Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter

Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter dramatizes the history of South Africa. Like many of Gordimer’s characters, the wide range in this novel is deeply involved in activities against the white racially-based regime of the National Party. Rosa, around whom the whole story revolves, is born to a white communist couple. To her society, she is undoubtedly her father’s name bearer and successor. However, this young girl constantly thinks of herself as free from all the social roles assigned to her. What stance to maintain is really a thorny query for Rosa who is torn between the social expectations which put her under her father’s umbrella and her own need to enjoy a private life.

Gordimer’s choice of a female character to build the story around is neatly convenient. Intentionally, she shapes Rosa to fit the South African reality. A male hero, or a son, is unequivocally reckoned to be engaged and:

“[L]iterary and cultural presumptions would likely obligate a son to be a Telemachus or an Ascanius, following the footsteps of a heroic father. The daughter might prove an Antigone but would be excused the choice of uncommitted life, even if that meant ‘to live the life of a white lady’ ”. (Ettin 83)

By doing so, the author paves the way for Rosa’s dilemma to take place.

To suffer such an inner conflict must surely be a sign of a strong personality. A weak character would rather relinquish the cause and feel at ease. With Rosa Burger, the author amply illustrates this. Even at fourteen years old, Rosa “displayed a remarkable maturity” (BD 3). She, according to the school headmistress, “came to school the morning after her mother was detained just as any other day” (BD 11). Waiting not for a long time, she remains the only surviving m...

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...tesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1993.

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