“Suffering! Of those who are no longer children but are not yet old: the widow has defined your own quandary” (p 35).
So far throughout the book it is clear that one of Tambu’s personal struggles, and a possible theme in the novel, is dealing with the difficult position of no longer being young, but still not having your life “put together.” There is a certain amount of slack given to the young and old that is not afforded “middle aged” people.
For women especially, youth is highly (overly) valued.
“You are growing suspicious at being liked by this women, knowing that there is nothing about yourself that counts as amiable. Contempt for everything floods you” (p 38).
I thought this quote described a complicated feeling eloquently. Tambu is so frustrated with herself and her life that someone liking her irritates her. Self hatred can cause people to push others away, because if you don’t like yourself, it’s hard to believe and/or accept that others like you.
“That’s why I always say please, please, please, someone from the rural areas. Those people know when God has given them something good. Because those people really know suffering. The widow has gauged you well. She is aware of it. You accept her terms immediately, as there is no question of your returning to the family homestead in your father’s village” (p 41).
“You are concerned you will start thinking of endingit all, having nothing to carry on for: no home, no job, no sustaining family bonds. Thinking this induces a morass of guilt. You have failed to make anything at all of yourself, yet your mother endures even more bitter circumstances that yours, entombed in your destitute village.How, with your education, do you come to be more needy than your mother?… You torture yourself, in the early days of your stay at Mai Manyanga’s, with the idea that you have no one but yourself to blame for leaving your copywriting position. You should have endured the white men who put their names to your taglines and rhyming couplets… Your age prevents you from obtaining another job in the field…” (p 46).
Background information on Tambu’s life
She is very well educated (sent to school by her uncle, who is in a wheelchair)
She has a sister who lost her leg during the war. Her sister has two children (Tambu calls them “liberation babies”)
It is unclear what happened to Tambu’s father, but it seems as though he is dead
Tambu’s cousin, Nyasha, emigrated overseas
Her family lives in a rural village in Mutare. Her father was paralyzed
Left her job at an ad agency abruptly because white colleagues were taking credit for her work
Mai Manyanga’s Sons… (pp 48 – 50)
Praise (eldest), Larky, and Ignore
Oldest two have children; all of their wives stay in their cars?
They all really like nice cars, but the youngest has the nicest car.
[Tambu talking about Larky’s wife]: “You smile faintly, judging that this woman will not be strong competition,” “You listen, daydreaming about how, when you make your move, you will be a member of this family” (p 52).
Plot forming. Tambu is scheming to “ensnare” one of the widows sons as an attempt to gain security in her life, particularly because the sons are wealthy and due for more inheritance (when the widow passes).
It seems like Tambu’s depression and desperation regarding the current state of her life is leading her to reach for solutions. It’s interesting how she simultaneously struggles with self-hating thoughts but also views herself as stronger “competition” than the woman who is already married to Larky.
The widow’s sons discuss selling her home and Ignore asks Praise “what are you going to do with her” (p 55) after her home sells. Tambu listens to their conversation while simultaneously planning her own scheme to marry one of them. Everyone is after the widow’s money.
It seems as though the widow is injured? Maybe attacked by her sons (p 58).
Tambu’s definition of fear: “Fear, your recurrent dread that you have not made enough progress toward security and a decent living, prickles like pins and needles at the mention of ‘village.’ You have dodged this fear for too long–all your conscious life. Now even here at Mai Manyanga’s, you are trapped by it” (p 59).
Tambu fears having to return to the village where she grew up. Many of her family members were hurt or killed there, and she feels as though she was spared this suffering because she was lucky enough to be sent away to school. She feels guilty that she is well educated, but struggling to find a job and feel secure in her life. The situation is putting her under a lot of pressure and keeping her trapped.
Mai Manyanga’s eldest brother’s first child Christine (Kiri) is sent to look after the widow (p 61). It
Tambu’s housemate, Mako (Blessings), is raped by Shine (another housemate). Tambu reflects on her reaction to Gertrude (her previous housemate) being thrown off a combi and attacked for wearing revealing clothing, and seems to feel guilty she did not help Gertrude. Tambu wonders if she were younger, could the same thing have happened to her that happened to Mako? (p 65 – 68).
Kiri has been trying to give Tambu a parcel from her family. Tambu avoids asking about it or receiving it. Kiri confronts her about it and says that she knows Tambu’s family very well and that they became close during the war. “The only reason for Christine’s closeness to your family while being a stranger to you was that their bond was formed during the war when you were absent from the village. That period of strife was the one in which the gap between you and the homestead widened” (p 85).
Kiri represents home, and stirs up uncomfortable feelings for Tambu about her family, her survivors guilt (both from war and rural poverty).
Describing Kiri: “Your companion plants her firsts on her hips and informs the bouncers she is an Independence struggle ex-combatant, Moscow trained, and she can see half a dozen others still in fighting form around the bar; nor does it matter if some are not actually Soviet alumni but were trained in China, they are all comrades and fighters” (p 101).
Late 1880’s European colonial powers are looking to conquer African continent
1885 at Berlin Conference, European leaders divvy up Africa to different European nations
“The British had begun their incursions into the area in the 1880s, but the Portuguese had made several attempts to conquer resources inland since the 1600s.”
1893 British colonialists attacked Ndebele (rulers of the area at the time) forces and by 1984 “the conquest of the Ndebele people was complete.”
1895 the entire country of Zimbabwe is a British colony named Rhodesia, governed by the British South Africa Company
Rhodesia was a settler-colony (such as Australia or Canada), meaning “land seizures, segregated colonial governance and attracting settlers through special white privileges, were central policies…After the wards of the 1890s Ndebele and Shona people were forced into reserves to dispossess them of their land.”
Settler violence was common, especially from white police (most frequently accused of raping black women).
Late 1950s there is an increased amount of resistance to colonial rule. Early 1960s, thousands of activists are arrested by the Rhodesian state police.
1961 the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) was formed. In 1963 ZAPU split (possibly due to ethnic tensions between Shona and Ndebele members of ZAPU) and Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was formed and led by Ndabaningi Sithole
1964 Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) is founded, and in 1964 the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) is founded. These two liberation armies fight the Rhodesian security forces for the next 15 years (known as Rhodesian Bush War, or second Chimurenga)
1980 Robert Mugabe becomes the first Prime Minister of an independent Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe faces a politically turbulent 80s and 90s. Whites still owned most of the arable land.
Late 1990s Land reforms, seizure of white owned farmland and Zimbabweans were resettled on the land.
Early 2000s Zimbabwe faces protests, political turmoil, inflation.
Tambu is contemplating where things went wrong for her: “This leaves only your secondary school, the Young Ladies’ College of the Sacred Heart. It must have been here that your metamorphosis took place. Yet how awful it is to admit that closeness to white people at the convent had ruined your heart…a Ghanian writer called Ama Ata Aidoo declared at first she had not know she was the colour she eventually learned she was, that the term black held no meaning for her until she found herself amongst white people…” (p 104)
Tambu reflecting on how the Ghanian writer’s sentiments remind her of her cousin Nyasha: “There was frequently something dismissive, close to sneering, yet at the same time hinting at hurt in her words when she spoke about white people. It frightened you, in those days, to heat how hostile your cousin was toward the Europeans. Now, labouring to define the onset of your fading, the notion of one group of people disparaging another so malignantly once more dismays you” (p 104).
Considering Zimbabwe’s history, it is not unreasonable that Tambu’s cousin is weary of white people. Of course it is always dismaying, as Tambu put it, to disparage a group of people, because obviously no one can or should be reduced to their race, but considering their history, and how recently they were facing oppression and violence from British colonizers, some amount of hostility is expected.
It’s also interesting to consider that this book won a British literary prize, given the difficult history Zimbabwe has with Britain.
“Christine has shown she cannot contribute to any progress in your life” (p 105).
Because Kiri is a representation of “the village,” and the emotional burden that accompanies it, Tambu wants to keep her distance.
