This thesis sets out to consider Joseph Conrad's and J. M. Coetzee's approaches to, and interrogations of, theories of ethics and identity. In pursuit of this task, the study presents an analysis of the authors' distinctive and complementary address to the ways in which certain influential concepts are 'applied' by, and within, their cultures. Especially relevant in this respect, as extensive preoccupations of both Conrad and Coetzee, are the authors' literary expressions of 'consciousness' and 'conscience'. In noting the special attention paid by these authors to the writing of consciousness, and to the consciousness of writing, the thesis illustrates particular thematic representations and engagements with the notion of the 'self and the 'human good'.