Burgers Daughter

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Burgers Daughter
Nadine Gordimer

• Presenters Shannon Blais and Julia Vandersluis

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Part 1

• Rosas mother is imprisoned and dies.
• Lionel Burger is tried and convicted, and dies
  while in prison.
• Rosa grows from a girl to a young woman.
• A man dies on the park bench across from Rosa
  during lunch.

• Rosa visits old comrades of her parents.
• Rosa relives memories, addressing her lover
  Conrad.
• Brandt Vermeulen obtains a passport for Rosa, and
  she leaves South Africa.
• Rosa learns that Conrad is probably dead.

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Part 2

• Rosa (Rose) lives with Katya (Mme. Bagnelli,
  Lionels ex-wife) in France.
• Rose meets Bernard Chabalier and they become
  lovers they make plans for a future together.
• Rose reunites with her childhood friend Baasie
  at an anti-Apartheid gathering.
• Baasie phones Rose at night and they argue.

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Part 3

• Rosa returns to South Africa and works with
  children with disabilities.
• Orde Greer the journalist is imprisoned.
• 1976 Soweto childrens uprising
• Rosa is eventually imprisoned along with Marisa
  (a friend of her fathers) and other South
  African revolutionaries.
• Rosa sends a letter to Katya, hinting that she
  now occupies the same cell as her father once did.

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Narration

• There are two distinct narration styles of this
  novel
• 1. Third-person omniscient narrator (outside
  authorial narrator)
• The presence of a third person narrator is needed
  to explain and create a context of the political
  events that drive the novel and Rosas personal
  growth and understanding. This allows a much more
  panoramic view of the time period.
• The omniscient narrator also allows the reader to
  understand the motivations of the secondary
  characters. Burgers Daughter is a novel where
  both the context and views of other characters
  play significant roles in the development of
  Rosas identity. Most notably
• The motivations of Lionel Burger as a
  political-moral figure, father, and doctor.
• Rosas mother Cathy, as the political counterpart
  to Lionel. A woman with her own political goals
  who sees her role as a mother secondary to her
  part in ending the suffering of Blacks by the
  apartheid.
• The people of the Future the Burgers
  political comrades (Clare, Dick and Ivy
  Terblanche, Flora Donaldson, Orde Greer, and Noel
  de Witt). These people sacrifice their personal
  lives for the liberation of apartheid.
• Katya and her friends, women and men who live
  only to fulfill their own personal drives and
  desires.

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Narration Contd

• 2. Limited perspective first-person
  narration/internal monologue (Rosas personal
  perspective)
• The novel is largely driven by Rosas narration
  and internal monologue. This allows the reader
  insight into Rosas struggle with developing an
  understanding of the self as she battles with
  separating her political and private lives.
• The power of this narrative style is represented
  by three distinct stages of growth as Rosa
  addresses her monologues to three different
  characters.
• Part one Rosa addresses Conrad This represents
  Rosas deconstruction of her past. How her
  political and private lives were bound and
  developed together through her childhood.
• Part two Rosa speaks to Katya This reflects
  Rosas desire to understand her present self as
  she attempts to foster a personal life in France,
  trying to defect from her past, and ignoring her
  feelings of inadequacy as a political being.
• Part Three Rosa finally confronts Lionel The
  significance of the dialogue to her father
  symbolizes the acceptance of her identity and her
  inability to avoid her destiny, the future.

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Theme Identity

• The theme of Burgers Daughter is the struggle to
  find a balance between personal and public lives.
• Having famous parents ensured that Rosas
  identity would be constantly invaded by the
  political she was a one-dimensional political
  identity Burgers Daughter
• In an effort to discover her own personal
  identity, Rosa escaped to France and rejected
  this political label. As a strictly personal
  Rose, she became a one-dimensional personal
  identity Bernards Mistress

• When Baasie confronts her with the realities of
  apartheid, Rosa returns to South Africa as Rosa
  Burger she is a whole individual who recognizes
  her social, political, and moral value and no
  longer tries to assume her former political
  identity or hide within her constructed personal
  self.

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Metaphors/Symbolism

• Rosa attempts to interpret her identity and her
  place in the world through the use of personal
  metaphors and symbolism in her internal
  monologues.
• Lionel as a doctor a metaphor for his desire to
  heal the illness of the individual juxtaposed
  with his political desire to cure the disease of
  apartheid stemming from political oppression and
  racial injustice.
• Rosa gets her first period at the beginning of
  the novel during her mothers imprisonment. This
  signifies Rosas awareness of the womb and her
  entry into adulthood as a woman and a political
  figure in the eyes of the Future.
• Rosa disapproves of Dick and Ivys personal
  sacrifice and constant devotion to the cause. She
  refers to Dick and Ivy and the other ex-members
  of the Communist Party as ageing poor and
  alive the only difference between them and the
  dead Lionel Burger. Rosa views them only as the
  living dead.
• Rosa examines the fusion of her personal and
  private identity through her name Rosemarie
  Burger. She is named after her grandmother Marie
  Burger who lived a private and personal farming
  life like her Aunt and Uncle. A life based on the
  preservation of the self and family outside of
  the public spectrum. She is also named after Rosa
  Luxemburg, a famous revolutionary of the
  Communist Party of Germany. This union of the
  private and personal figure, an identity Rosa
  cannot escape, is represented in the very
  construction of her name.

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Rosas Loves

• Noel de Witt Rosas first love and fake fiancé
• Rosa truly loved de Witt, but their relationship
  was strictly for political purposes.
• Conrad
• Represents the fusion of Rosas public and
  private lives they met through her father, and
  he was a liberalist, but he was never really
  involved in the anti-apartheid movement like de
  Witt or Lionel himself.
• Bernard Chabalier
• Offered Rosa a relationship that was strictly
  private and would have nothing to do with South
  Africa, communism, or apartheid.

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The Swimming Pool

• The pool is mentioned many times as part of
  Rosas childhood memories
• Lionel taught Rosa and Baasie (and other
  children) how to swim
• Rosas brother Tony drowned in their swimming
  pool
• The pool remained open Lionel and Cathys
  political activism came before their grief over
  their sons death

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Dead Man

• The dead man represents the Rosas
  dissatisfaction with her fathers philosophy
  about human suffering.
• Lionels utopian ideals of how to end apartheid
  are inadequate when faced with the reality of
  death for Rosa, the death signifies the
  unanswered questions regarding the identity her
  father has cultivated for her.
• She is unsure of the significance of her possible
  role in ending apartheid, as there will always be
  suffering and death.

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The Donkey

• Rosa witnesses a black man whipping the donkey
  that pulls his cart.
• The violence of this scene is described
  explicitly, and as it symbolizes apartheid, it
  should produce a strong reaction in the reader.
• At the time, Rosa explains that she does not want
  to report the crime because the criminal is
  black, and she feels that in her role as a white
  woman, stopping a black man would perpetuate the
  cycle of oppression between the races.
• However, her reluctance to interfere symbolizes
  the rejection of her political identity as
  Burgers Daughter, and her refusal to
  participate in the anti-apartheid movement.
• Soon after she witnesses this violent crime, she
  flees South Africa in pursuit of a personal
  identity.

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Katya

• Lionels ex-wife provides Rosa with the mother
  figure she was denied while growing up.
• A retired ballerina, Katya exemplifies the ideal
  feminine she never quite fit in with Lionels
  activist comrades, and after their divorce, she
  was content to become Bagnellis mistress and
  live a life of comfort and passivity in France.
• Katya represents what Rosa could have become had
  she stayed with Bernard rather than return to SA
  and join the anti-apartheid cause.

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Phone Call from Baasie

• Baasies phone call is the catalyst that drives
  Rosa to return to South Africa
• At first, Rosa tries to prevent the upcoming
  confrontation her efforts to delay it are a
  symbol of her unwillingness to face the facts of
  South Africa and apartheid.
• Baasie is angry that Lionel Burgers imprisonment
  and death garnered so much attention he feels
  that Rosa does not deserve the respect people
  automatically give her because of who her father
  is.
• He points out that many black fathers have died
  in an effort to end apartheid, but no one seems
  to care about them.
• Rosa defends her fathers work and politics
  explicitly for the first time, and the two
  childhood friends get into an argument.
• When Baasie confronts her with realities she has
  been trying to ignore, Rosa realizes that her
  past, political identity is not something she can
  separate herself from the personal, private life
  she has been living in Europe is no more complete
  than her former public life as Burgers
  Daughter.

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Impressions

• Shannon
• Its a think book.
• Can appreciate the ideas explored, even if the
  style of writing was difficult to grapple with.
• Thought a book about apartheid would be more
  exciting.

• Julia
• It felt almost like a political manifesto.
• Developed an appreciation for narrative style as
  novel progressed.
• Found the internal struggle with identity moving.

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Questions

• How does communism/economics work as a metaphor
  for the search for identity?
• Can the scope and tragedy of apartheid really be
  expressed in the feelings and experiences of one
  white woman? Why was the book written from this
  perspective?
• Does destiny exist? Was Rosas return to SA
  predetermined?
• Is this an optimistic book about self discovery?
• Did Nadine Gordimer have political goals with
  this novel? Do you think this novel made a
  difference in the fight against apartheid?
• Is it possible to live a fulfilling life by
  sacrificing personal needs for a greater social
  cause? Or is it possible to live a fulfilling
  life strictly providing for the personal needs of
  the self and family while disregarding social
  responsibility?