The thesis analyzes ethical aspects of intercultural dialogue in the context of postsecular society and Western philosophy, as depicted in the novels and short stories of Dutch author Michel Faber. Analysis focuses on the theory of dialogue as presented in the works of Charles Taylor, Terry Eagleton, Olivier Roy and Ulrich Beck. The literary works of Michel Faber can be seen as examples of applying ethics in the context of personal and social narratives in contemporary culture. Faber does not proclaim his belief in Christianity; however, he works with religious motifs in the context of the postsecular situation of the globalized world, in which religion returns to take part in the public debate and affirmation of its legitimacy. Faber respects the legitimacy of religion the ethics of otherness, typical of the characters in Faber's works, is therefore the ethics of relationship quality, basic value orientation, and the search for the horizon of the meaning, which corresponds with the ethics of dialogue within the Christian tradition.

In this thesis, Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman and Michel Faber’s Under the Skin are analysed from the perspective of feminist-vegetarian critical theory. Both texts deal with the idea of feeling like or being meat, but approach this idea from different angles. In The Edible Woman, the connection to feeling like meat is metaphorical and rooted in gender relations, while in Under the Skin, it is literal, related to the idea of being animal. What becomes clear through an analysis of these two texts is that they both deal with the interlocking oppressions of women and animals. In The Edible Woman, protagonist Marian loses her subjectivity and stops eating meat when, as a result of the dynamics of her relationship with her boyfriend (later fiancé), she starts identifying with animals that are hunted or eaten. In Under the Skin, the alien protagonist Isserley, as female, non-human and in her natural form looking like a kind of mammal, represents both women and animals in her objectifying returned gaze on human men. Examining these two texts together highlights the interlocking nature of patriarchy and speciesism, and shows how these oppressions are better understood in relation to each other.

This paper explores the contemporary reader´s fascination with the Victorian period focusing on Michel Faber´s neo-Victorian novel The Crimson Petal and the White (2002). By comparing and contrasting various literary elements that link the Victorian novel to contemporary neo-Victorian fiction it simultaneously shows the similarities and differences between the nineteenth-century Victorian sensorium and that of the present day. It puts particular emphasis on the sensory perceptions of vision and smell, since those two senses are the most prominent ones in Victorian and neo-Victorian fiction and they are also regarded as extremes on the sensory scale. The nineteenth-century urban hygiene campaign transformed, in particular, the perception of olfaction. This study concludes that our contemporary society bears many similarities to the Victorian period as a society of great change. The renewed interest in the Victorian signifies the twenty-first century reader´s desire for an idealized world set in another time, which yet appears familiar and recognizable. Neo-Victorian fiction thus functions as a means of knowing both your heritage and finding your own place in the present day. The sensory perception of foremost smell is part of our cultural heritage and thus the neo-Victorian novel mirrors the deo-Victorian concept.