Deconstructing and navigating the institutions of education and language in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s <i>Nervous Conditions</i>

Abstract

This essay focused on the institutions of education and language to articulate the relations between the colonial, the patriarchal and the question of national culture focusing on the Shona society in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. It located the novel’s strength in how the author’s writing develops a political drive that questions colonial and native patriarchal ideologies. This study defined the narrative as a literary resistance and suggests a redefinition of the1960s-1970s Zimbabwean national culture that subdues women. Furthermore, while the narrative can be read as an expression of national consciousness, this essay argued that the author employed a multidimensional approach to the reading and study of the predicament facing Rhodesia, contemporary Zimbabwe, and Africa at large.

Keywords: Culture, Language, Identity, Education, Nation(alism)