Robyn’s Philosophy

Analysis of the second paragraph of the extract taken from Nice Work by D. Lodge.

In the second part of the extract the narrator goes into Robyn’s characterization explaining what her idea of literature is.

The main notion about her literature theories in that there is no such thing as the “self”; as she doesn’t believe in the concept of character, Robyn doesn’t believe in the concept of self too, which characterized traditional novel and capitalistic system of thought. Robyn thinks that it doesn’t exist a unique soul or only one identity.

Throughout the explanation of Robyn’s idea the author lets the intelligent reader understand how the change in world view is happened from XIX century to XX century.

In nineteenth man believed that everyone had a personal and definite identity but in twentieth old beliefs fell down and had been replaced by the birth of the concept of plural identity.

But if it doesn’t exist a definite identity, it doesn’t exist a fiction character too; in consequence a text cannot be created ab nihilo. Indeed Robyn supports the idea that there are no origins but only production.