Student Essay on Exploring the Treatment of Women

Women cross social boundaries under the influences of both traditional and modern values, which often bring them various forms of oppression and abuse. Abuse is a very obvious part of the punishment placed upon women in the film "The Piano" directed by Jane Campion and the novel "Nervous Conditions" written by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Through the use of various film techniques, "The Piano" present to the audience the abuse and punishment which women get from crossing the boundaries of postcolonial society. The women in "Nervous Conditions" help Tambudzayi to escape from the "burden of womanhood" which in itself is a type of abuse under influence from colonialism and the traditional Shona patriarchal society. "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, is a novel, which explores the emotional and psychological journey of Rahel and twin Estha's childhood, when their mother is under oppression for her transgression into the line between touchables and untouchables. All three texts explore either the emotion or physical abuse and oppression of women in the postcolonial times when they are influenced by traditional and modern values.

Tsitsi Dangarembga writes in the first person of Tambudzayi, who through her eyes we are told of the abuse and oppression of the women in Shona. Dangarebga uses physical description of the long hard labouring hours when Tambudzayi is "in [her] field, in the first days hoeing and clearing; then digging holes thirty inches apart," she worked to fund for her own schooling, unlike her brother Nhamo, who had her uncle Babamukuru to fund his schooling. These physical descriptions convey the message of emotional oppression on women, as they cannot do what they like freely with the aid of others, they had to work for the opportunity. For Tambudzayi this oppression is the chance for an education, "wanting [to go to school] won't help, because you are a girl."

Under the patriarchal society boundaries of Shona, Tambudzayi is not able to gain proper funding for education until her brother's death with which she gains the chance to go to Babamukaru's mission as a representative of her family who will bring more fortunes once she is eduacated. There she sees the modern values held by her cousin Nyasha who has just returned from England. Nyasha is under the influence of modern European values and beliefs that women should have the equal status and rights of men. Nyasha's beliefs lead her to challenge her father Babamukuru's role as the head of the family and as a male. Babamukuru is still contained within the traditional values of Shona's society, which hold men as the pride and head of society; hence Nyasha's transgression across the invisible line of acceptable behaviour triggers a succession of abusive language and actions from her father. "How can you go about disgracing me? Me! Like that! No, you cannot do it." Dangarembga uses the short one, two word sentences and exclamations of "Me!" and "Like that!" to establish the tone of anger from Babamukuru. "Babamukuru, gathering himself within himself so that his whole weight was behind the blow he dealt Nyasha's face," "striking her other cheek," "he spat in her face," Dangarembga combines short explosive sentences and descriptions of physical actions of slapping and spitting to materialise the scene of Nyasha's punishment after she crosses the line of Babamukuru's traditional tolerance; "behaving like a whore."

Dangarembga presents to us the position of women in postcolonial Shona through the eyes of Tambudzayi. We see that the modern values which influence Nyasha to bring Nyasha hideous forms of abuse and oppression. "The Piano" shows a similar form of abuse to women when they follow modern values. The protagonist Ada is placed under oppression from her husband after to crosses the boundary of traditional women into becoming 'modern'.

When Ada ventures into a sexual and love affair with George Baines, she is faced with abuse from her husband Steward, as a result of transgressing the boundary of the social values as a loyal wife. The film uses fast tracking of Ada's journey through the mountains to George Baines' hut, this technique symbolically represents the Ada's process of breaking social boundaries; the journey from her hut to Baines' hut is symbolically the line that separates the two territories of social acceptance and social unacceptance.

The scene when Steward discovers the affair contain many symbols which the line between acceptance and unacceptance. This scene is film in the point of view of Steward through the gaps between the wooden walls of the hut. The wooden walls that separate Steward from the inside of the hut are a symbol of the invisible line in society between the tradition more accepted values and the modern values which are not widely accepted. Steward is hence a representation of the socially acceptable values and Baines and Ada in the hut represent the modern values.

Ada is under the influence of both the traditional and modern values in society. Traditional values lead her to marry a man that she has never met, but her modern values lead her to be disloyal to her husband and love the man she truly loves. Under these two influences Ada crosses the boundary by betraying Steward and be involved in a sexual affair with Baines. Through this she faces the punishment of loosing a finger for falling in love with Baines. The scene of this punishment is shot in a storm, the weather representing the enormity of this situation in a postcolonial setting, when modern values have not been widely accepted and exercised.

This scene also acts out women's position as a minority; to not be able to speak out their thoughts freely. Ada represents women and the abuse from Steward represents the punishment and oppression women often face when they become too 'wild'. Here Ada does not scream in pain but instead remains silent; this silence represents women's inability to speak or express their thoughts or opinions openly to society, but only silently withholds what is given to them.

This silence is also present in "Nervous Conditions" when both Tambudzayi and Nyasha experience the inability to speak out their thoughts or outrage from being abused. Tambudzayi saw it as "the victimisation," she saw it to be "universal. It didn't depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition. Men took it everywhere with them." The word victimisation indicates to abuse and oppression that women are placed under even for meaningless wrong doings. Dangarembga tells us through the use of the sentence "men took it everywhere with them." How men abuse their superiority over women's inferiority and abuse and oppress women for doings that may not have crossed the boundaries of social acceptance, but have broken the boundary of their personal acceptance and challenged their superiority.

This silence is seen also in "The God of Small Things" when Ammu is beaten by her father but she never told anyone; "as she grew older, [she] learned to live with this cold, calculating cruelty." The novel is a jumble of past and present, which allows Arundhati Roy to contrast the abuse women endured in the past compared to those in the present.

Ammu's relationship with Velutha; the untouchable, brings to her abuse from her mother, looking her up in her room. Her relationship with Velutha is a form of transgression from the traditional values that restrict relationships between touchables and untouchables. The river, which "night after night, a little boat being rowed across," symbolises the same invisible boundary between the accepted and unaccepted in "The God of Small Things" and "The Piano." Ammu transgresses the line into the unacceptable, falling in love with an untouchable. Ammu "crossed into forbidden territory." She "tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much." The word "laws" provides a sense of the true weight of this relationship. Roy uses it to describe loving an untouchable as of equal weight as breaking the law, something that deserves punishment. Hence the use of this word brings us to understand that Ammu's modern approach to love gives her a result of abuse and oppression from family and friends.

Under the influence of traditional and modern values, the three texts present the abuse and oppression women are faced with during the postcolonial periods. "Nervous Conditions" shows how under the influence of the patriarchal society of Shona, with education of modern values, Nyasha is influenced to challenge the leading role of men in society, which brings her abuse from even her father. "The Piano" breaks through the barriers of restricted love, with Ada following her heart to love Baines for the cost of a finger for the betrayal of her marriage. "The God of Small Things" focuses also on the issue of forbidden love between castes and describes the punishments issued for crossing into forbidden territories. All three texts present women as being unable to speak their thoughts or to speak of their own oppression, these postcolonial settings place all the women as a minor group with no ability or right to speak. But their actions speak louder than words - the oppression and abuse from men and acceptable values of society helps to stir up their courage to cross the boundary even though they will still end up facing various forms of oppression and abuse.