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Nervous Conditions] [Terry Adams] James Madison University Lexia Ÿ Volume V Ÿ 2 Lexia: Undergraduate Journal in Writing, Rhetoric & Technical Communication Volume V 2016–2017 [Reconsidering the Bildungsroman: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions] [Terry Adams] James Madison University Lexia Volume V 2 Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions has been universally acknowledged as an established member of the Bildungsroman genre because the novel focuses on the progressive development of its narrator as an individual, a characteristic that harkens back to the category’s name, the “novel of formation.” Yet, while the narrative may satisfy the requirement in this aspect, it also seems to fundamentally trouble the conventions of the genre in that it fails to narrate or illustrate the outcome of this development, that is, the “growing-up” part. Indeed, the only proof that Tambu eventually progresses out of girlhood is in the physical narrative itself, where she takes the role of authorial figure. Even with this occupation as proof of her eventual progression, the novel seemingly fails to complete the second part of the Bildungsroman equation of displaying “human character as it manifests itself in society” (qtd. in Abel et al. 6), a necessary component of development in the genre’s traditional understanding. Regardless, the categorization of the novel within the genre remains, implying that some type of development or formation does take place. But if the latter part of the progression, the growing up and integrating into society, is not there, where does the concept of development work its way into this designated novel of development? The answer to this question is primarily an epistemological concern with ontological implications. In other words, essential to Tambu’s development of a personal identity is her acquisition of the knowledge that she cannot successfully manifest herself into her surrounding society. This knowledge is incredibly important because the society in which she exists (the environment and characters existing outside of her in the diegesis) actively works against any type of agency through its systematic mandating of acceptable identities through various forms of oppression, including sexism, classism, and racism, oftentimes as a result of colonialist ruling. Tambu, then, must come to know that she is unable to incorporate herself into society exterior to [Reconsidering the Bildungsroman: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions] 3 herself because of her black, female identity. By contending that Tambu’s narrative paradoxically adheres to and contradicts the original ideas of the genre, this examination of the novel follows Susan Fraiman’s methodology in her study of the female Bildungsroman, in that this reading “suggest[s] a swerve from ruling definitions of the genre” itself (2). In order to situate this argument within the evolving trajectory of the Bildungsroman, core concepts from the field of girls’ studies and Georg Lukacs’s influential theory of the novel will be incorporated, as well as a continued discussion of the importance of space (physical, ideological, and metaphorical) within Nervous Conditions as a tool that both inhibits and encourages the bildung (formation) of identities, a concept that Christopher Okonkwo notes is a “hugely important but critically underdeveloped issue in the novel” (53). Ultimately, it will be demonstrated that Tambu’s position as a girl (as opposed to a woman), as a subject caught between different epistemological viewpoints based on her spatial location, and as an authorial figure, results in a development that is vastly different from those in traditional Bildungsroman texts but nonetheless fulfills the generic conventions in that a development does, indeed, take place. Nervous Conditions’ categorization as a Bildungsroman is supported through the novel’s basic plot structure, one that begins with Tambu’s brother dying and, consequently, her chance to receive an education within her country of Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe). Traveling from her impoverished home to the relatively wealthy location of her uncle’s mission school, Tambu is educated by white individuals with anglicized teaching methods. While she initially sees nothing wrong with her education, Tambu’s interactions with Nyasha (her cousin) and her personal witnessing of Nyasha’s mental collapse produces an epiphany that encourages Tambu to reconsider her original conceptions of a colonial, white education. Yet, importantly, Tambu Lexia Volume V 4 does not age during the narrative, which certainly troubles the novel’s categorization. Because the Bildungsroman genre, itself, is continually developing, it is first necessary to briefly contextualize this argument as it relates to the genre’s evolving nature. The Bildungsroman arguably originated due to particular historical circumstances taking place within eighteenth-century Germany, primarily forming as a result of idealist conventions that were produced and influenced by the Enlightenment. With its form devoted strongly to the idea of growth and unity as well as essentialist ways of thought, it came about as a “novel form that [was] animated by a concern for the whole man unfolding organically in all his complexity and richness” (Abel et al. 5). However, Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsh, and Elizabeth Langland’s study of the genre in The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development note that the form is largely androcentric in its scope, “presuppose[ing] a range of social options available only to men” (7). Thus, The Voyage In illustrates how incorporating gender into the genre radically changes the presupposed idea of “development” that was mainly formulated with men in mind; while men were able to successfully incorporate into society at the end of their bildung, women were left to “substitute inner concentration for active accommodation” (Abel et al. 8) because no accommodation could be made. Yet while the authors of The Voyage In are right in their argument that development is “colored by many interrelated factors, including class, history, and gender” (Abel et al. 4), their reliance on Victorian examples of Bildungsroman leaves them susceptible to overlooking the factors of race and ethnicity. Consequently, in The Female Bildungsroman by Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston: A Postmodern Reading, Pin chia Feng seeks to incorporate these important identity markers because, as Feng herself states, “The Voyage In fails to specify cultural and racial differences, and instead centers around white, middle class women’s issues” [Reconsidering the Bildungsroman: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions] 5 (13). Incorporating these multiple components of intersectionality (race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status) aligns properly with the growing field of Girls’ Studies, where it is frequently acknowledged that all of these factors, particularly race/ethnicity and social class, are important when addressing the contexts and concerns involving the development of girls (Ward and Benjamin 20). All of these identity markers are important when examining the bildung of Tambu, who is located within multiple different sites of oppression as a colonized black female. However, because the narrative does not illustrate her aging beyond adolescence, her position as young girl subject located within the liminal space of childhood and adulthood should also be considered as an important component of her eventual identity development (hence this essay’s reliance on the field of girls’ studies.) The inclusion of age is important because it goes against the ideas formulated by the authors of The Voyage In in that, typically, female fiction shows “women developing later in life, after conventional expectations of marriage and motherhood have been fulfilled and found insufficient” (Abel et al. 7). While the novel certainly does feature females who have found both marriage and motherhood unsatisfactory, Tambu has not yet crossed either of those thresholds. Similarly, the fact that these older women have realized that their exterior society is not compatible with their interior, personal development positions them as figures who already know this. Thus, this epistemological concern is fundamental for the potential development of Tambu’s personal, self-constructed identity, or bildung; she must understand that, as a black girl, she is “constituted as [an] object at the intersection of a number of competing claims to truth” (Griffin 29), or, in Lukacs’s terms, realize that the “immanence of meaning of life has become a problem” (186). Lexia Volume V 6 In order to express this idea of Tambu existing within a space of competing notions of “truth,” it is important to look at the physical spaces she inhabits as areas where these epistemological concerns (i.e., knowing how to be a “correct” girl subject) are in battle with each other and influenced by various forms of oppression. Doing so will demonstrate how Tambu is, as Christine Griffin states, “constituted in an uneasy and shifting location between competing external demands and pressures” (40). Not coincidentally, this idea is appropriately similar to the title of “Nervous Conditions,” a Sartrian concept that Dangarembga uses to express the uneasy position of Tambu as colonized female subject. This examination will be focusing on certain locations within the narrative, including the individuals who occupy those spaces, such as the home, school, and garden plot. Observing these areas will allow us to map out Tambu’s progressive development in which she comes to know that her original assumptions
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