Fay Weldon is a popular, prolific author whose oeuvre stretches from 1967 to the present and includes 20 novels, three collections of short stories and numerous stage, radio and television plays, scripts and adaptations. This thesis limits itself to her fiction and follows the chronological course of Weldon's writing career in five chapters. Fay Weldon's fiction, situated at the intersection of postmodemism and feminism, is doubly subversive. It both overturns 'reasonable' narrative conventions and wittily deconstructs the specious terminology used to define women. Weldon's disobedient female protagonists - madwomen, criminals, outcasts and she-devils - assert the power of the Other. Gynocentric themes - single parenthood, sisterhood, reproduction, motherhood, sex and marriage - are transformed by Weldon into uproarious feminist revenge comedy. This she achieves through an intertextuality which often involves unorthodox typography, genreswopping and metafictional devices. Moreover, a unique ventriloquism enables her omniscient first-person narrators to mimic 'Fay Weldon' herself. Since her narrators are rebels and iconoclasts, Weldon has always been viewed as a subversive individual worthy of media attention, especially interviews. For this reason, and because she is a woman writer who struggled initially against social and domestic odds, the thesis incorporates in its argument the author's biography and public personae. Chapter One explores the connections between Weldon's first novels - notably Down Among the Women (1971) - and early liberationist and anthropological feminism. In Chapter Two, Bakhtin's dialogic imagination and Derrida's differance provide the basis for a discussion of multiplicity in Weldon's novels of the late 1970s, particularly Praxis (1979), shortlisted for the Booker prize. Chapter Three tests the limits of a psychoanalytical model in accounting for Weldon's novels of (m)Otherhood, including The Life and Loves of a SheDevil (1983). Theories of humour and carnival inform Chapter Four's analysis of how Weldon's wit - at its tendentious best in The Heart of the Country (1987) - declines into innocence. Finally, Chapter Five sees Weldon's flagging literary reputation as the symptom of authorial exhaustion and retreat from a feminist agenda. This concluding chapter is, however, ultimately optimistic that the mercurial author's undeniable talents may reassert themselves / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

Fay Weldon is a popular, prolific author whose oeuvre stretches from 1967 to the present and includes 20 novels, three collections of short stories and numerous stage, radio and television plays, scripts and adaptations. This thesis limits itself to her fiction and follows the chronological course of Weldon's writing career in five chapters. Fay Weldon's fiction, situated at the intersection of postmodemism and feminism, is doubly subversive. It both overturns 'reasonable' narrative conventions and wittily deconstructs the specious terminology used to define women. Weldon's disobedient female protagonists - madwomen, criminals, outcasts and she-devils - assert the power of the Other. Gynocentric themes - single parenthood, sisterhood, reproduction, motherhood, sex and marriage - are transformed by Weldon into uproarious feminist revenge comedy. This she achieves through an intertextuality which often involves unorthodox typography, genreswopping and metafictional devices. Moreover, a unique ventriloquism enables her omniscient first-person narrators to mimic 'Fay Weldon' herself. Since her narrators are rebels and iconoclasts, Weldon has always been viewed as a subversive individual worthy of media attention, especially interviews. For this reason, and because she is a woman writer who struggled initially against social and domestic odds, the thesis incorporates in its argument the author's biography and public personae. Chapter One explores the connections between Weldon's first novels - notably Down Among the Women (1971) - and early liberationist and anthropological feminism. In Chapter Two, Bakhtin's dialogic imagination and Derrida's differance provide the basis for a discussion of multiplicity in Weldon's novels of the late 1970s, particularly Praxis (1979), shortlisted for the Booker prize. Chapter Three tests the limits of a psychoanalytical model in accounting for Weldon's novels of (m)Otherhood, including The Life and Loves of a SheDevil (1983). Theories of humour and carnival inform Chapter Four's analysis of how Weldon's wit - at its tendentious best in The Heart of the Country (1987) - declines into innocence. Finally, Chapter Five sees Weldon's flagging literary reputation as the symptom of authorial exhaustion and retreat from a feminist agenda. This concluding chapter is, however, ultimately optimistic that the mercurial author's undeniable talents may reassert themselves / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

This thesis examines narrative strategies and the representation of trauma in Toni Morrison's trilogy consisting of Beloved, Jazz and Paradise. Morrison's novels illustrate the black experience in the US throughout history; the trilogy begins in the 1870's with Beloved and continues through 1920's in Jazz to 1970's in Paradise. The main focus of this thesis is the exploration of the narrative strategies in the connection to trauma in order to showcase how Morrison manipulates the narrative to draw attention to the unheard traumatic experiences of black people, and consequently criticises the racist master narrative. Beloved depicts the immediate impact of slavery, and the following two novels expose how the underlining traumatic effects of slavery are reproduced long after its abolishment. Selected theoretical approaches to narrative and trauma are introduced in the first chapter. Mieke Bal's approach to narrative, combined with Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s African- American literary theory described in The Signifying Monkey, provides the basis for the analysis of the use of voice, narrative structure, retroversion, and repetition in the trilogy. The postcolonial view of trauma, informed mostly by Judith L. Herman's Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Abuse to Political Terror, is...

This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the 'postmodern' narrative strategies and fictional methods in the work of two British Catholic writers. The work of David Lodge and Muriel Spark is here taken as an example ofthe 'Catholic novel'. In order to determine ifthe overlap ofpostmodern. and Christian-influenced narrative strategies constitutes more than a convergence or coincidence of formal concerns, narrative form in these novels is analyzed in the light of neo-Tho mist and Tho mist aesthetics, a traditional Catholic Christian theory of the arts. The 'postmodern' in these 'Christian' texts becomes largely a coincidence of terminology. Narrative forms which can be classified as 'postmodern' can also be categorized using the terminology of Thomas Aquinas. The apparent similarities betray radically divergent metaphysical presuppositions, however. The nature of the Catholic 'difference' lies in the way postmodern forms are used to challenge the metaphysical bases of those forms. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the 'postmodern' narrative strategies and fictional methods in the work of two British Catholic writers. The work of David Lodge and Muriel Spark is here taken as an example ofthe 'Catholic novel'. In order to determine ifthe overlap ofpostmodern. and Christian-influenced narrative strategies constitutes more than a convergence or coincidence of formal concerns, narrative form in these novels is analyzed in the light of neo-Tho mist and Tho mist aesthetics, a traditional Catholic Christian theory of the arts. The 'postmodern' in these 'Christian' texts becomes largely a coincidence of terminology. Narrative forms which can be classified as 'postmodern' can also be categorized using the terminology of Thomas Aquinas. The apparent similarities betray radically divergent metaphysical presuppositions, however. The nature of the Catholic 'difference' lies in the way postmodern forms are used to challenge the metaphysical bases of those forms. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Text in English, with abstracts and keywords in English and Sesotho / This doctoral study investigates the practice of narrative strategies in the creation of animated poetry-film. The status of the animator as auteur of the poetry-film is established on the grounds of the multiple instances of additional authoring that the animated poetry-film requires. The study hypothesises that diverse narrative strategies are operative in the production of animated poetry-film. Two diametrically opposed strategies are identified as ideal for the treatment of lyrical narrative. The first narrative strategy explored is that of metamorphosis, demonstrating how the filmic material originates and grows organically via stream of consciousness and free association. The second narrative strategy entails a calculated approach of structuring visual imagery and meaning through editing from a pre-existing visual lexicon. In both cases, the interdependence is explored between embodied activity and conceptual activity, between tacit and explicit knowledge in the creative act. These two strategies are practically investigated through my creative praxis, specifically the production of two animated poetry-films, Mon Pays and Parys suite. Through these works, the strategies are tested for their effectivity in communicating visual content not contained in the poetry-text, yet adding value to the poetry/animated film hybrid. Animated poetry-film is theoretically contextualised in terms of intermediality and the specific multi-modal nature of the medium. The construction of animated poetry-film is explored through the research study consisting of a thesis and two animated poetry films, with the hope of contributing to research on animated poetry-film specifically, and to animation theory within the South African context. / Dinyakišišo tše tša bongaka di nyakišiša tiro ya mekgwa ya kanagelo ge go hlangwe difilimi tša go ekišwa ke diphoofolo. Maemo a moekiši wa diphoofolo bjalo ka molaodi wa filimi ya theto a hwetšwa go seemo sa mabaka a mantši a go ngwala ka tlaleletšo fao go nyakwago ke filimi ya theto ya go ekišwa ke diphoofolo. Dinyakišišo tše di šišinya gore mekgwa ya kanegelo ye e fapafapanego e a šomišwa ka go tšweletšo ya filimi ya go ekišwa ke diphoofolo. Mekgwa ye mebedi ye e thulanago e a hlaolwa bjalo ka yeo e swanetšego go šomišwa go kanegelo ya mantšu. Leano la mathomo la kanegelo leo le utollotšwego ke la kgolo ya diphoofolo, leo le laetšago ka fao dingwalwa tša filimi di tšwelelago le go gola ka tlhago ka tatelano ka sengwalwa seo se ngwadilwego ka moela wa kwešišo le poledišano ya go hloka mapheko. Leano la bobedi la klanegelo le mabapi le mokgwa wo o nepišitšwego gabotse wa go beakanya seswantšho sa go bonwa le tlhalošo ka go rulaganya go tšwa go polelo ya peleng ya seo se bonwago. Mabakeng ka bobedi, go amana fa go utollwa magareng ga tiro ye e kopantšwego le tiro ye e gopolwago, magareng ga tsebo ye e kwešišwago le yeo e lego nyanyeng ka tirong ya boitlhamelo. Mekgwa ye mebedi ye e a nyakišišwa ka go diriša mokgwa wa ka wa boitlhamelo, kudukudu go tšweletšwa ga difilimi tše pedi tša go ekišwa ke diphoofolo tšeo di bitšwago, Mon Pays le Parys suite. Ka mešomo ye, mekgwa ye e lekwa ka ga go šoma gabotse ga yona gabotse go hlagiša diteng tša go bonwa tšeo di sego gona ka gare ga Sengwalwa sa theto, le ge go le bjale e tsenya boleng go mohuta wa filimi ya theto/ya kekišo. Filimi ya theto ya go ekišwa ke diphoofolo e amantšhwa ka teori mabapi le kgokaganyo le sebopego sa yona sa mekgwa ye mentši ya polelo. Tlhamo ya filimi ya theto ya go ekišwa ke diphoofolo e utollwa ka dinyakišišo tšeo di nago le taodišo le difilimi tše pedi tša theto tša go ekišwa ke diphoofolo, ka kholofelo ya go tsenya letsogo go dinyakišišo mabapi le filimi ya theto ya go ekišwa ke diphoofolo kudukudu, le go teori ya kekišo ka gare ga seemo sa Afrika Borwa. / Art and Music / Ph. D. (Art)