The concept: ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is said to refer to
the difficulties people face, when wanting to write. These difficulties commence
from poverty and lack of education, also contributed to by not having a quiet,
private place, to sit, think and write.
In analysing the novel: ‘Nervous Conditions’
a book written by a Zimbabwean novelist, Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988)__such
obstacles are encountered by the character Tambu.
Tambu as all the women around her witness this
unfortunate form of oppression, where women are traditionally not encouraged to
educate themselves.
The collaboration of gender to this form of oppression
is a part we cannot repudiate. We learn that Tambu develops a repugnant
attitude towards her father and brother – when refused a room to cultivate
herself mentally_ intellectual development.
Tambu’s father felt, on the grounds of gender alone,
that her daughter’s fate as a woman was to broaden her housekeeping skills: ‘He
thought I was emulating my brother, that the things I read would fill my mind
with impractical ideals, making me quite useless for the real tasks of feminine
living.’ (p34) Thus making her a virtuous candidate for marriage.
Gender issues decline women around Tambu, a room to
think and implement their thinking to more practical issues dependent upon their
progression.
Women who challenge the position of gender are said to
be disobedient and a disturbance to the homogonous relations of the society,
compared to those who admit defeat: ‘Besides Nyasha I was a paragon of
feminine decorum, principally because I hardly ever talked unless spoken to…….above
all, I did not question things.’ _(p155)
Tambu abhorred the ‘room’ which she was forced to
assimilate into. A ‘room’ which by her faculties is a form of segregation: ‘So
they made a little space into which you were assimilated, an honorary space in
which you could join then and they, could make sure that you behave yourself’
_( p179)
Despite her misfortunes, Tambu’s determination places
her in a path of self-development and self-discovery. She characterises herself
with the mission, where she learns to identify with her ‘self’. The mission
becomes a room where the possibilities of education, intellectual development,
and a private place to read, think and write – are an imminent possibility.
This ‘room’ Tambu characterises herself to defines,
according to her, how a modern woman should be and how other people identify
with her: ‘The self I expected to find on the mission would take some time
to appear………It was to be an extension and improvement of what I really was.’
_(p85)
Tambu’s identity is dependent upon her surroundings
and foundation she finds at the mission – away from the poverty and implanted attitude
of her father, back home: ‘Freed from the constraints of the necessary and
the squalid that defined and delimited our activity at home.’ _(p93)
The physical attributes of the ‘room of one’s own’ are
achieved: ‘I was meeting, outside myself, many things that I had thought
about ambiguously.’ (p93) together with the mental aspects.
Therefore in the context of self-development and of
doing/ dealing with gender discrimination, ‘a room of one’s own’ is a necessary
, if not a fundamental branch to attain: a room to think, read, write and
discover the truth about yourself by opening a sphere to achieve true democratic
and humanistic paradigms. Through which, individuals are reflected upon their characteristic
qualities, and not identified by their gender.
WORD TO THE ROOM OF ONE’S OWN REVOLUTION
(Tambu's Room of One's Own was an Analysis Assignment UNISA2001_lindasakazithwala)
