to the peeling away of her sense of self and a subsequent desire to mimic what her mind feels as a superior self. Unfortunately, this mental deformity implodes into a sense of not being and certainty in the inferiority of her race.

The Book of Not brings together the scenes of humiliation of racism in everyday colonial life. The racist discrimination takes place in the school dining hall where Tambu and Ntombi share a table with their white classmates. While speaking to Tracey, Bougainvillea stares fetishistically at the hands of the black girls and says to Tracey to look at their amazing fingers and also makes fun that its not just they two but, all of them have the same. They even had a look on those amazing fingers by raising their eyebrows with a practiced investigatory motion as they inclined their head forward. Thus Bougainvilla dehumanizes Tambu and Ntombi by treating them as samples to be inspected and classified.

The irrationality of the relations between the black and white students is further dramatized through the transaction involving Nesquik, a luxury shipped from South Africa which only the white girls could afford to buy. After Bougainvillea inspects their hands, Ntombi takes advantage of their acquaintance and asks if she can have some of her Nesquik. Tambu was on a convulsion, wondering whether Ntombi will touch Bougainvillea’s Nesquik, and whether the white girls will regard the Nesquik as contaminated after she touched it.

Bougainvillea relieves the suspense by spooning some of the chocolate into Ntombi’s glass. Bougainvillea also offers Tambu the Nesquik. But Tambu, who was mentally caught up with the issue of dignity, was trapped in a dilemma of her own, whether to consume it or not and why Bougainvillea wanted her to have it and whether can she be trusted etc, various questions arises in her mind and she was in a total confusion.

The racial inequality was again reinforced by the way in which the waitresses served the European and African students. When serving the former the waitresses move fluidly, but they bang it down with a jut of the chin and drops as though crushing a thing down on disgusting crawling objects when they set a jug or a plate before Ntombi or Tambu. Tambu always observed that when this happens, Ntombi’s cheeks begin to sag and her bones melt like chocolate left out in the sun. Thus the African students were being embarrassed by this way.

Another racist activity practiced inside the college was that the black girls were not allowed to touch the white girls. In the college each and every student should stand in their own form for the assembly. Bougainvillea was the leader and Tracey took the place behind Bougainvillea. Tracey did not mind touching black girls and so, Tambu always preferred to stand behind her. Due to this fear of touching anybody Tambu used to pray to God before Sister appears for the assembly so that Ntombi might come quickly from the dormitories and stand behind her so that she may not touch anybody. This way each and every day they spent a lot of time consumed by this kind of fear and terror. It was all demeaning and the horror of it worried them so much.

The African dormitory once again for the third time captured the attention of the headmistress. The reason behind this was that again they caused a clog up of the college’s sewerage system. So the entire drainage must be over hauled. The headmistress was angry on the African dormitory because, instead of repeated warning about the various consequences of their actions, the young ladies in that dormitory throwed their used feminine hygiene pads into their toilet.

Most significantly the students in the dormitory were treated as illiterate with unpolished behavior. Thus the Sister insults them only because they belonged to the black race by saying that the girls in the dormitory may not be aware of the reasons why such articles should not be deposited in toilet bowls, and this was the reason for which they were brought to the college, so that they may polish their behavior.

Thus again she repeats to the African dormitory about the significance of the sewerage system, that the sewerage system is expensive and it should not be clogged up with their personal hygiene items. She concluded saying that they are causing the whole school to a great expense that they should not be carrying at that moment. Thus the sister was ill-tempered on the African dormitory because of their behavior.

Another incident where Tambu was ashamed before everyone was in the toilet. The junior hostel toilets had swing doors. It was for the first time Tambu was in those toilets. It was considered a sanctified place and there were rows of showers with shiny curtains, bathtubs that sparkled like mother of pearl in pale coral colors, along one wall where plump- bellied washbasins were so deep as to be splash proof, and the smell of jasmine permeated from everything.

Soon, Tambu pulled the door to a cubicle violently behind her in a hurry to make sure that she was not seen by a white girl. She felt a shock of triumph as she exposed her buttocks, imagining all the white girls doing the same. But she felt guilty of having a desire above her station; she was where she was not supposed to be. She was breaking the law. When she was inside the toilet, suddenly she heard a voice from the matron that she has seen her and she cried at her that she is not meant to sit in that toilet and asked her to open the door.

Deidre, Barbara and all the girls who came to the ablution block heard and soon the brown school sandals amassed around her. Miss. Plato ordered again to open the door. Tambu was intended to clean the toilet bowl but could not do and so opened the door. When she emerged out of the toilet the white girls called her as the vorter and also said that she has not flushed. So again Tambu entered the cubicle and performed the required operation and returned unable to look at anyone. She was ashamed and she herself could not believe that how she behaved in such a silly fashion which resulted in her being caught before the English girls.

Because of this, the black mark entered against her name. Thus Tambu was been forced out of the toilet which was only meant for the white students. When she was caught and admonished for using the white- only toilet, she madly blamed it all on the fact of blackness and transferred her self- hatred into anger at her fellow blacks.

There is an instance we can see where the Sister degrades the African dorms while talking to them regarding the quotas , by making jokes about their flesh and how some of the people thought that it was all lumped as one, their flesh was piled together. The worst part was that their opinion was not asked regarding the audience formality. One evening the juniors were taking their milk and biscuits in the dining room and it was Marie biscuits and butter shortbread, both dry. Patience in a hurry took the biscuits kept for the juniors. Seeing this Miss. Plato came hurrying and cried furiously to Patience, that she should feel guilty for this act of taking the food kept for the young ones.

The examination progressed and everybody was gathered to know the O-level results. The headmistress announced the examination results. Tambu was eagerly waiting for the announcement that the award for the best O- level results will be awarded to her. Sister announced the marks of Tracey and she was jumping up and down hugging Bougainvillea as she got six ones. Then Sister Emmanuel congratulated her. When Tambu’s results were announced Tracey was angry as Tambu scored seven ones and one two.

After announcing everybody’s marks Sister Emmanuel approached the matter for which Tambu was waiting with uncontainable excitement. Sister announced that the award for the best O- level results for the year will be awarded to a very deserving and hard working young lady who is also a champion swimmer. Now the O- level trophy was awarded to Tracey Stevenson. Though Tracey doesn’t deserve the O- level trophy it was given to her and this was not accepted by Tambu and her breath was short and annoyed, stomach tightened half in anticipation and half in shock.

It was two months into the holiday and the letter arrived with the result slip. On the result slip there were two d’s and one e, as well as nothing more than an O- level pass in mathematics. Hearing this Babamukuru was furious and said that Tambu is a great disappointment, and advised Tambu that education is a greatest commodity and she has simply wasted it.

Babamukuru also said that Tambu can do anything as she wish but on a condition that he will not provide anything to help her. Babamukuru also warned Tambu that she cannot expect to earn much as she does not have a degree and has only three A – levels and even if she is qualified for university with what she have she will not be qualified for a decent profession. These words were strange for Tambu as she has never heard Babmukuru speak this way.

Thus Tambu slunk away from the mission a few weeks after acquiring the disastrous results. Tambu departed to take up a series of jobs, secured from Babamukuru’s contacts in education as a clerk in one establishment, a temporary teacher of the dullest, most junior grade in another. Tambu was fully dispirited, traumatized and discouraged with these jobs. Finally she obtained a job as a copywriter at Steers, D’ Arcy, and MacPedius Advertising Agency where she was lowly and only marginally better paid.

Here she was happier as she thought that she will be receiving the award for that year, because she has stood as the pillar for the success of the agency and also was contented and pleased that she has been recognized as a result of her own resources. So she was happier and satisfied than the first occasion of indescribable joy, when she left her homestead to live with Babamukuru at the mission, nor on the second occasion of her entry into Sacred Heart, nor on the third occasion when she read the slip of paper which confirmed that she had obtained the best O-Level results in the convent.

Mr. Steers greeted all his staffs for the party and mentioned that the success of the year’s advertising awards was accrued as a result of the Afro- Shine campaign taking the golden cock in print, radio and television and almost in every category it entered. And so Mr. Steers the managing director announced that the two awards of the inaugural year for the copywriter and visual artist will be given to Dick Lawson and Chris De Souza.

It was a shocking news for Tambu as she was eagerly waiting to receive the award. She was totally smashed when she heard that the award will be given to dick and Chris De Souza, as the total effort for the advertising agency’s success was made only by Tambu and her ideas. She was totally fed up and resigned her job. Thus as a Zimbabwean black girl, Tambu was not recognized even for the hard work which was done by her.

Hence Tsitsi Dangarembga through this novel clearly portrays bow the African girls are been treated without self respect, identity and humanity by the white majority people. Thus this chapter ascertains about how the blacks were been treated in an inhuman manner by the whites due to the racial discrimination that prevailed in the minds of the white people. The following chapter gives a summary of the first three chapters, the authors’ style, themes and scope for further research.

A film writer and an award winning author Tsitsi Dangarmbga was born in Zimbabwe. Her novels confess a deep message about societal issues concerning much on the racial and gender discrimination witnessed by the black people of Rhodesia before and after independence. Her novels exhibit a clear portrayal of the sufferings of the blacks under the colonizers and the agony and pain undertaken by the female characters due to gender discrimination which was in practice for many years in Rhodesia. Hence the works of Dangarembga serve as a tool to project the sufferings of both the black natives and the female characters of Zimbabwe before and after independence.

Critical Race Theory is a set of principles which stands as a means to show how the victims were brutally treated under the colonizers based on race, color, ethnicity and gender in a colonized society. With the use of this Critical Race Theory the thesis has analyzed the works of Dangarembga by illustrating various situations under which the natives suffer due to race, gender, culture, tradition and ethnicity.

The novel Nervous Conditions presents a broad picture of life in the changing African society. Nervous Conditions is fundamentally a novel deeply connected with the human relationships, and real human beings in the postcolonial society, searching freedom and identity for their existence in the world. It is wholly about the African families and their children and how an African child overcomes all the obstacles both in the family and society to lead a life as per her wish, unlike other African children.

In dealing with some important issues like male dominion, cultural transfusion, moral values of the children and their opposition against their parents, the novel captures the experiences of thousands of parents, children and families in the African continent. The novel’s greatest force lies in its excellent and brilliant crafting of the work with various literary devices. In Nervous Conditions different narrative elements are intermixed skillfully and deeply to deliver the message in a grand manner to the readers. These components do not work distinctly but collectively as a whole in order to carry the importance of Dangarembga’s serious message on racism and gender inequity.

Dangarembga’s work of style takes the readers back to that of the works of Charles Dickens than to that of Chinua Achebe, as her style of writing was similar to that of Charles Dickens. Her writing style separates Nervous Conditions from the majority of the African writers in the postcolonial African literature. Her writing style is termed as baroque and its excessive style stands in contrast to the African most significant writer, Chinua Achebe, but was similar to that of her contemporary Tu-Nehiri Coates.

Dangarembga’s baroque writing style in Nervous Conditions effectively forms her novel. This style allowed the readers to appreciate and picture each and every image of the story visually, by creating rhythm and humor. And also Dangarembga’s use of the baroque style made Nervous Conditions a memorable and noteworthy addition to the postcolonial African novel.

In Dangarembga’s novel we can see the sentences making rhythm. This rhythm can be seen in each and every single line of the novel, because rhythm was highly valued in the African society by most of the writers. And rhythm writing was something that was very special which came naturally to Dangarembga, and this style of writing evoked a feeling of Africanness into the minds of the readers. The use of rhythm also distinguished Nervous Conditions from many western novels and some of which that were set in Africa.

The Book of Not, a sequel to Nervous Conditions is associated with the story of the nation, where it was distinctive and despondent than to its prequel Nervous Conditions which was said to be a book of hope and escape. The Book of Not intelligently projects a young woman’s struggle to attain subjectiveness amidst the continuous and dreadful instances and sufferings of racism, gender inequality and war. It bought an awareness about the postcolonial concern with racial identity and subjectivity.

The Book of Not said clearly that racism is not an event which just happened in the past that has to be mourned, but must be considered as a continuing tradition that has a deep psychological and social effect on the individual even after the colonial powers went out of the nation. Thus The Book of Not conveys an idea that the citizens of the postcolonial nation must look both backward and forward in order to balance the demands of the past with those of the future.

In Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions the author clearly shows the devastating impact of colonization on the native people in Zimbabwe and centralizes on the oppression of females in the society. Dangaremga clearly explains about the female status in a colonial nation. The purpose of Dangarembga choosing a female as the protagonist of her novel is that to show to the world about how women are doubly colonized in the African society and are marginalized both by the patriarchal norms and racism.

Dangarembga demonstrates the sufferings underwent by the women in Rhodesia through the depiction of the character Tambu the protagonist. Tambu suffered in many ways in order to achieve success and triumph in her life. She suffered the terrible influence of colonization and the effects of racial prejudice on one hand, and the suppression by the patriarchal society on other hand which was a serious obstacle for a female in African society. Thus the women were actually doubly colonized in a colonial society.

Though Nhamo and his sister live in the same world, gender discrimination placed Tambu lower than Nhamo in the male dominated Rhodesia. The suppressive power of males can be observed throughout the novel. The majority of females in Nervous Conditions were submissive and respectful to men. But Babamukuru’s intellectual daughter Nyasha was the one who dared to question the supremacy of the male character in the novel. Dangarembga depicts the pathetic situation of females in Zimbabwe throughout her novel. Thus the women who were considered as inferior should tolerate both the aggressive nature of the colonizers as well as the oppressive nature of the male gender on them.

Education plays a significant role in the novels of Dangarembga and it stands as an important status marker for the female characters in her novels. In Dangarembga’s works, the girls were involuntarily sent to school by the family members and it was also assumed by them that it will not profit the girls straightly but would act as an attractive and favorable quality for the girl’s marriage later on. Thus the thesis examines on how Dangarembga’s novels create an awareness on the differences in the colonial educational system as well as on the individual that arise out of the western educational system and the traditional patriarchal society.

The main discussion of this thesis consists of two chapters. In the first chapter an analysis of the gender discrimination as a great obstacle for the women in the colonized Rhodesia and the act of racial prejudice on the black natives by the white colonizers was seen, and the second chapter dealt with the racial discrimination practiced by the colonizers, specially on the black students in the college and the identity crisis which was experienced by the natives.

Thus by analyzing the novels of Dangarembga we find, racism , gender inequity , hegemony , suppression of the female characters, and colonialism at its peak which was continuously practiced by the colonizers and the patriarchal society in the colonial Rhodesia. And this has led to a serious problem by affecting the lives of the Africans in many ways socially, culturally, morally, physically and psychologically without granting them peace in their life. The sufferings of the characters are clearly shown in the novel.

Tambu, the protagonist of the novel represents Dangaremba herself as a child, and the experiences of Tambu in the novel were the real life incidents experienced by Dangarembga when she was a child. In order to depict the sufferings and cruelties done to her and the native blacks she chose writing as a tool. Most significantly the driving force behind her to write the novel was that she did not find any character similar like her in the novels that she has read and the anticipation to see a character like her in literature she wrote this novel.

Thus Dangarembga wanted to portray the pain, misery and cruelty underwent by the blacks especially the females in the African society and how they suffered a lot by the colonizers and the male dominated society, which led to various conflicts socially, culturally, morally, physically and psychologically.

Discrimination on the equality of men and women in the society based on the gender which affects the life of an individual by not allowing them to fulfill their desire and ambition in life is called as gender discrimination. As seen earlier in the chapter this gender discrimination totally affected the life of the female members and degraded them as a human in the African society. The social conflict experienced by the members due to the gender discrimination made them feel low and embarrassed as a female. This discrimination not only affected the women, but also the growing young female minds in the society.

Tambu as a child experienced this discrimination during a Christmas gathering where she was made to kneel before everyone of the family as a tradition which made her feel frustrated by kneeling before the family members. Tambu even showed a strong disgust towards the men in the family when they did not allow the female members to visit the airport in order to welcome Babamukuru.

This kind of illiterate social practices in the society of Africa affected the female members of the society by making them feel that as a woman their only duty was to serve their family and husbands and to look after their children. Thus this kind of practice is something which should be eradicated not only in the African society but other places where it is practiced. By abolishing this kind of social and traditional practices in the world we can pave way for a better and successful way for the women in the society by allowing them to do as they wish for their happy and better life.

The next social aspect that was exercised in the African society was that female child was not permitted to get education and it only preferred a male child to go to school. This was practiced because the parents knew that the male child belongs to them till his death even after his marriage, and also had a belief that if he gets education he will get a good job and will earn money. The money which he earns will be given to the parents and they will be benefited. But if they send a female child to school they know that it will not benefit them as, after their marriage every girl belongs to their husbands and it will only benefit them.

So this was a belief and idea in the minds of the male gender which allowed them not to send the female child to school. This kind of practice is still exercised in many parts of the world especially in the rural areas who are unaware about anything but still practicing the age old customs. This kind of thought must be first removed from the minds of the male gender and an awareness must be created on the advantages of the education to both the gender. Thus if a man is educated, only he will be benefited and if a woman is educated, her whole family will be educated and benefited. Hence the age old tradition and social practices must be abolished and every girl child must be allowed to go to school to get educated for the betterment of the family and the society.

Nyasha, the child of Babamukuru was affected badly both physically and psychologically due to the cultural practices that were prevalent in the society. Nyasha, who was bought up within an English culture, loved to enjoy with her colleagues and do as her wish. This was considered a big problem for Babmukuru as generally girl child was said to act according to the will of her parents and be submissive according to the African culture.

One day Tambu and Nyasha were invited for a Christmas party in the mission school and after the party Nyasha spent some time with her boy colleagues and came late to home. This was considered as an immoral act by Babamukuru and so he abused her very badly which affected Nyasha physically and psychologically. Though it was a custom that a girl child should not be out in late night with boys, Nyasha did not commit any sin and as the colleagues of her class she just spent some time enjoying with them. Without any investigation beating her and abusing her with bad words is actually unfair on the part of Babamukuru and that too hearing those words from her own father’s mouth shattered Nyasha wholly leading to various problems which affected the rest of her life.

Maiguru and Mainini are the female characters who suffered psychologically but never showed them out. As senior citizens they were used to the male oppression on them by their husbands and remained silent and accepted whatever their husbands say. Maiguru, though an educated woman in the family always needed the support of her husband and so remained silent without arguing anything and sacrificed her wishes. Thus this adherence and obedience to the husbands is not good. Each of them must consider them as equals and must try to understand each other in order to lead a happy life and there should not be dominant and submissive characters in the family.

Thus the gender discrimination that was practiced in the society affected the female characters socially, morally, culturally, physically and psychologically. This gender distinction must be totally abolished and there must be equity practiced among the genders without any discrimination to lead a peaceful life without sufferings, affliction and pain in the society.

Racial discrimination is another issue that is been seriously discussed in the previous chapter. Dangarembga mainly wanted to speak about the racial prejudices that were followed in her society when she was small as a black native. The struggle, sufferings and the humiliating moments as a young child in the African society made her write the novel in order to portray the helpless situation underwent by the black natives to the whole world.

In both the novels there are many black victims who suffered a lot on the base of their skin color. We can also see the government who does not support the black natives and dehumanizes them by saying that seven was the age for the African students to go to school as, only after that age they will be intellectually developed in order to learn and read. This was totally unfair which degraded their image and capacity of the African students.

We can also see how the African students in the Sacred heart college were dumped into one single dormitory being separated from the white students. The practice of racism is seen clearly by the activities done by the institution, by separating the black students away from the white students. This was an unmannerly behavior and attitude shown by the institution towards the students of the African dormitory.

The matron Miss. Plato did not like the students in the African dormitory and the only reason for her not liking the students was that they belonged to a different race. She was always interested in finding fault with the black students and was happy when they were caught in any mishaps. Likewise Sr. Emmanuel also used to dehumanize them when they were caught for any mistake done by them.

The most heart rendering incident that happened to Tambu was that, when she entered into the white- only toilets and used the toilet for the first time she was caught in front of everybody and was put to shame by Miss. Plato and Sr. Emmanuel for using the toilet. This was the most embarrassing moment for Tambu in her life and she also felt that she should not aim for what she could not achieve. Because of the racial difference Tambu was put to disgrace by the white members of the college. Hence we can see from this incident how the racial conflict was to its pinnacle in the colonial Rhodesia which made the black students feel agonized and miserable by the activities of the white race.

The touching of the white students by the black students was considered an error in the colonial society and so each and every second the black students were conscious and scared whether without knowing they may touch the white students, which may lead to serious consequences. We can also see how the white students and Sr. Emmanuel make jokes about the skin color of the black students which always caused a mental discomfort to the black students.

Dangarembga also clearly shows how the black students were not recognized for their success and totally isolated from the name and fame they must receive. In the Sacred heart college, the results for the O- level was announced and Tambu was eagerly waiting to know her result. As her expectation she got good marks in the examination. And when the award for the best O- level was given, it was given to Tracey the white student. It was a shock for Tambu as Tracey’s results when compared to Tambu was not good and Tambu was in confusion about how Tracey would receive the award for the best O- level. So she asked to Sr. Emmanuel and the answer given by the sister could not be accepted by anyone.

Sr. Emmanuel said that the award was given to a student who was an all-rounder in everything in the college. By the answer said by the Sister Tambu found out the reason about why she was not awarded the O-level trophy. The reason was that she was a black student and the sister in charge does not want to give the trophy to a black student and so said a silly reason that the award was given to an all-rounder and Tambu was not an all- rounder.

Again Tambu encounters the same problem in her workplace, where she was a copy editor at Steers, D’ Arcy, and MacPedius Advertising Agency. Tambu was the main reason for the success of the agency that year. She worked hard for the success of the agency. But her hard work was in vain, she was not recognized for her success instead another person took the name and fame of Tambu as his own. Tambu fed up with this incident resigned her job and was searching for a new future in the independent Zimbabwe.

Thus we can see how the racist activities prevailing in the society does not allow anybody to be recognized for what they have achieved nor lead a happy life. In the racist world the black race was considered as something which was corruptive and venomous and they were totally isolated from the society. This seclusion always made them feel discouraged and dejected. As a black race they were not recognized and given a status in the society. Even when they were capable of achieving something this racist society with their norms totally humiliate and degrade them by which they get depressed and spiritless.

Thus Dangarembga’s novels stand as an epitome of success in the Zimbabwean society with the major ideas of race, hegemony, patriarchy, gender discrimination and colonization. Her main purpose to write the novel was to make the world know about the racist activities which was followed in the colonial Rhodesia and the sufferings undertaken by the black Africans in Rhodesia. Her novels also clearly represent how the female members of the African society suffered under the male domain.

Thus the sufferings underwent by the women of Rhodesia was innumerable. They were subjected to double colonization that is they suffered under both the dominating patriarchal society and the western colonizers. Thus Dangarembga’s novels clearly stand as a depiction of the sufferings of the black natives both by the male dominion power and the racist colonizers. Hence the thesis stands as an illustration which evidently proved the sufferings of the black natives as the result of race and gender discrimination practiced in the colonial society.

Dangarembga wants to get rid of this racial and gender discrimination in the society which is been followed as an age old tradition by many people and society as a whole. Thus a total racial and gender free world will help to create a better society with love and laughter. The novels can be further examined on various perspectives like colonial modernism, cultural colonialism, realism and transculturation for further study.