Ethical Ambiguities in Kgebetli Moele’s Room 207 and Niq Mhlongo’s Dog Eat Dog

Abstract

This article investigates how the use of unreliable narration in Kgebetli Moele’s Room 207 and Niq Mhlongo’s Dog Eat Dog reveals ethical ambiguities as represented in post-apartheid fiction. These ambiguities have been amplified by the writers who have broadly adopted the use of first-person narrators/protagonists to negotiate the apprehensions that have ensued in the process of building a new society. By adopting a close, textual and complementary reading of the two novels, this article identifies instances of unreliability in characters, in particular, of bad faith or bad will, which condition such characters to deception and wilful avoidance of responsibility. Drawing from theoretical insights on the orientation of narrators/protagonists as unreliable narrators, and on race and cultural theory to define the post/apartheid condition of social unsettlement, this article pursues instances of inconsistency and contradiction of the self to define ethical uncertainties in the texts. In effect, the article shows that bad faith and fallibility, manifested in the tendency to lie and take advantage of morally ambiguous situations, are deployed by the narrators/protagonists in the novels to wilfully project their own self-interest, thus rendering the pursuit of empathy, consideration and responsibility uncertain. The article justifies the place of unreliable narration in magnifying ethical issues in literature.