Post-Modern period is our historical period. Post-Modern art is conceptual and abstract and it's very different from the traditional one, as high and low art come together in what Post-Modernism calls artistic production. Therefore, Post-Modernism privileges the position of the reader, because it's him who makes sense and gives a meaning to what he reads, he sees, he listens.
Furthermore, in the Post-Modern art the concept of author is no more useful and right, as this idea was rethought among others in the sixties, when also the concept of authority changed, becoming the recognition of someone's authoritative stance by a social group.
Questioning the idea of authority also implies putting into doubt the concept of truth, of a definitive thought being the right one. The dogma for Post-Modernism is that there is no true. All contemporary scientific studies are based on it.
The only truth is transformation: every experience undergo a new form. This implies that words always have different meanings, according to what and where and when the reader is.
Therefore, the signified is never constant , and the signifier is the superficial form that the mind uses to recognize something.

The extract is taken from a Post-Modernism novel ( Nice Work) by David Lodge. The writer taught at university for a long time and then became a freelance writer. The Book was published in 1982.
The novel develops around two main characters: Robyn, the woman, and Vic (short name of Victory), the man, who is a manager in a big company.
All the extract is about the characterisation of the female character. The narrator and the reader will travel back in time and space.
Furthermore, the writer puts Robyn in contrast with Vic, as the characterisation of the female character is built up in opposition to Vic Wilcox.
The first piece of characterisation is her way of thinking: she does not believe in the concept of character. Therefore, her name reminds an idealist character (Robin Hood), and it's a male name, whereas she's a woman. Also, she's a lecture temporary who teaches English at the Rummidge University.
As she does not believe in the concept of character, she beliefs that the idea of the character is an illusion and that it was produced by Capitalism, as Capitalism itself needs self-made men.