Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), British Modernist writer whose search for authentic selves in the lives of the characters in her short stories, is reflected in her innovative style of writing in which she examines the interior consciousness of their minds. Mansfield questions the inauthentic lives of the characters, revealing that the roles they play are socially imposed forcing them to hide their true selves behind masks. The stories which have been chosen for this study focus on women characters (and men also) who grapple with societal prescriptions for accepted actions, and are rendered mute as a result. The women characters include all age groups and social classes. Some are young and impressionable (The Tiredness of Rosabel, The Little Governess and The Garden Party), others are married and older (Bliss, Prelude and Frau Brechenmacher attends a wedding ), while there are also middle-aged women in Miss Brill and The Life of Ma Parker. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Equatorial Guinea is the only former Spanish colony in Africa south of the Sahara. Consequently, the Spanish-language literature produced by its authors has been resistant to classification in both the fields of Hispanic and African literary studies. This thesis examines a selection of contemporary narratives written between 1994 and 2007 by the following authors: José Fernando Siale Djangany, Maximiliano Nkogo Esono, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel and Joaquín Mbomio Bacheng. My main objective in this dissertation is to identify, explain and relate the ways in which post-independence authors express identity in their respective texts. In order to accomplish this task, this thesis posits situational interactions as the key sites for identity expression. Developed from the tenets of symbolic interactionism, the syncretic theoretical model of identity views it as telescopic. It is expected that, through the examination of the chosen texts, a contribution can be made to the understanding of the way in which each author expresses identity and can therefore feed into the larger discussion of identity in Equatorial Guinean narrative.

Orthodox Jewish adolescents develop and mature within a very structured environment. The aim of this study was to explore adolescent psychosocial identity development within Orthodox Jewish education. The secondary focus was the nature of the religious identity acquired through religious education, specifically Jewish Orthodox education. The literature study explored adolescent identity and development (within Erikson's framework), religious orientation and Orthodox Jewish education. The qualitative research was conducted empirically, in the form of a case study of seven adolescents from a single-sex Orthodox school based in Johannesburg. The themes that emerged from the empirical study are as follows: the community; Orthodox Judaism; education; parents, family and peers; adolescent and religious identity. The study indicated that the participants' identity development is dominated by their religious psychosocial world that paradoxically provides the structure that supports and complicates their identity development. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Guidance and Counseling)

Text in Afrikaans / This study is aimed at the development of a guiding framework for fathers and their adolescent sons by focusing on male identity as the main binding factor in the relationship between father a and son. The establishment, as well as the confusion regarding male identity, have been stated as starting point and problem statement of the study. The need regarding the way in which the father and son can be guided within this dynamic relationship in order to establish male identity, has been stated as motivation for the study. The need regarding the guidance of fathers and their sons was thus the primary aim with the research question, namely what the most applicable factors in a guiding framework should be that would guide fathers and their sons in order to support the formation of male identity within the sons. The research methodology that has been followed, was from a Gestalt perspective as meta theoretical assumption from which qualitative, explorative and descriptive strategies were followed. The qualitative strategy consisted of an auto-ethnography and semi-structured interviews. The trustworthiness of the research has been strengthened by a quantitative component of the research by utilizing questionnaires, after which data was collected and analysed. A purposive sample was drawn that included respondents from the Drakenstein municipal area in the Boland district. Categories that were identified from data from the semi-structured interviews, as well as indicators from the questionnaires, have been integrated, from which propositions were constructed. Six themes and resulting guiding strategies were presented in the form of a guiding framework. / Hierdie studie is gerig op die ontwikkeling van 'n begeleidingsraamwerk vir vaders en hulle adolessente seuns deur te fokus op manlike identiteit as die samebindende faktor in die verhouding tussen vader en seun. Die vestiging, asook die verwarring ten opsigte van manlike identiteit, is as vertrekpunt en probleemstelling vir die studie gestel. Die behoefte ten opsigte van die manier waarop vader en seun binne hierdie dinamiese verhouding begelei kan word ten einde manlike identiteit te vestig, is as motivering vir die studie gestel. Die behoefte aan begeleiding vir vaders en huile seuns was dus die primere doel met 'n navorsingsvraag, naamlik wat die mees toepaslike faktore sal wees wat in 'n begeleidingsraamwerk aan vaders en hulle seuns leiding sal bied ten einde die vorming van manlike identiteit by die seuns te ondersteun. Die navorsingsmetodologie wat gevolg is, was vanuit die Gestaltperspekief as metateoretiese aanname waaruit kwalitatiewe, verkennende en beskrywende strategies gevolg is. Die kwalitatiewe strategie het bestaan uit 'n outoetnografie en semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude. Die vertrouenswaardigheid van die navorsing is deur 'n kwantitatiewe komponent van die navorsing versterk deur vraelyste te benut waarna data ingesamel en geanaliseer is. 'n Doelgerigte steekproef is getrek, wat respondente ingesluit het uit die Drakenstein munisipale gebied in die Boland distrik. Kategoriee wat vanuit die data van die semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude geidentifiseer is, asook indikatore vanuit die vraelyste, is geintegreer waaruit proposisies saamgestel is. Ses temas en voortspruitende begeleidingstrategiee is aangebied in die vorm van 'n begeleidingsraamwerk. / Social Work / D.Diac. (Spelterapie)

This thesis traces the use of pity in early modern English literature, highlighting in particular the ways in which the emotion prompted personal anxieties and threatened Burckhardtian notions of the self-contained, autonomous individual, even as it acted as a central, crucial component of personal identity. The first chapter considers pity in medieval drama, and ultimately argues that the institutional changes that took place during the Reformation ushered in a new era, in which people felt themselves to be subjected to interpersonal emotions – pity especially – in new, overwhelming, and difficult ways. The remaining three chapters examine how pity complicates questions of personal identity in Renaissance literature. Chapter Two discusses the masculine bid for pity in courtly lyric poetry, including Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and Barnabe Barnes's Parthenophil and Parthenophe, and considers the undercurrents of vulnerability and violation that emerge in the wake of unanswered emotional appeals. This chapter also examines these themes in Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Sidney's Arcadia. Chapter Three also picks up the element of violation, extending it to the pitiable presentation of sexual aggression in Lucrece narratives. Chapter Four explores the recognition of suffering and vulnerability across species boundaries, highlighting the use of pity to define humanity against the rest of the animal kingdom, and focusing in particular on how these questions are handled by Shakespeare in The Tempest and Ben Jonson, in Bartholomew Fair. This work represents the first extended study of pity in early modern English literature, and suggests that the emotion had a constitutive role in personal subjectivity, in addition to structuring various forms of social relation. Ultimately, the thesis contends that the early modern English interest in pity indicates a central worry about vulnerability, but also, crucially, a belief in the necessity of recognising shared, human weakness.

The study investigated adolescent boys who experienced behavioural problems at school and the possible causes for these phenomena. It was evident that the adolescent boys who experienced behavioural problems were found to lack emotional connections with others due to their fathers’ absence and lack of positive attachment. A total of 403 adolescent boys from various schools in the Tshwane districts were used in the sample group. This quantitative study employed the use of a quantitative questionnaire as a means of data collection that included qualitative open-ended question as a method to enrich the quantitative data and obtain insight into the life world functioning and experience of the participants. The primary aim of the research study was to determine the emotional relationship between fathers and sons within the sample group. Secondly, the study sought to investigate how this emotional relationship affects the adolescent boy’s self-concept, resilience and motivational aspects in his daily functioning. The approach to quantitative data analysis was by means of descriptive statistical analysis. The findings revealed that emotionally absent fathers indeed impact negatively on the adolescent boys’ resilience and motivational aspects of their functioning and that a father’s absence has a significant influence on the behaviours of adolescent boys in relation to motivation and resilience. However, the research results also revealed that an emotionally absent father does not significantly affect the self–concept of an adolescent boy. Finally, an intervention programme was developed to assist and guide fathers and adolescent boys to improve their relationship with one another. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

This study set out to investigate how students construct their identities. Throughout their socialisation into academia, students are confronted with the paradox of learning as they negotiate the opposing discourses of enslavement and mastery that construct higher education. Utilising a critical discursive psychology approach this research aimed to examine the implications this paradox holds for the development of students’ identities. In-depth interviews with five master’s degree students allowed for an examination of the linguistic resources available for students to draw on in constructing their accounts of student-hood. Analysis of the interpretive repertoires and ideological dilemmas in the text revealed the uptake of contradictory subject positions in participants’ navigation of academic discourse. In order to address the inconsistencies associated with these conflicting ways of being a student, participants ‘worked’ a face in their interactions with academic discourse. Their face-work served to address the paradox by integrating the contradictory positions evident in their accounts. It is in the agency displayed in the integration of these disparate positions that the emancipating student is revealed. / Psychology / M.A. (Research Consultation)

This study critically explores the numerous strains of “madness” that Zimbabwean authors represent in their postcolonial literature. My focus is on their reflection of “madness” as either an individual state of being, or as symptomatic of the socio-political and economic condition in the country. I have adopted insights from an existential psychoanalytic framework in my literary analysis in order to bring in an innovative dimension to this investigation of the phenomenon. I consider this an appropriate stance for this study as it has enriched my reading of the literary texts under study, as well as played a crucial role in providing me with effective conceptual tools for understanding the manifestations of “madness” in the texts. The literary works that I critique are Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools (2009), Mashingaidze Gomo’s A Fine Madness (2010), Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly (2009), Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not (2006) and Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name (1994) and Butterfly Burning (1998). These selected texts offer me an opportunity to analyse the gender dynamics and discourses of “madness”, which I do from a peculiarly indigenous and feminist perspective. My study reveals that these authors’ representations are located in and shaped by very specific temporal and spatial contexts, which, in turn, shed light on the characters’ existential reality, revealing aspects of their relationship with the world around them. It demonstrates that their notions of “madness” denote different markers of identity, such as race, class, gender, and religion, amongst others. Significantly, my literary analysis illustrates the varied permutations of “madness” by exposing how these authors characterise the phenomenon as trauma, as alienation, as depression, as insanity, as subversion, as freedom, and even as a sign of the state of affairs in Zimbabwe. This investigation also reveals that because “madness” in these authors’ fiction is intricately linked to the question of identity, it manifests in situations where the characters’ sense of ontological security is compromised in some way. What emerges is that “madness” can either signify a grapple with identity, a loss of it, or a struggle for its redefinition / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

Doctorat en Sciences Psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The theoretical challenge of conceptualising South African Indianess is suffused with a plethora of variables that suggest complexity. While being misleadingly homogenous, Indian identity encompasses a multitude of expressions. This thesis seeks to reconceptualise notions of South African Indianess through personal narrative. The research context is contemporary South Africa with a specific focus on Johannesburg’s East Rand Reef. Inspired by the dearth of literature on contemporary Indianess this study addresses the gap in the present discourse. Following the autoethnographic work of Motzafi-Haller (1997) and Narayan (1993) the thesis presents a layered narrative by juxtaposing the experiences of research participants with my own. Using multi-sited autoethnographic data the thesis explores the question of what it means to be Indian in relation to South Africa’s Apartheid past. By drawing on concepts in popular diaspora theory and critiquing their application, the thesis illustrates the inadequacies inherent in the definitions of diaspora and suggests a broader understanding of its application. Through exploring layers of Indianess the thesis illustrates the inherent complexity in reconceptualising South African Indianess. The study suggests that as a result of changing global and local flows, South African Indians are reconceptualising what it means to be South African Indian.