Murdoch considers herself a 'Christian fellow-traveller', 'a kind of Platonist' and a 'sort of Buddhist', all of which summarise her spirit of writing very well. Iris Murdoch places a very serious obligation on the artist to present reality to his/her observers/readers. In almost all her philosophical articles, books, and interviews, she expresses with great emphasis the task of art, especially prose literature, as a form of education for moral development. In that sense, we can call her a moralist and a 'philosophical' novelist. With her 'Novels of the Good' Iris Murdoch is inviting the reader for a 'journey into the iris', saying: 'I am the Iris; come into me and see. ' The message of her novels is not of 'philosophy' but of everyday moral reality. In other words, reading Murdochian novels is reading morals. This is the main argument in this study. The moral education (preception) of the reader by Iris Murdoch is to 'realise' (receive) the 'perception' of the other--hence the title of the thesis--through her 'novels of character'. For Murdoch, appreciating a work of art is no different than knowing another person(s). The good artist and the good person have, in that respect, the same moral discipline. And this disciplined attention brings with it the true perception and clarity and morally right behaviour. The reader has to attend with moral responsibility to the work of art because it is through literature that s/he can enlarge his/her vision and inner space. The thesis is divided into two main sections: the moral precepts and their exemplification as concrete everyday examples in her novels themselves. The Introduction provides the 'philosophical' and theoretical background for Murdoch's 'Novels of the Good'. Included here is a dictionary of some of the major 'concepts', or rather 'precepts' that Murdoch uses both in her novels and her philosophical articles and books, in order to train her reader to gain ethical vision. Also included in this chapter is a section on reading and readers through structuralist and reader-oriented theories in contrast to or comparison with Murdoch's conception/perception of the 'reader' in her novels. Chapter I switches on the 'machine', Murdoch's &camera-eye' on the egoistic human 'psyche', which Murdoch likens to a machine. Chapter 11 discusses this 'machine' in close-up, that is through first-person narrative novels. Chapter 111, which includes novels that have philosophers at the centre, throws a 'light' on philosophy and everyday reality. Chapter IV explores the importance of death in everyday life. However, although the chapters are divided under different titles, the novels discussed in each chapter can be related to the rest as Murdoch discusses the same precepts recurrently in different contexts which gives her novels the 'serial' characteristic. Each novel is part of the reader's pilgrimage to the Good to understand his/her limitations in the face of the contingent reality represented in her fiction through free individual characters. To enter the Murdochland is to enter the cycle of 'arriving at not arriving'.

M.A. (African Languages) / This study envisages J.J. Gwayi's usage of history in writing her novel, Yekanini. The study shows Gwayi's success in writing an historical novel and how the novel is linked to the past. History refers to something which happened in the past. Gwayi has based her novel (current) on the novels written in the past (precursors). The concepts of intertextuality, influence and parasite have helped me to find traces of Ntuli's Umbuso KaShaka and Mofolo's Chaka in Gwayi's novel, Yekanini. Gwayi has tried to reinterpret the misinterpretations in the work of the two precursor writers. In finding misinterpretations I compare what each writer says about Shaka and his mother, Nandi, and evaluate the declarations and check the reliability of the information and the reality of the novel. .. The study also tries to find out what and to what extent might have influenced Gwayi to write this novel. Gwayi herself says that she has read many Zulu and English books and found them all wrong. She has written Yekanini to right the wrongs of the past. The role played by the individual characters has been shown. It is now Clear that in writing about either Shaka or Nandi, it would be a mistake to leave out the other. Gwayi sums it up by saying, "The work of an artist would be incomplete."

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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 309-330) Resists the notion of a subversive Beckett appropriated by the cultural mainstream, by tracing the discursive limits of avante-garde writing, and by exploring how Beckett paradoxically reinforced the traditional author-function even as he appeared to challenge it.

Spine title: The search for love and truth in Shirley Hazzard's writings. Bibliography: leaves 216-227.