Friday, February 26, 2010
An Unfinished Ending...
As Tambu ventures back to her room at the hostel, I was reminded of the scene in Nervous Condition when she was frustrated about paying her school fees so she could get an education. This ending of simply wandering back to her room, numb to not knowing what to do and where to go next with her life, I saw the complete and utter conclusion to who Tambu has become. She stopped caring, stopped fighting, stopped being the fiery little girl who kicked her brothers butt for stealing her maize. This entire novel has been about the change that Tambu has made from a young African girl on the homestead to a Westernized black woman with an education who obviously is going to lose some of her culture along the way. However, at the very end of the novel Tambu has run herself into the ground. I am intrigued by events that would follow this last scene in the novel, if it were to continue. Would Tambu find a way to move on? Or would she just lay down and die after quitting everything in her life? Although it is true that she is at a clear disadvantage, I cannot help but feel that giving up and just accepting the fact that she has hit that "glass ceiling" is a ridiculous excuse. No matter her circumstance, she can keep going. Although being a teacher, like Maigaru, is not ideal at least it is a job, at least she has something to live for until she finds something else to fight for. I did not want to novel to end because, despite all of her faults, I wanted Tambu to succeed.
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I find it really interesting about our nostalgia for the Tambu in “Nervous Conditions.” We have all expressed our distaste for this altered Tambu; yet, we still want her to succeed. Maybe it has something to do with the American “pull yourself by your bootstraps” motif we want to superimpose on Tambu. The thing with being a teacher, while a job one of which most Americans find amiable, many have that negative taste in our mouth do to its low-paying status. Tambu was educated under the British regime to expand her horizons outside of the homestead, the city, and even Zimbabwe. Now, those dreams are dashed since gaining independence. Maybe since most Americans have fallen financially as a result of the economic downturn, so we can appreciate having employment despite the job title. Yet, we see the silver lining and Tambu just has a harder time seeing it.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you on your point that Tambu can keep fighting despite the circumstances. I think it's the general consensus that we want to see Tambu succeed in what she does, and triumph over all the obstacles and people that prohibited her before. But I think that this is also a testament to the writing of Dangarembga. She incorporates the utter dejection of a human spirit broken by down by the weight of life in a way that is believable.
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