"Nice Work" is a novel written by D. Lodge, a today freelance writer. He was a professor of semiotic at University. He is also very famous because he produced some fiction in postmodernism style. The extract from "Nice Work" is taken from the second chapter of the novel. So this is the initial part of the plot.
The narrator has just finished to present the first protagonist: Vic Wilcox. The narrator is going to tell about a different character.
The first information of the new character is that she is female. Then that she doesn't believe in the concept of character.
Her name is Robyn. It evokes Robyn Hood. She will be a idealist character. Her surname is Penrose. It evokes the literature (pen) and the femininity (rose).
She is a lecturer, a professor at university, but she works temporary. So her condition is precarious. She teaches English literature at University of Rummidge. The narrator tells things about her rather than show her. So the characterisation is made by the technique of telling.
The reader is not free to make up a personal idea because of the filtration of the narrator.
Robyn characterisation is created in contrast with another character. She is presented from the point of view of the narrator. The narrator plans the way he wants the reader to make up an idea of Robyn in his/her mind, categories he or she may even not be aware of.
The categories are: the contrast; the name (how the name is composed); the idealism that emerge from the name; the choice of t e surname (it connects the character to the literary world); the occupation (lecturer); position (temporary means precarious) ideas; the narrator doesn't rely physical description. Robyn characterisation is a working on, it becomes the pretext for the narrator to expand postmodernism ideas. Robyn is the pretext to discuss the role of the novel, publishing the novel; last but not least category is the language used by the narrator to tell the reader about Robyn.
The narrator is a third person omniscient intrusive narrator. It is internal in the story.
The novel is composed like a matrioska, infact inside the novel there is the Robyn's lecture.