Burger's Daughter (Nadine Gordimer)

In the novel, Burger's Daughter, Nadine Gordimer tells the story of a young woman's slowly evolving identity in the turbulent political environment of South Africa before the end of white rule and the apartheid system in that country. Her father's death in prison after being convicted of treason for opposing many of the laws that helped make the apartheid system function left and her mother's death left Rosa Burger alone to explore the intricacies of what it actually means to be Burger's daughter in a nation divided by apartheid. It is interesting to note that both of Rosa's parents expected to be arrested for days or weeks before the event actually took place (Gordimer, 15). One can only imagine the emotional strain that would place on the family as the sword raised collectively over the family's head remains poised but does not fall day after day.

Some background information is relevant to understanding this novel. Apartheid was the creation of political strategists working for the Afrikaner National Party. The concept of apartheid was created in the 1940s as a way for the white minority in South Africa to retain control over the South African economy and government. The term apartheid has come to mean any legally sanctioned system of ethnic segregation, such as the program that existed in the Republic of Soith Africa between 1948 and 1990. The initial goal of apartheid in South Africa was to maintain white minority domination and racial separation. With the enactme

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me Jews fled to avoid the potential for violence, others left to avoid anti-Semitism, and still others were concerned about persecution or prosecution for their own anti-apartheid views. In the novel, Burger was prosecuted and convicted for what were considered radical anti-apartheid views. When Gordimer was growing up in South Africa, some of the most vocal critics of apartheid were small group of Jews. Because they would have been classified as white under apartheid laws, they could have led a comfortable life. However, this group of Jews made a deliberate decision to fight against the system and in favor of social justice. This is how Rosa lands in jail (Gordimer, 353). Anti-apartheid violence grew in South Africa throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as did international pressure. In 1973, South African apartheid was condemned internationally as unjust and racist. The UN General Assembly agreed the to adopt the text of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. In 1980, after decades of neutrality, South Africa's National Congress of the Jewish Board of Deputies passed a resolution urging all concerned citizens to cooperate in securing the immediate restructuring and ultimate re

Category: Literature - B