Nervous Conditions (Nervous Conditions #1)

by Tsitsi Dangarembga

I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness,

I shall not apologise but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them that led up to my brother’s death, the events that put me in a position to write this account.

her brothers death led to her education. Why should she be sorry about that? Can she not be sad and unapologetic?

For though the event of my brother’s passing and the events of my story cannot be separated, my story is not after all about death, but about my escape and Lucia’s; about my mother’s and Maiguru’s entrapment; and about Nyasha’s rebellion — Nyasha, far-minded and isolated, my uncle’s daughter,

my story is not after all about death, but ...

her brothers death gave her freedom

Lucia’s; about my mother’s and Maiguru’s entrapment; and about Nyasha’s rebellion — Nyasha, far-minded and isolated, my uncle’s daughter, whose rebellion may not in the end have been successful.

This sentence is very complex and about the women in her life. Against the very simple sentence abour her brother

Lucia’s; about my mother’s and Maiguru’s entrapment; and about Nyasha’s rebellion — Nyasha, far-minded and isolated, my uncle’s daughter, whose rebellion may not in the end have been successful.

Womens names! These will become imporant I imagine

mission

Mentioned so casually; engrained in their society

Where the women washed the river was shallow, seldom reaching above my knees, and the rocks were lower and flatter there than in other places, covering most of the riverbed. The women liked their spot because it was sensibly architectured for doing the laundry. But we were apprehensive about growing so big that we would have to wash there with the women and no longer be able to swim in the deeper, cooler, more interesting pools.

Womanhood removes your ability for fun :(

All this poverty began to offend him, or at the very least to embarrass him after he went to the mission, in a way that it had not done before. Before he went to the mission, we had been able to agree that although our squalor was brutal, it was uncompromisingly ours; that the burden of dispelling it was, as a result, ours

he saw at the mission turned his mind to thinking that our homestead no longer had any claim upon him,

Knowing that he did not need help, that he only wanted to demonstrate to us and himself that he had the power, the authority to make us do things for him, I hated fetching my brother’s luggage.

was a sweet child, the type that will make a sweet, sad wife.

The needs and sensibilities of the women in my family were not considered a priority, or even legitimate.

Thinking about it, feeling the injustice of it, this is how I came to dislike my brother, and not only my brother, my father, my mother — in fact everybody.

to decline would have been a form of suicide. The missionaries would have been annoyed by his ingratitude.

My mother said being black was a burden because it made you poor, but Babamukuru was not poor.

My mother said being a woman was a burden because you had to bear children and look after them and the husband.

endure and obey, for there is no other way.

the same everywhere. Because you are a girl.’ It was out. ‘That’s what Baba said, remember?’ I was no longer listening. My concern for my brother died an unobtrusive death.

You know your daughter. She is wilful and headstrong.

Mr Matimba complimented me. He said I was sharp. I felt that I was, but did not say so.

The crisis was resolved in the usual manner.

She is used to solving problems

My father’s idea of what was natural had begun to irritate me a long time ago, at the time that I had had to leave school.

towards the yard, which by now was full of rejoicing relatives. My father jumped out of Babamukuru’s car and, brandishing a staff like a victory spear, bounded over the bumpy road, leaping into the air and landing on one knee, to get up and leap again and pose like a warrior inflicting a death wound.

How does this look to the children who lived in englamd so long?

Not going to the airport, not being able to resume my relationships with my cousins, these events coalesced formlessly in my mind to an incipient understanding of the burdens my mother had talked of.

Whereas before I had believed with childish confidence that burdens were only burdens in so far as you chose to bear them,

Sensing how unwise it was to think too deeply about these things in case I manoeuvred myself into a blind alley at the end of which I would have to confront unconfrontable issues, I busied myself with housework.

The women were pleased with me when they came to prepare supper.

Their praise made me feel better. It made me feel good. My confidence returned;

Besides, Shona was our language. What did people mean when they forgot it?

I have met so many men who consider themselves responsible adults and therefore ought to know better, who still subscribe to the fundamental principles of my brother’s budding elitism,

Seeing how badly my mother was taking our quarrel, I nearly called a truce with Nhamo, but when he told me that I would be better off with less thinking and more respect, I was glad I had stood my ground.

She did want him to be educated, she confided to me, but even more, she wanted to talk to him.

First you took his tongue so that he could not speak to me and now you have taken everything, taken everything for good.

I was sad for them rather than anguished over any loss of mine, because my brother had become a stranger to me. I was not sorry that he had died, but I was sorry for him because, according to his standards, his life had been thoroughly worth living.

Babamukuru was God, therefore I had arrived in Heaven. I was in danger of becoming an angel, or at the very least a saint, and forgetting how ordinary humans existed — from minute to minute and from hand to mouth.

‘She doesn’t want to be respected. If people did that she’d have nothing to moan about and then what would she do? She spends most of her life complaining.’

Then I reprimanded myself for this self-indulgence by thinking of my mother, who suffered from being female and poor and uneducated and black

would come to a bad end, that I deserved it for deserting my husband, my children, my garden and my chickens.

She was certain the solutions were there. She wanted to know many things:

She is a very intellegent girl and that is why she clashes with her father

why UDI was declared and what it meant.

Mentions of the war

by straightening my hair and putting ribbons in it at weekends;

what Nyasha had or had not actually been doing on the dance-floor

was better off losing my virginity to a tampon, which wouldn’t gloat over its achievement, than to a man, who would add mine to his hoard of hymens:

A Notch On A Belt September 19, 2025 Nothing. That is what I am. I have no voice, no words worth saying. If I had something to say, It would be drowned out, By the sound of his pleasure. I am not heard. I am nothing. Until he has need of me, Then I become pleasureable, Desirable. But now? I have no purpose, I am nothing. When I was ten, I was told I was important, Important to life. My body could do things that his could not. I was a blessing. I was something. So why, when that time came, Did they take it all back? Hide it, Be brave, Don’t let him know. But I know, I am still something, I am more than a notch on his belt.

Why should a woman go all that way and put up with all those problems if not to look after her husband?’

SHE HAS A MASTERS DEGREE!! THAT IS INCREDIBLE!

They had given up the comforts and security of their own homes to come and lighten our darkness.

phyisical lightening of darkness of their skin

I was very young then, very young and correct in my desire to admire and defer to all the superior people I found at the mission — at that time I liked the missionaries.

They had smooth, healthy, sun-brown skin. This took away most if not all of the repulsion towards white people that had started with the papery-skinned

I used to feel very guilty about feeling that way. I used to feel guilty and unnatural for not being able to love the Whites as I ought.

she believes that she is supposed to love whiteness

know I have said everybody was worried about Nyasha’s exam nerves, but in fact it was not everybody. Babamukuru was very impressed by his daughter’s industry. ‘There’s hope for her yet,’ he observed contentedly. ‘When she makes up her mind to be serious she works very well, yes, very well indeed.’

This makes me so angry why is he like this?