Search Inside This Book: Car

         In Nervous Conditions, I thought that the word car was meaningful throughout. It was used many different times and I used Search Inside This Book to help see the ways that it was used and how it affected the story. I found that in most of the uses of the word it obviously involved driving somewhere, which was a pretty big deal in Rhodesia back then. It normally meant that something new was coming or something was leaving. It was also involved in most of the passages during the book where large events happened. In the case of Nhamo's death, Babamukuru breaks the news by driving up to the homestead. When Tambu goes to Sacred Heart in the final chapter to begin her educated life and continue her journey, she talks about the long car ride and how all the cars in the parking lot showed how sophisticated the school was. These instances give us an idea of the importance of cars in this story and what they led to for the characters.
         Tambu loved car rides throughout the story, beginning with her first ride to Umtali with Mr. Matimba and how she discovered the city's lights and saw many new things in the city, and ending with  her about to go to her new school of Sacred Heart and going to learn many new things there. Whenever Tambu rode in a car it usually meant that she was going to learn something new or have a new experience. Cars were status symbols as well. Babamukuru had two cars and this gave him status and was one of the reasons he was looked up to by the family. Dangaremba normally uses cars to transition between events. People arrive in cars which cause major events. People go to new places in cars. People meet people and see things like the sorry homestead when Tambu goes home for christmas and the bulimic Nyasha when she visits the mission after school. Throughout the story the word car was used in many interesting ways to show change and progressiveness. This word was used in many effective ways throughout this book.