This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between satire, parody and genre. The project is based on the principle that satire is a mode of rhetorical discourse that uses parody to distinguish itself from other modes, as well as perpetrate a specific socio-political message. Whereas, genre is a type of literature that is defined by distinct codes. A novel was written to test these principles and to discover if a genre can be changed by the inclusion of satire. Two genres were included in this novel, one that traditionally contains a satiric purpose (campus fiction) and one that does not (crime fiction). The satirical message used in the novel focuses on the barriers that marginalised groups face when participating in higher education, which is included in the campus fiction stream of the novel. The crime fiction stream features a man-eating monster. The novel is entitled The Life and Times of a Doctoral Thesis.
