The extract from David Lodge’s “Nice Work” seems to provide a definition of postmodernism and a criticism to all the ideals that capitalism has brought in our society.

Robyn is the main character of the extract, which is doing a lesson at the University. The discourse is based on the definition of the “self” which, according to Robyn, does not exist. Indeed, the self, which means considering every individual as someone who was made by himself, is not real because we are nothing but the result of the most relevant aspects of the society we live in, like family, religion, poetry. According to this, we do not have an identity that we decide to build because it only depends on the place we were born and the society. Robyn also says that her argument is true also for texts: the “author” doesn’t exist… no one can create a text from nothing because every text is a product of other text, exactly like every human being is the product of other human beings.