By
1Dr. Luke Ndudi Okolo & 2Daborah
Ndidiamaka Umeh
1’2Department of English Language and Literature, Nnamdi Azikiwe
University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria
Corresponding Author’s email & Phone No: ln.okolo@unizik.edu.ng , +2348030805127
AbstractTsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions and
Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus are two popular African novels
often studied from gender perspectives. Stylistic analysis has shown that words
alone are not only source of meaning in a literary composition: structure,
character, setting, and so on combine with lexical meanings. In this paper,
both novels are explored from the focal angle of their structure as African
Bildungsroman. The novels are shown to be colonised Bildungsromane as
the narratives are developmental trajectory of the female protagonists. The
major characters are found to be symbolical and their roles having metaphorical
significance. The study reveals that aside overt feminist portrayals, the two
novels are metaphorically anti-imperialist novels, which artistic vision is to
re-awaken African consciousness against various imperialist campaigns
detrimental to total freedom of Africa as former colonies of Europe.
Comparatively, it is found that the novels share commonality of character type,
leitmotif, and other features as both tilt towards cultural and political
consciousness towards real independence of African people from imperialist
claws.
Key words: Bildungsroman; colonized; postcolonial
literature; postcolonialism; subaltern; supra-altern
Introduction
The term
Bildungsroman is conceived to be a novel of formation or education, either from
childhood to adulthood; or from foolishness or ignorance to knowledge. African
novelists have experimented on narratives of this form and content. Those
novels that explore such developmental trajectory, written by Africans, whether
at home or in the diaspora are known as African Bildungsromane (plural of Bildungsroman). In his work, Fennel
(2016:1) makes groundbreaking assertion about African Bildungsroman and its
author thus:
I characterize
Bildung as a mode in contemporary literature that involves the marginalization
of the subject from ideological constructions of the self. The narrator of these
novels also exhibits a marked awareness of his or her own life experiences as the
raw material, through reflection and creativity, for building a non-identical
self that can withstand the imposition of power from without itself. The
fundamental difference between autobiography and Bildung is the author’s
express acknowledgement of the protagonist’s self-construction as a fictive
act. In the hands of postcolonial and minority writers, this fictive act
becomes of political and creative resistance.
We refer to the
above excerpt as groundbreaking because it appears to embody the content and
context of the selected texts for this study both literally and metaphorically.
The authors of African Bildungsroman are seen as performing double tasks: that
of the autobiographer and a fictive creator as he/she borrows hugely from
his/her personal experience and infuses creativity, the base of fiction, to
integrate on the one hand, incidents in the society, and respond by pointing at
possible solutions; on the other hand, for the survival and betterment of that
society. This is what Breytenbach (Olaniyan and Quayson 2013:166) means when he
states thus:
A writer, any
writer, to my mind has at least two tasks, sometimes overlapping; he is the
questioner and the implacable critic of the mores and attitudes and myths of
his society, but he is also the exponent of the aspirations of his people.
This task of the
writer is really a seriously reformatory and affective one; hence he or she is
a “patriot” and a “nationalist” (Nnolim 2009; Okolo 2016). One significant
marker of colonized Bildungsroman, according to Fennel, is the fact that it is
a reaction to long time marginalisation of the subject, who is a symbol and
metaphor of a set. Tambudzai and Kambili (Bildungsheld)
of Nervous Conditions and Purple Hibiscus respectively, symbolise
the exploited, the oppressed, the dehumanised, the frustrated, and the
depressed Africans. Aside affirming Fennel’s assertion that Bildungsroman is always
a tool for political and creative resistance in the hands of the colonized and
the subaltern, comparative analysis of the two selected African novels will
enhance deeper understanding of the works as yielding of similar experiences
and the same black race. It authenticates the view that when the same super-altern
or hegemonic treatment is meted out to a race, they react in a similar way.
Theoretical
Approach
A
study of the selected novels as colonized Bildungsromane entails its political
and marginalised assumption. In that case, it is going to make references to
the colonial history of Africa as a former colony of the West. Postcolonial
theory (postcolonialism) is, therefore, the preferred prism through which the
hidden aspects of meaning could be unravelled. Postcolonialism refers to a mode
of analysis of “history, culture, literature,… that are specific to the former
colonies of England, Spain, France, and other European imperial powers” (Abrams
and Harpham 2012:306). It is a form of master-slave perception, whereby human
relations are perceived to have continued on the old colonial philosophies and
politics. This concept is deeply discussed by Edward Said’s Orientalism, where he analyses the super-altern
cultural imperialism, being always the site of tension and disaster even as
seen in the novels. Referring to cultural imperialism, Abrams and Harpham (2012:306)
emphasise that, “This mode of imperialism imposed by the effective means of
disseminating in subjugated colonies a Eurocentric discourse that assumed the
normality and pre-eminence of the “oriental” as an exotic and inferior other.”
In other words, it is a psychological re-coding of the locals to perceive and
accept the invaders’ (colonialists) culture as superior and authentic; cajoling
them to drop and abandon their culture and philosophies as inferior and
foolishly.
Okoye
(2013:1) makes a more elaborate explication in respect to its origin, forms,
contents, and why of the literatures and their studies. According to him:
Postcolonial
literature is basically the literature written by writers of countries that
have gained political independence from a colonial power. Naturally, such
literature is made of and portrays the sentiments, culture and cultural
bahaviour, perceptions, etc, as a result of the colonial power’s characteristics,
culture, norms, worldview and the subsequent tensions, mixes, outcrops, etc,
that manifest as a result of the colonial encounter.
It
implies, therefore, that such literatures are reactionary literatures of
resistance of political, philosophical, economic, and ideological mainstay. It
is always a literature of protest and revolution from the marginalised groups (the
subaltern) and the colonized.
Comparative View
of Nervous Conditions and Purple Hibiscus as Colonial
Bildungsroman
Nervous
Conditions
is a novel by Tsitsi Dangarembga, a Zimabwean woman. It is a Bildungsroman
being a literary documentation of developmental trajectory of a young girl and
possessing all Bildungsroman characteristic features, which Golban and Aver
(2015:3) refer to as the “syntagmatic structure” of the novel style. Nervous conditions is often read from
gender perspective because of the gender of the narrator, her portrayal and
that of three other women – Maiguru, Nyasha, and Lucia.
Zimbabwe
gained independence on 18 April, 1980, while Nervous Conditions was published in 1988. The novel’s contextual
setting is postcolonial. So it belongs to the category of novels Fennel
(2016:17) refers to as “post-colonial Bildungsroman;” and they portray “a
paradoxical tension of being/belonging and becoming/independence.” In this
case, the narrator Tambudzai represents not just a female narrating her story;
she represents African past and present from the perspective of Zimbabwe,
revealing both the perceived bad and good norms of that society. Similarly,
Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus is a
colonized Bildungsroman. While Nigeria gained independence two decades before
Zimbabwe, Dangarembga’s novel was published barely two decades before Adichie’s
in 2006. However, both maintain similarities in narratology and character
types/traits, leitmotif, themes, and other Bildungsroman syntagmatic structure.
From
the exposition of Nervous Conditions,
Tambudzai informs us that “I was not
sorry when my brother died” and that her “story is not after all about death,
but about my escape and Lucia’s; about my mother’s and Maiguru’s entrapment;
and about Nyasha’s rebellion” (1). A deeper insight into the social milieu of
the novel reveals Dangarembga’s adroitness in her symbolic and metaphorical deployments.
Literal reading of that first statement of the novel is treacherous. A longer
excerpt is needed for deeper insight:
I
was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologizing for my callousness, as
you may define it, my lack of feeling. For it is not that at all. I feel many
things these days, much more than I was able to feel in the days when I was
young and there are reasons for this more than the mere consequence of age. (1)
Literally,
Tambudzai’s (Tambu) initial statement seemingly implicates the novelist as her
heroine deviates from the mores of her society. African society is well known
for strong communal and filial bond – family relationship is highly valued.
That initial statement of the novel as cited above could be read a flop; it is
un-African, in its literal sense. In a typical African setting as obtained in
the novel, even one’s known enemy from a different clan does not feel happy at
his enemy’s demise. The worst is Tambu’s clear assertion that even now that she
is grown, she still does not feel for her brother. A number of things would
make the person wish the enemy were alive, despite the conflict. Now, we are
faced with the death of supposedly Tambu’s immediate younger brother – one with
whom she “shared the same breasts with”; her brother from the same womb – in
the African sense. We are left to doubt whether the brother here is the same
with whom she sat down and dipped hands in the same plate; drank of the same
cup; and shared the same mat; and so on.
Metaphorically,
we find that Nhamo is not a mere natural biological brother to Tambu. This
reading is poised to prove that the characters Tambu mentions she is going to
narrate their story are mere symbols and metaphors of the colonial subjugated,
exploited and oppressed. Whatever we may perceive as gender struggle and
injustice in form of exploitation, oppression, humiliation, deceit, and the rest
of them meted against female characters in the novel, are in essence, inferences
to destruction colonialists inflicted to the colonized Africa and other third
world countries. A political view of the novel shows that female characters are
suffocating under the heavy weight of patriarchy; and that they revolt against.
Alenezi (2020:156) clarifies that “male characters
resemble or behave in a way similar to white colonizers in their treatment of
African women. Viewed from a political perspective, the female characters
signify the colonized nation (Rhodesia), whereas male characters represent the
British Empire.” He further submits that in postcolonial works, indigenous
women are represented to symbolize the invaded lands. From colonial inception,
“female bodies symbolize the conquered land” (Alenezi 2020:158). In that case,
woman figure signifies a nation in postcolonial writings. In this context,
female characters represent Zimbabwean (and African) people colonised by Europe;
while Babamukuru represents the colonisers, and in a sense, the colonised
elites, who now becomes objects in the hand of their master to perpetuate
imperial control. In that case, the resistance of these women, especially
Tambu, Nyasha, Lucia, and later, Maiguru signify the resistance, and in fact, African
revolt against the patriarchy of European colonial grip stifling African
progress. Uwakweh is cited in Alenezi (2020:157) to have stated:
Colonial domination in Tambu’s world manifests itself in all
aspects of social life, such as defining the age at which African children
should start school, maintaining a racist agenda against the indigenes in educational
institutions …and using the selective nature of its educational systems to
limit the educated indigenous population.
The
above trend is also portrayed in Purple
Hibiscus, where Jaja, a brother and foil to Kambili the protagonist,
rejects the imperialist toga of his own father on the family on a Palm Sunday.
Worthy of note is the daring attitude of Jaja to his father, Eugene. It
emanates from accumulated anger, suppression, and oppression over several years
and observable suffocating deceits. It is a rebellion against the deceit and
differing imperialist ideology of Eugene who is perfect, all-knowing, imposing,
hostile, and oppressive human – a rejection of his symbolic representation; his
imperialist image. The audacity of Jaja to stand the threats of his demigod
father to tell him he could not receive communion because, “The wafer gives me
bad breath…And the priest keeps touching my mouth and it nauseates me” (6). His
ideological drift becomes more recognizable by his instant response and choice
to his father’s reminder of the consequence of his refusal to receive communion
– “Then I will die”, and he re-emphasises that – “Then I will die Papa” (6-7). In other words, Jaja repudiates both Eugene’s
imperialist representation and religious myopic perception. It happens that the
conflicts the two novels seek to address are ideological – political and
cultural – hence they are both revolutionary Bildungromane. However, while we view that from the female Tambu’s
eye in Nervous Conditions, it is from
Jaja’s in Purple Hibiscus.
In
Nervous Conditions, we take
significant notice of injustice to a woman figure through Tambu. In spite of
the fact that she is the older sister of Nhamo, Nhamo takes the first chance;
that is, he gets the preferential opportunity of acquiring good education as
offered by her uncle, Babamukuru. Everybody sees access to education as access
to power. Not a physical one but one mightier and enduring. It is also
perceived as wizardry as seen in her grandmother’s tale of the coming of the
white men and how their family now lives where they live (18). Tambu knows that
it is what makes Babamukuru better than her own father Jeremiah and decided to
be like Maiguru (16). Therefore, she decides to obtain it by her personal
effort, but Nhamo decides to be an impediment as he wastes and diverts her
efforts by giving away her mealies leading to a fight at school. Of this strife
Alenezi avers that “the struggle between Nhamo and Tambu may be seen as the
struggle between coloniser and the people over material sources (158)”. He goes further to buttress his suggestion by
citing Nair to have averred that “Tambus’s struggle to gain education is not a
woman’s alone but has been shared by
people in general who were quick to recognize that being tutored in
Western wizardry meant access to power” (158). Even in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, education is shown to
be good and brings elevation as knowledge there obtained instills in one
self-esteem, self-confidence and assures liberty, especially to a woman. A good
example is educated Aunty Ifeoma who
is resolute, bold, and independent versus uneducated Beatrice seen to be
irresolute, timid, and much dependent on Eugene; hence her long and repeated
ordeals from her husband in the same novel. Both Kambili and Jaja have equal
opportunity to education. Contrastively, educated Maiguru is docile to the
whims and caprices of Babamukuru her husband against the uneducated Lucia, who
is agitated and unyielding. Yet, the two patriarchal figures – Babamukuru and
Eugene – are educated, manipulative and domineering. They are, in fact, British
imperialist tools used to control every affair of other citizens. It is for
this that Jaja decides to oust his father Eugene to restore hope and freedom to
the citizenry; hence he admits a crime he never committed in actuality – that
is killing Papa with a rat poison (283).
Another
significant incident in Nervous
Conditions is the issue of Nhamo’s death. At this point we can dig to understand
why Tambu is not sorry when her brother died, and is not going to apologise for
her stance. Even after more than a decade, she would not own any foul action or
inaction against her late brother. Nhamo’s death to Tambu symbolizes death of
colonialism; freedom from the heavy weight of Western squeeze; obliteration of a
deadly pestilence. So Nhamo’s death implies the disappearance of colonialism
and its effects. This we shall understand more, if we study the description
given of Nhamo’s character – unfeeling, pompous, authoritative, proud, and
oppressive. He would want to exercise his manly and patriarchal egotism,
pressing others down to reassure himself he is the first and the most important,
while others are subservient and irrelevant, or miniature human beings. For
example, Tambu informs us thus:
At any rate,
Nhamo’s luggage was never too cumbersome for him to carry. All the same, he
would not carry it all him. Instead, he would leave some, a few books, a
plastic bag, anything as long as there was something at the shops at the bus
terminus, for he was on friendly terms with everybody, so that he could send
Netsai to fetch them as long as he arrived home. When he was feeling gracious
he would offer to mind Rambanai, who was still toddling, while Netsai ran the
errand. When he was being himself he would smirk that minding children was not
a man’s duty and Netsai, who was young, although big for her age, would strap
the baby to her back in order to fetch the luggage (9-10).
Elsewhere, he
taunts her, “Did you ever hear of a girl being taken away to school? You are
lucky you even managed to go back to Rutivi. With me it’s different. I was
meant to be educated” (49). The attitude above is not typical of Africa,
especially of such primitive African community of Tambu. So being un-African,
we can assert that Nhamo’s behaviour is that of a coloniser, who is carried on
the head by locals as he moves about the village. His is an image of
colonialism. This is comparable with the portrayal of Kambili’s perception of
and attitude to her father’s death. The demise now turns the birth of
liberation, hope, and greater opportunities for the family. Kambili announces
out of strong hope:
We will take Jaja
to Nsukka first, and then we’ll go to America to visit Aunty Ifeoma…we’ll plant
new orange trees in Abba when we come back, and Jaja will plant purple
hibiscus, too, and I’ll plant ixora so we can suck the juices of the flowers. (298)
We know nothing
about the funeral rites, mourning and memories of the once worshipped idol of
the family; rather the family plans to enjoy their newly earned freedom – a new
order of existence.
Tambu the narrator,
in Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions,
paints an ambivalent personality of Babamukuru as a man divided between Shona
(African identity) and European identity. He likes visiting home frequently
during celebrations and as may be expected of him as the patriarch of the
family. He understands the cultural, social, economic, and political realities
of his community. On the other hand, he is a product of colonialism; and so, he
is divided. Tambu narrates that, “He had pushed up from under the weight of the
white man with no strong relative to help him” (64) and as a result he is now a
new African. Tambu tells us:
Babamukuru, I
knew, was different. He hadn’t cringed under the weight of his poverty. Boldly,
Babamukuru had defied it. Through hard work and determination he had broken the
evil wizard’s spell. Babamukuru was now a person to be reckoned with in his own
right…you never thought about Babamukuru as being handsome or ugly, but he was
completely dignified. He didn’t need to be bold anymore because he had made
himself plenty of power. Plenty of power. Plenty of money. A lot of education.
Plenty of everything. (50)
With this
description, we can understand the dual image of Babamukuru as patriarchy
personified and as a colonial figure. That explains why he clashes with every
character, especially women (taking cognisance of the significance of women as
explained above). Each of the women
tries to resist him – Nyasha, Lucia, Maiguru, Tambu’s mother, and Tambu
herself. In fact, his presence causes political tension in the novel. Tambu
describes his white house as a kingdom (typical of the residence of
colonisers). Tambu’s narrative of daily events in Babamukuru’s house in the
Umtali city clearly depicts the image of him as both a coloniser and an
imperialist. But more importantly, her narrative depicts the occupants
(Maiguru, Nyasha, and Tambu herself) as the entrapped. Tambu recalls:
My uncle’s
identity was elusive. At first I was disappointed when I came to the mission. I
had thought it would be like the good old days, the days before England, with
Babamukuru throwing us into the air and catching us and giving us sweets,
metaphorically speaking, but I hardly ever saw him because he was so busy. We
hardly ever laughed when Babamukuru was within earshot, because, Maiguru said
his nerves were bad. His nerves were bad because he was so busy. For the same
reason, we did not talk when he was around either. (104)
In Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Kambili’s account of
her father Eugene juxtaposes him with Babamukuru in all respects –
upbringing/growing up, present status in the family and the larger society, attitude
towards those around him, religious belief and principles as influenced by
nurturing received. It is a calibrated and regimental life style. Kambili
recalls that it affects relationship between members of the family, especially the
trio of herself, her mother Beatrice and Jaja. Kambili notes, for instance, “We
had a menu on the kitchen wall that Mama changed twice a month” (23). Referring
to Eugene’s upbringing as being responsible for his psychological shaping, she
recalls his admonition the day her father brought her to school to see Chinwe
Jideze who took the first position the previous term:
…I didn’t have a
father who sent me to the best schools. My father spent his time worshipping
gods of wood and stone. I would be nothing today but for the priests at the
mission. I was a houseboy for the parish priest for two years. Yes, a houseboy.
Nobody dropped me off at school. I walked eight miles every day to Nimo until I
finished elementary school. I was a gardener for the priests while I attended
St. Gregory’s Secondary School. (47)
Condition for
Tambu’s parents (Jeremiah and Ma’Shingayi) to receive substantial help from
Babamukuru is wedding – “cleansing ceremonies” (147-8). The same fate affects
Papa Nnukwu who has to convert to Christianity for Eugene his son to build him
a new house and buy him a car. Even Ifeoma and her husband should become
members of Knight of St. John to be worthy of his help. Ifeoma declares that to
Beatrice:
Have you forgotten
that Eugene offered to buy me a car, even before Ifediora died? But first he
wanted us to join the Knights of St. John. He wanted us to send Amaka to
convent school. He even wanted me stop wearing makeup! …But I will not ask my
brother to bend over so that I can lick his buttocks to get these things…. Our
father is dying, do you hear me? Dying. He is an old man, how much longer does
he have, gbo? Yet Eugene will not let him into this house, will not even greet
him. O joka! Eugene has to stop doing God’s job…. (95)
Character symbolism
shows that the men – Eugene and Babamukuru – are symbolically western powers,
the colonizers or their imperialist surrogates, whereby the women represent
their subjects, either submitted or unyielding. In other words, the women
represent colonial district or a country/nation. In both novels Babamukuru and
Eugene pontificate to the women what and how to do. For instance, Babamukuru’s
colonial pontification extends to other members of the extended family
including men and women. Tambu tells us how he presides a family meeting where
he unilaterally took a binding decision on herself (leading to her education at
the mission school), Lucia (which she vehemently resisted), and her parents. He
imposes a wedding on her parents because they have been living in “sin”; and
then how she incidentally received punishment for resisting attendance to the
wedding. It was not easy for Tambu to resolve the emotional crisis that wedding
threw her into. She has to pose her identity resistance, the second in her
life. The first was fighting her brother Nhamo – a colonialist. Now, it is her
almighty Babamukuru. She does not have to be informed that the purported
wedding of her parents was ridiculous of herself, her siblings, and her
parents. So she has to fight to redeem their identity. So she preferred to
endure whatever down-from-hell punishment Babamuturu is going to hand her. She
says, “to me that punishment was the price of my newly acquired identity” (71).
The women suffer psychological, emotional, and physical colonisation. They
stomach and protest/resist one form of threat or the other. All the submitted
women suffer one form of psychological bruises or the other – Ma’Shingiya,
Maiguru, Nyasha (Nervous) and
Beatrice (Purple) – a pointer that
colonialism breaks a people.
One major
distinguishing factor between the two patriarchal and imperialist figures is
their affinity to their community. Eugene is shown to be too chauvinistic and
individualistic. He is fanatical in everything, not just on religion alone. He
is severely pained that Chinwe Jideze leads the class while Kambili follows
behind. For this singular reason, he drives to school to prove it to Kambili
that having been sufficiently taken care of, there is no reason any student whatsoever
should take the lead because they all have one head; after all he made it
without his own father who was a “heathen”. He does not see any reason to offer
his own father, Papa Nnukwu, burial because he is a heathen; however, he
provided full funding for the funeral (146). He rejects whatever that is
culturally and traditionally African. Babamukuru,
however, still holds, at least, some values of his community (Shona), but being
the colonizer and imperialist instrument, he goes ahead to approve and do as
his masters trained or would have him do. Holland is cited in Alenezi
(2020:159) to have argued that “Babamukuru appears to triumph in both
traditional African and British realm.”
Conclusion
The two novels are
both feminist Bildungsromane and
ideologically political. The narrators of both are young school girls
exhibiting their naivety and pure innocence in their detailed expose of the
situation around them – their aspirations, challenges, and struggles to
navigate the social terrain. These narratives of their developmental trajectory
end at their realisation of the true circumstances surrounding and hindering
their success. On the other hand, the novels are metaphorically political
indicating imperialist manipulation, justifying both novels as colonised
Bildungsroman.
Despite the
abundance similarities in character type – Babamukuru/Eugene, Tabudzai/Kambili,
Maiguru/Beatrice, Lucia/Ifeoma, Nyasha/Jaja, and so forth – and fanatical
religious leitmotif that becomes the catalyst of tension existing between the
antagonists and the non-metropolitan characters in the two novels, including
similarity of setting and all the rest, there abound some other differences.
While the two protagonists are young school girls, one (Tambu) migrates from the
rural area where she was born and raised to the city of Umtali; Kambili of
Enugu city migrates to the rural Abba and semi-urban Nsukka. Again, while
Babamukuru is an educationist, Eugene is a captain of industry. Both antagonists’
principles are, quite all right, challenged by their eldest children (Nyasha
and Jaja), who suffered differently but gravely for standing up against their
parents; however, they are of different genders – female and male respectively.
The unity of the two novels lies in the fact that both symbolically depict the
continued rape of colonised people of Africa, even after political independence,
via imperialist control. The works demand ideological revolution. Through
metaphorical reading, the novelists suggest that greatness of Africa depends on
the ability of her citizenry to question and resist the rational and values of
western ideals and practices that have continued to prevail and erode African
identity.
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This article is published in ALQALAM: A Journal of Language and Literary Studies, FUGUS, Volume 1, Issue 2 - June 2026
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