Melissa Schreiber
Professor: Dr. R. E. Benander
ENGL223
02 March 11
Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions, expresses the many ways an African woman can escape the traditions of a colonized Africa. Each chapter is a journey that tries to ask questions in order to balance tradition and modernity, never knowing which path is the best to be taken.
I believe it is a universal experience in any culture to hope to maintain this balance. I was brought up Catholic and married a Baptist man; together we were able to take a modern path, whereas Dangarembga struggled. My husband and I both cherish our religions and do not allow modernity to hurt what we value. I believe Africans everywhere will begin to experience this luxury the Western world takes for granted through literature by Dangarembga. Right and wrong are supposed to be easy decisions, yet some cultures are not given a choice. Dangarembga asks many questions throughout her struggles as a young girl, destined for college and her struggle was because she was a girl. That’s irony.
I learned that not every culture has equal opportunities or rights. I support equality and freedom which is why I joined the US Navy, where gender bias. Her text communicated to me that the first step in overcoming these “nervous conditions” is awareness that they exist and then to educate ourselves on how to treat another person. I personally believe in supporting any cause that helps a person in need, especially in the 21st century, some rights aren’t supposed to be questioned. Answers to her questions are slowly being answered and conditions will improve through art like Dangarembga. Her literature is a powerful and necessary voice for women everywhere suffering from oppression and repression, together we can overcome and together we can come up with answers.
Overall I enjoyed reading this text, if the ending would have been as powerful as the middle I would have had more closure, but there are still unanswered questions. I recommend her literature to anyone who has access to a copy, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, read her words and help answer the questions of injustice together.
I learned that not every culture has equal opportunities or rights. I support equality and freedom which is why I joined the US Navy, where gender bias. Her text communicated to me that the first step in overcoming these “nervous conditions” is awareness that they exist and then to educate ourselves on how to treat another person. I personally believe in supporting any cause that helps a person in need, especially in the 21st century, some rights aren’t supposed to be questioned. Answers to her questions are slowly being answered and conditions will improve through art like Dangarembga. Her literature is a powerful and necessary voice for women everywhere suffering from oppression and repression, together we can overcome and together we can come up with answers.
Overall I enjoyed reading this text, if the ending would have been as powerful as the middle I would have had more closure, but there are still unanswered questions. I recommend her literature to anyone who has access to a copy, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, read her words and help answer the questions of injustice together.
Very nice. You describe the issues in the novel well, and you connect them with you own experience. You are able to describe the metaphorical implications, although sometimes your make an observation but do not support it with a thorough explanation of what you mean with examples.
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