A Girl Named Disaster

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1996

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-12

Chapters 13-27

Chapters 28-42

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Cultural Context: Shona Traditions and Beliefs

Nhamo is a member of a Shona community. Therefore, her experiences in her village are defined by her tribal customs and beliefs. The Shona people, native to South African nations like Zimbabwe, have a complex relationship with the spirit world. The Shona believe in a supreme creator god but also believe in a host of various spirits that can directly influence the day-to-day workings of the human world. When humans die, they become a part of the spirit world. The Shona believe that ancestral spirits and other spirits can sometimes inhabit a living man or woman to convey information through possession. Since both good and bad spirits exist, the Shona believe that misfortunes and illnesses can be caused by the influence of malignant spirits. When the Shona believe that a member of their society is acting in tandem with evil spirits or under their influence, they may accuse that member of witchcraft.

These spiritual philosophies dictate Nhamo’s relationships with her community, the natural world, and the realms beyond it. In particular, Nhamo’s understanding of ngozis, or angry spirits, family totems like the leopard, and the njuzu, or the water spirits, incite conflicts throughout her narrative. For example, when Nhamo starts seeing a leopard in the woods surrounding the village, her family is convinced a ngozi is stalking her and the community. In Chapter 9, the muvuki insists that the ngozi is Gore’s angry spirit “returned in the form of a leopard” and seeking revenge for his murder (60, 61). This hypothesis instills fear in Nhamo’s family. According to their Shona traditions, the only way to appease the spirit is to offer him a life in exchange. Therefore, they make plans to marry Nhamo to Zororo, and thus to offer her as a sacrifice for Proud’s crime against the Mtoko family. This customary arrangement incites Nhamo’s journey away from home and into the unknown.

Nhamo’s wanderings through the wilderness test her traditions and beliefs. Throughout her journey to Zimbabwe, Nhamo learns how to communicate with the spirit world. Although Shona elders “are considered to be close to the spirit world and therefore are cloaked in power” (303), because Nhamo is young her connection with the spiritual realm suggests witchcraft. This is why the Efifi community performs a ritual to rid her of her dark spirits, and thus to set her free. In these ways, Nhamo’s Shona background creates challenges for her character throughout the novel. Her social and environmental conflicts are largely inspired by her cultural traditions and perceptions of the world. Ultimately, Nhamo must decide which aspects of this belief system she wants to maintain, and which she wants to reinvent on her own terms.

Social Context: Gender Roles and Gender Equality

Traditional Shona social customs dictate strict gender roles for men and women. Men are expected to perform manual labor in the fields or pursue trades; they occupy positions of authority both within their families and in their societies. Women are associated with the domestic realm, tending to the home,Nhamo’s sociocultural background dictates who she is allowed to be as a woman. Nhamo is an outsider in her village because she is an orphan. Her mother loved her, but when her father fled the tribe when Nhamo was a baby, he brought shame to Nhamo’s family. According to her society, a “child belong[s] to its father’s family” (20). Therefore, because Nhamo doesn’t have a father, it doesn’t “matter that [she has] spent her entire life with Mother’s relatives” (20). Proud’s absence has alienated Nhamo from her community and thus destabilizes her future as a young woman. Without a father, she has no one to “arrange the bride-price,” and no paternal aunt to stay with when she starts menstruating (20). Therefore, Nhamo’s complex familial situation bars her from participating in traditional gender roles. Nhamo often envies her cousin Masvita, because Masvita is the model of female perfection. She is quiet, talented, and pretty. She has two parents who love her and dutifully arrange her future for her.

Nhamo’s arranged marriage promises to limit her freedom and entrap her in an unwanted life. Her family decides to sacrifice her to the Mtoko family to free themselves from Goré’s angry spirit. In doing so, they disregard Nhamo’s personal desires and needs. Nhamo has no choice but to accept this arrangement, because her social sphere and cultural traditions demand that she help her family via marriage and thus accept her role as Zororo’s new junior wife. Such traditions are not equanimous and thus restrict Nhamo’s innately independent spirit.

Nhamo’s ventures through the wilderness and her experiences in Efifi redefine her understanding of gender roles and gender equality. Her relationships with Dr. Masuku, Dr. van Heerden, and Baba Joseph are particularly significant in this regard. In Chapter 42, they tell Nhamo that she’s “far too intelligent to be turned into a family drudge or forced into a bad marriage” (290). They teach her that women “are never free until they can control their own money” (290). Nhamo misses her home village and her family. However, leaving these insular realms grants Nhamo access to social spheres, which empower her to claim autonomy over her future.