The narrative mode of "Burger's Daughter" alternates between Rosa Burger's internal monologues and the anonymous narrator, whom Gordimer calls "Rosa's conscious analysis, her reasoning approach to her life and to this country, and ... my exploration as a writer of what she doesn't know even when she "thinks" she's finding out". Abdul R. JanMohamed, professor of English and African American Literature at Emory University, calls this change of perspective a "stylistic bifurcation", which allows the reader to see Rosa from different points of view, rendering her a complex character who is full of contradictions. The two narratives, the subjective and the objective viewpoints, complement each other. JanMohamed 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, her father's former wife, Katya, while Rosa is in France, and her father after she returns to South Africa. Because her imagined audience is always sympathetic and never questions her, Rosa's confessions are honest and open.