Rotich, Robert2026-02-182026-02-182025http://41.89.96.81:4000/handle/123456789/3537The dismantling of apartheid in South Africa inspired hope that it was possible to build a new society committed to negotiating an inclusive future for all. However, as the actual work of rebuilding the nation began, it emerged that the attempt to morally transform the different segments of the society affected by apartheid presented an overwhelming problem. Post- apartheid South African fiction revealed the ambiguities that existed between remembering apartheid in the present as tainted by memories of the past on the one hand, and the aspiration for a new ethic on the other hand. These ambiguities have been amplified by post-apartheid writers who have broadly adopted the first-person point of view in their work. Using selected texts of such writers, this study determined the ways in which the construction of the first- person point of view magnifies ethical ambiguities; established the ethical ambiguities of the self as framed through the first-person narrative voice; and examined the ethical ambiguities emanating from the relationship between the self and the collective. The study operated on the assumptions that post-apartheid South African literature envisages ethical ambiguities voiced through multiple first-person narrative voices; that the multiple and often contradictory first-person narrative voices reveal ethical ambiguities of individuals burdened by divergent memories; and that post-apartheid South African literature narrated in the first- person point of view represent fractured voices of selves unable to reconcile their aspirations with communal expectations. The study applied narrative theory to analyse the interlinks between the narrative as a mode of discourse, and ethics as a product of narrative representation. Adopting the constnictivist paradigm, the study used strategies of textual analysis to map point of view and guide in the analysis of the extent to which narrative strategies magnify ethical uncertainties. The findings of this study led to the conclusion that post-apartheid South African literature has adopted the first-person point of view as a formal strategy that insightfully project the ethical aspect of human life. This study has drawn attention to the difficulties of effecting closure in situations such as that of South Africa where memory functions to define shifting identities of self. The study contributes to conversations on the construction of nationhood and to nation building in South Africa. It recommends studies along the lines of the need for a re/examination of social/gender subversion as a strategy towards addressing enduring ethical challenges in the country. It also calls for reformulation of a space for redemptive racial dialogue in the pursuit of a moral South African future.enEthical ambiguitiesPost-apartheidThesis