Article 5: Characteristics and Identities of Nyasha in Nervous Conditions and Aissatou in So Long a Letter
by Cheryl Muskego
Nyasha in Tsitsi Dangaremba’s Nervous Conditions is a Shona girl at school, who wants to give up her Shona culture, struggling in finding her identity after she left Rhodesia and studied in England for several years, Aissatou in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter is a Senegalese woman who left Senegal to work in Senegalese Embassy in America to gain her independent identity. Both characters suffer from the cultural confusions between their own culture and the colonial culture. They take different paths and they end up in different life styles. This short essay will make a comparative study on these two characters in terms of fighting for their own identities. The purpose of the comparative studies is to see how a woman could keep her own cultural traditions as well as her own independent identity.
As a young girl, Nyasha went to England with her family. There she forgot about her Shona culture and started to resent her own culture. Nyasha’s arrogant behaviour, which is beyond the Shona women codes annoyed the narrator, Tambu, who was close to her age: “Nyasha indicated her solidarity with the ghost of a smile and a twitch of her eye, which I thought was insulting and so ignored her” (Dangarembga 41). To Tambu, Nyasha was very intelligent but disrespecting her own people was not acceptable. Tambu blamed Nyasha’s arrogance to the colonial education. “We were all proud, except Nyasha, who had an egalitarian nature and had taken seriously the lessons about oppression and discrimination that she had learnt first-hand in England” (Dangarembga 64). Living in England and being from Rhodesia, Nyasha was confused of her identity. She even didn’t want to speak her own language.
Nyasha was a brat! She was spoiled by both her parents, especially by her mother Maiguru. Maiguru was a caring and educated and woman, but she choses to stay home to take care of her family after they returned from England. Thus, she was not a successfully professional woman; neither was she a powerful mother in Shona culture in which man was the head of the family. When Nyasha’s family came back from England her father was made the principal of the missionary school where Nyasha went too. When Nyasha’s dad tried punishing her for her disrespect for her own people, her mother would be right there to back up her daughter, which broke the Shona culture code as well. The whole Shona community respected her father but he lost his authority in front of his daughter Nyasha.
In order to keep a good image of herself, Nyasha did not want to eat properly. When her father tried to make her eat, she just simply said to her father that she wasn’t hungry. Whenever Nyasha and her father got into arguments, Nyasha’s mom would tell her dad to just leave her alone. ‘No, Babwa Chido, kani,’ pleaded Maiguru. ‘If you must kill somebody, kill me. But my daughter, no, leave her alone’ (Dangarembga 117) When Nyasha stayed out late, talking to a boy, Nyasha’s father called her a whore. The father and the daughter even go into physical conflicts, which is against the patriarchy system in Shona culture.
The problem with Nyasha was that her rebellion was too far minded for her own culture. Even though she was bright and self-conscious; her behaviors wouldn’t be accepted in Shona culture. When she was mad at her own people she had her own way of ignoring them. Even the narrator criticizeds her, “Nyasha clicked her tongue scornfully and switched herself off. It was very abrupt the way she did it” (Dangarembga 43). Nyasha didn’t understand Shona very well because she grew up in England. Thus, she looked dull and dim to her own people every time she went back to visit her parents’ family in the village. To them, Nyasha had very bad manners; she talked to her mother very disrespectfully. She judged her mom so harshly that even her mother thought of her as a rumbustious daughter. Nyasha talked to Anna, the house maid in a very irritable manner. To her family and her own people, this girl was very rude. Thus, she was alienated from her extended family because of her “bad behavior.” To most people in the extended family, Nyasha was a miserable child. Nyasha would be out of place in her own home and her own community.
But Nyasha developed a close relationship with her cousin, Tambu, who moved from her village to stay with her family for her education. She cared a lot for Tambu; she took Tambu as her friend. Despite of their different family backgrounds, Nyasha and Tambu confided in each other, sharing some identity as Shona girls because they would both continue their colonial education.
The close relationship between Nyasha and Tambu could be also found between Aissatou and Ramatoulaye in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter. “Friendships were made that have endured the test of time and distance” (Ba 16).
Aissatou and Ramatoulaye were close friends since they were at high school, Ramatoulaye even named one of her daughters after Aissatou. They both had marriage problems because their husbands took in another wife during their marriages, which was acceptable in the Senegalese culture. Ramatoulaye decided to stay with her marriage even though her husband lost interest in her. But Aissatou was brave enough to leave her husband and start a new life with her four sons. She was an educated woman who was able to provide substances for her son and herself even though she was labeled as a goldsmith’s daughter, for which she was prejudiced by her mother-in-law. To keep her independent identity in a heavily male-dominated Muslim society, Aissatou was not violent or subversive. As her friend, Ramatoulaye, wrote to her, “Your stoicism has made you not violent or subversive but true heroes, unknown in the mainstream of history, never upsetting established order, despite your miserable conditions” (Ba 12). When she had found out that her mother-in-law had gotten her husband another wife, she left her husband, never regretted her decision. Her independence made her strong and happier. “How much greater you proved to be than those who sapped your happiness?” (Ba 32). In her own culture, it might not be easy for Aissatou to show resilience to her mother-in-law and her husband. However Aissatou choose to make a break the culture code by leaving her own homestead. Working for Senegalese Embassy in America, she could have courage to take her life and her children’s life in her own hands. As a divorced woman, Aissatou understood the emotional difficulty her friend Ramatoulaye had undergone. She was generous to her friend Ramatoulaye. Aissatou was not judgemental to her friend. She was a good listener and respected her friend’s choice of staying married to her husband. While Ramatoulaye was proud of Aissatou, she also appreciated her friend’s help. “You, the goldsmith’s daughter, gave me your help while depriving yourself’ (Ba 56). Aissatou not only broke her polygamy culture code by leaving her husband who wanted to keep two wives in their marriage, she also refused to marry another Muslim man. With her colonial education, she left Senegal to work in Senegalese Embassy in America. Therefore, Aissatou gained her independent identity through her education and career.
There are so many differences with the two characters. Nyasha and Aissatou in their different cultures, but the one thing that is the same with them is their friendship with their own people: Nyasha had her love for her cousin Tambu and Aissatou had love for her friend Ramatoulaye. Both Nyasha and Aissatou come from strong ethnic backgrounds but both of them integrate with Western education to regain their intendant identities.
Works Cited
Ba, Mariama. So Long a Letter. USA: Waveland Press, Inc., 2008.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2004.
About the Author: Cheryl Muskego, 36 years old, lives in Norway House with her 13-year-old son. She worked as an educational assistant for 14 years. She obtained an educational assistant certificate. After that she went to school for 3 years part time for Bachelor of Arts. In 2016, she decided to be a full time student to complete her Bachelor of Arts. She will graduate this June. Inspired by her elder sister, Melisa, and her aunt, Katie, who are excellent teachers for the community, Cheryl wants to become a teacher. Cheryl works hard towards her goal and wants to a model for her son. She believes that education is important. Her motto is that it is never too late to fulfill her dream!
Instructor’s Remarks: I first met Cheryl Muskego in my class Indigenous Women and Literature I (ENG 3300) in fall 2017. For mid-term papers, students were requested to write two essays on the texts they studied for that course. Chery’s comparative essay on “Characteristics and Identities of Nyasha in Nervous Conditions and Aissatou in So Long a Letter” is interesting to read. To her, both female characters come from strong ethnic backgrounds but both gained their intendant identities through Western education. In winter 2018, she took Indigenous Women and Literature II (ENG3301) and Critical Theory 2 (ENG 4021) with me, I find that her thinking and writing more critical and sophisticated towards culture and identity. (Dr. Ying Kong)