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 enactment of a series of apartheid related laws beginning in 1948, racial discrimination in South Africa was institutionalized and legitimized. There were any number of these laws that were enacted, but two that typify the type of repression engendered in the apartheid laws were [a] prohibition against marriage between non-whites and whites, and [b] official sanctioning of discrimination in employment in the form of the creation of 'whit only' jobs.
In 1950, the P...