Upon Tambu's arrival at Babamukuru's house, she has high expectations and believes her life is about to take a 180 degree turn. She thinks that her social status is going to change, Tambu notes, "When I steeped into Babamukuru's car I was a peasant...This was the person I was leaving behind" (58). She imagines herself becoming a clean, put together, educated woman as opposed to a dirty, falling apart, partially educated girl. She sees herself changing the way her brother did. Her brother became educated in English, and wore nice clothes. He had his own bedroom when he returned and complained of the food and water. Tambu believes that she will become like her brother in terms of her lifestyle and education. She also seems to have no remorse for leaving her home behind, she is ready to start over and become better than what she has been told she is meant to be.
I cannot say I blame Tambu for wanting to leave and forget who she used to be. The impression that I am getting from Zimbabwe is not necessarily a great one. I am very turned off by their treatment of women and the expectations of women. Tambu is a smart girl and having her education ripped from under her does not seem fair.
Although I do agree that Tambu deserves an education, the question as to whether or not she needs an English education arises. Tambu could have stayed and continued her education at the regular school with the other kids in her area, but instead she is able to attend the mission and receive an English education. Ngugi would probably ask what's wrong with the traditional Zimbabwe school and is her own culture not good enough for her? This is a question I have been asking myself throughout the novel and how many of the central characters have seemed to have forgotten their roots and want to be more like the English speakers, compared to Achebe's novel where many resisted the English culture.
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I'm getting the same feelings off Tambu; she desires an education but does so as a means to end, as a means to nicer clothes, cleaner skin, healthier food and better, comfortable sleep. Tambu, as the narrator of the story, is straight forward and honest, she doesn't hide her lack of sympathy concerning her brother's death, she doesn't pretend that she will miss her family or the homestead, and she doesn't apologize for her desire for material wealth. At one point in her description of her uncles house she refers to it as "heaven" and to her uncle as "God", obviously her prior existence was less than sublime, so how could we judge her for her material ambition? I'm only through about 80 pages but already you can see a stark difference between how English is viewed by the characters in this novel and the characters in 'Things Fall Apart'.
ReplyDeleteI think that even though “Things Fall Apart” was about resisting English culture, but Achebe did not hide the fact that Ibo culture has some kinks, such as leaving twins out in the Evil Forest for starters. Especially the women weren’t given a semblance of a formal education outside of subjects ranging from keeping children occupied while managing to keep the husband full and focused. As a side note, I can’t find where but I remember reading about how the local village school lacked additional grade levels, which may be why the mission school was more adequate. Personally, no culture is infallibly better than another, ahem “Great” Britain. It is a big turn off on how women are treated in Zimbabwe, but again this is another argument for colonialism as a way to provide better treatment of women as another underdeveloped resource. My comment may not fully help answer your question but you do have a good point as to why many of the characters uproot themselves completely from their culture.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Nervous Conditions does cover a lot of the loss of language scares that Ngugi elaborates on in his book, although I will say that (so far in my reading, at least) Dangarembga's novel actually seems to place speaking english in a sympathetic if not positive light. At the very least, it doesn't seem to vilify english speaking as much as Ngugi seems to do.
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