Nadine Gordimer's "Burger's Daughter": Narrative Technique

 

The narrative of Nadine Gordimer’s novel Burger’s Daughter is in two modes of narration; one is a third person narration by the omniscient author, and the other is by Rosa herself. The latter, Rosa's own narration, is very much in the stream-of-consciousness technique. The double discourse of the private disruptive voice and the public conventional tone informs the narrative structure of the novel. The narration alternates between first person and third person- "My version and theirs".

The narration by the omniscient author is like a detached record of the happenings in Rosa Burger's life. The opening is a perfect example of this third person narrative: “Among the group of people waiting at the fortress was a schoolgirl in a brown and yellow uniform holding a green eiderdown quilt and, by the loop at its neck, a red hot-water bottle.” But at times, even this detached omniscient authoress penetrates into the labyrinths of Rosa Burger's mind to explore the deep embedded complexities of her consciousness.



The two narratives, the subjective and the objective viewpoints, complement each other. Jan Mohamed explains that while the objective third-person narrative is factual and neutral, the subjective first-person narrative- Rosa's voice- is intense and personal. Rosa's monologues are directed towards Conrad, her lover in the first part of the story, to her father's former wife, Katya while Rosa is in France, and to her father, Lionel Burger after she returns to South Africa. In each case, the third person narrator intercepts with Rosa's first-person address and as a result Rosa's voice is never public. Her impulse to withdraw from an audience is strong at the beginning, she writes to her imagined addressee, "If you knew I was talking to you I wouldn't be able to talk". Because her imagined audience is always sympathetic and never questions her, Rosa's confessions are honest and open.

Gordimer explores the deep turbulence hidden beneath Rosa's serene composed smile- a gesture which Rosa has been conditioned to live with through her life. This disturbed psyche of the ostensibly composed Rosa can be determined in two ways - by gauging her responses and studying her perceptions, and through her monologue with Conrad, a stranger who became close to her during her father's trial, whom she started relating to as her brother.

This monologue, even though it is in the stream-of-consciousness technique, is not like that of Mehring (the protagonist of Gordimer’s another novel, The Conservationist). It is instead in the form of replies to Conrad's queries and allegations, for instance: “Listen to me—Conrad, whatever I may have said to you about them, however they may have seemed to me since I have been free of them, they are the ones who matter.”

Rosa spends most of the time addressing herself to the questions Conrad had raised in her regarding her beliefs and feelings. Rosa conceives her relationship with Conrad in terms of her upbringing and views him as a sibling "treating each others’ dirt as our own, as little Baasie and I'd long ago''. She stops making love to Conrad, and realizing the fact that her relationship with Conrad is turning into an incest she leaves the garden cottage of Conrad.

It is Conrad who dares to question the tenants and the values of Rosa's life and their authenticity. Conrad's queries are also like a questioning of Rosa's own consciousness. The monologue, a sub-consciousness conversation with Conrad is therefore a dialogue with her inner self. This part of the narrative is tainted by a slight touch of bitterness. Rosa throughout the narrative refers to her father as “Lionel” in the manner of a detached stranger.



Gordimer uses quotation dashes to punctuate her dialogue in Burger's Daughter instead of traditional quotation marks. She told an interviewer in 1980 that readers have complained that this sometimes makes it difficult to identify the speaker, but she added "I don't care. I simply cannot stand he-said/she-said anymore. And if I can't make readers know who’s speaking from the tone of voice, the turns of phrase, well, then I've failed."

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