Nice work is a post-modern novel written by David Lodge and published in 1988. It belongs to the Campus Novels, novels set in an univeristary environment. The extract we analyzed in class is mainly focused in Robyn's characterisation. She's a temporary lecturer at a fictional University. She has a peculiar philosophy: "Semiotic Materialism". She applies linguisitcs an semiotic theory to materialism.

It is important to focus on her ambiguous name: Robyn is a male name, that recalls Robin Hood; whereas Penrose suggest her profession (pen) and femininity (rose).

Her main idea is that both the novel and capitalism are a result of the same Puritan ethic. In the same way as do industries which produce their goods from raw materials, novels are a product of authors' imagination. The thought makes her consider the novel the first mass artifact. 

In addition Robin states that the novelists of the nineteenth century represented an authority that used to mirror their ideas through a3rd person omniscient narrator that got the reader into the story, knowing exactly how it should develop and that is according to readers'expectations. Such consideration leads to the deconstruction of the concept of character, seen as a bourgeois myth, an illusion created to renforce the ideology of capitalism.

According to Robyn every text is a product of intertextuality, made with allusions and citations of other texts. No one can create anything new but can onlt trans-form or be inspired by already published works. Her way of thinking pushes Robyn to apply her philosophy of semiotic materialism in an individual way. She asserts that each individual is a multi-identity person without being aware of the messages he sends and how theycan be personally interpretated by others.