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47 pages 1 hour read

Nancy Farmer

A Girl Named Disaster

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1996

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Themes

The Impact of Social and Environmental Challenges

The novel explores the impact of social and environmental challenges on the individual’s psychology via Nhamo’s experiences as she undergoes the transition from girl to young woman. As Nhamo navigates the social dynamics of her home village, the dangers of her journey through the wilderness, and her reunion with her father’s family, she must learn to confront these various challenges to learn who she is and what she is capable of.

Nhamo’s home environment challenges her sense of self, even though her surroundings are familiar. Nhamo’s only confidante is her grandmother. Otherwise, Nhamo is an outsider and thus poses a threat to her family and community. When she hears her uncle telling a story “about [the fate of] a willful girl” (12) in Chapter 3, Nhamo gets scared. The story foreshadows the challenges Nhamo will face when the local doctor deems Nhamo a negative influence on the village community and she is forced to leave home. With the muvuki’s help, Nhamo’s family decides that the “solution to [their] problem” (61) of Goré’s wandering spirit is to give Nhamo “to the brother of Goré Mtoko as a junior wife” (62). This decision worsens Nhamo’s social circumstances: If she obeys her family, she will have to leave her home and enter a new form of entrapment. Instead, she accepts Grandmother’s plans to flee to Zimbabwe, as she doesn’t want to be held back by her family’s traditions and customs.

Nhamo’s ventures into the wilderness at the end of Chapter 12 incite a string of environmental challenges for her character. Although “sailing away from Zororo and his jealous wives” grants Nhamo “a little thrill of excitement” when she first boards her boat, the wilderness beyond soon challenges her emotional and psychological strength (87). In Chapter 13, Nhamo is met by “wicked-looking thorns,” “dust, ants, and twigs” (89). These environmental threats are just the start of Nhamo’s dangerous journey into the unknown. Nhamo encounters wind and rain, leopards and baboons, hunger and fatigue throughout the weeks and months that follow. Over time, these physical dangers wear on Nhamo’s mind and heart. The longer she tries to survive alone in the wilderness, the more often she despairs. Indeed, whenever Nhamo feels discouraged, she starts to believe that the natural world, its spirits and animals, don’t want her “to reach Zimbabwe” and therefore don’t care “what happens to [her]” (141). In these ways, Nhamo’s environment challenges her spirit and character.

Once Nhamo overcomes the challenges of the natural world, she is better able to face the social challenges that await her in Zimbabwe. Her experiences in Efifi and Mtoroshanga present her with new interpersonal conflicts, both inside and outside the context of her family. However, Nhamo is able to overcome these conflicts with a clear mind and a more resolved spirit, because she has learned from her challenges in the village and the wilderness.

The Quest for Freedom and Belonging

Nhamo’s journey away from home and into the unknown launches her quest for freedom and belonging. Her coming-of-age story centers on her mission to better understand her own identity and to find a home where she can truly grow and thrive at last.

Throughout her childhood, Nhamo has felt like an outsider in her village. She often compares herself to her cousin Masvita, because Masvita is beautiful, talented, and loved. Unlike Nhamo, Masvita has two parents, her birth was “welcomed and [...] everyone [will] rally around to make her future as pleasant as possible” (56). Nhamo’s grandmother loves and accepts her, but Nhamo is underappreciated and mistreated by her aunts, uncle, and the villagers. She feels no sense of belonging even in her home environment.

Her entrapment worsens when her family makes plans to marry her off to the brother of the man her father killed when she was a baby. Desperate to control her own fate and find her own sense of belonging, Nhamo accepts Grandmother’s plan to “run away to the Catholics” (78) and seek a new life in Mtoroshanga with her father’s family. The prospect of the journey terrifies Nhamo, as she is still a child. However, the promise of freedom and acceptance trumps her fear and thus propels her out of her constricting present and toward a liberated future.

Nhamo’s time in the wilderness amplifies her loneliness and challenges her understanding of community and home. In the early days of her journey, “the sheer loneliness” (93) of the wilderness outweighs Nhamo’s fears of her unfamiliar environment. Over time, however, she grows so accustomed to her wild and unpredictable surroundings that she is in danger of staying in the wilderness alone forever. This is why Nhamo’s mother encourages her to leave the island with the baboons in Chapter 27. Mother’s spirit reminds Nhamo that she belongs with people, and thus must continue her journey to Zimbabwe. Mother’s encouragement spurs Nhamo back into action by reminding her of her values. In the wilderness, Nhamo is free of the social strictures that once limited her. However, her loneliness is another form of entrapment that threatens her ultimate freedom.

Nhamo completes her quest for freedom and belonging after she establishes herself in the Efifi community. Although the place presents her with challenges of its own, the setting and its inhabitants offer Nhamo the home and community she has craved. Dr. Masuvu, Dr. van Heerden, and Baba Joseph both accept Nhamo and encourage her to claim autonomy over her future and exercise her agency. This setting therefore empowers and protects Nhamo at the same time.

Resilience and Personal Growth

Nhamo’s story is a coming-of-age narrative that traces her evolving resilience and personal growth. At the start of the novel, Nhamo is just a child. She spends the majority of her time lost in imaginary games and conversations and tea parties with her late mother. These pastimes entertain Nhamo, while distracting her from her alienation and longing. To move into adolescence, she will have to learn to be more self-reliant and bolder in pursuing the life she truly wants.

Nhamo’s family’s decision to marry her to Goré’s brother in Chapter 9 disrupts Nhamo’s childhood world and threatens her innocence. To protect her, Grandmother challenges Nhamo to be brave and run away from home on her own terms in order to escape her violent future husband and his three jealous wives (77). Nhamo’s journey from Mozambique to Zimbabwe both frees her and forces Nhamo to grow up.

Over the course of her journey, Nhamo develops survival mechanisms that illustrate her resilience and maturation. When she was living in the village, she told stories to others to comfort and distract them. When she’s alone in the wilderness, she tells stories to herself to boost her own spirits. Furthermore, Nhamo develops a close connection with the spirit world. In doing so, she is developing her own spirituality, and thus her own internal compass. These spiritual and emotional defenses help Nhamo to overcome her loneliness and fear throughout her journey.

Meanwhile, Nhamo teaches herself practical skills too. When she starts to despair about leaving the island before the rainy season in Chapter 31, she remembers that she “taught her[self] to swim,” “found [...] the island with the Portuguese grave,” and learned “to hollow out the log with coals” (215). She received encouragement from the spirit world to attempt these tasks. However, Nhamo’s innate determination and perseverance allowed her to complete them. The longer she is alone in the wilderness, the more self-reliant she becomes.

Nhamo’s experiences in Efifi and Mtoroshanga complete her coming-of-age journey. When Nhamo first arrives in Efifi, she is wild and disoriented. Her time in Efifi helps her relearn the importance of community and family. Shortly thereafter, her experiences in Mtoroshanga help her to reconcile with her fraught parental past. When she returns to Efifi at the end of the novel, Dr. Masuku exclaims that Nhamo “really [is] a woman now” (287). Escaping the village has taught her bravery and courage. Surviving in the wilderness has made her determined and strong-willed. Reconciling with her family has freed her from her past. In these ways, Nhamo has developed strength of character, and discovered her own heart, mind, and identity.

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