Nervous Conditions is a novel about Tambu, a young girl living in Zimbabwe who wants to go to school. After her brother dies, her wealthy uncle, Babamukuru offers Tambu his spot at a missionary school. Tambu attends the school, and, after various family feuds, cases of abuse and her parents' wedding, eventually receives a scholarship to go to another missionary school. The novel explores complex and oppressive gender and race relations in post-colonial Zimbabwe.
Nervous conditions is a tale in which the story is driven by the actions thoughts and emotions of the characters Differences in opinion and motives can lead to conflict and can turn friends and family against each other Through the nature of the setting with both poverty and a ruling party small differences that normally would only cause a small amount of conflict turn out to be big conflicting issues in the novel Babamukuru and Nyasha father and daughter both have strong willed inquisitive per
Prior to the twentieth century men assigned and defined womens roles Although all women were effected by men determining womens behavior largely middle class women suffered Men perpetrated an ideological prison that subjected and silenced women This ideology called the Cult of True Womanhood legitimized the victimization of women The Cult of Domesticity and the Cult of Purity were the central tenets of the Cult of True Womanhood Laboring under the seeming benevolence of the Cult of Domesticity