Women’s Education under Colonial Rule  in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions

Samir, Chekroun; Wassila, Hamza Reguig Mouro

Aleph
Volume 13, Numéro 1, Pages 413-429
2026-02-01

Women’s Education Under Colonial Rule In Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions

Authors : Samir Chekroun . Wassila Hamza Reguig Mouro .

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the dilemmas that face African women during and after receiving western education under colonial rule through Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel Nervous Conditions. During the colonial era, the colonial administration exploits its educational system to ingrain in the colonised mind western cultures and values and wipe out everything African. Dangarembga’s heroines, Tambu and her cousin Nyasha find themselves, in their pursuit for colonial education, victims of this ideology. For Tambu, her displacement to the Young Ladies’ College was not as easy as she thought. She suffers racial discrimination from her first day because of her black skin. The western manners adopted by Nyasha, following her western education, caused her serious troubles with her conservative patriarchal father, Babamukuru. This latter’s wife suffered from his oppression and control as well despite her western education and good position as a school teacher.