The extract is taken from D. Lodge's Nice Work, a Postmodern parody of the Victorian novel, obtained by the use of a third-person omniscient intrusive narrator: his intrusion is very frequent (we travel back, I shall, I will tell you...).

The main character is Robyn Penrose; she is introduced by the narrator's judgement very awkwardly for me, that creates expectations in the reader: the woman seems to be unconventional, especially when the reader knows she does not believe in the idea of character. Just form the beginning the reader is guided and affected by the narrator. The intrusion of the narrator gives the illusion Robyn is speaking.

Robyn's characterization refers to her gender, her conception of the novel, her favourite phrase, her job, her convictions about the Victorian Age (fiction and capitalism) and about the concept of identity. Pieces of information about her job (in particular temporary) let her reader discovers she is young and lives a temporary condition.

The thesis held by Robyn are the following.

She doesn't believe in the concept of character, a single "finite, unique soul or essence that constitutes a person's identity", she believes character is only a myth produced by the middle class and especially by the capitalists and the novelists (for her the novelist is like a capitalist of imagination because he "invents a product which consumers didn't know they wanted until it is made available") because they believe a person is "responsible for and control of his/her own destiny"  while she is sure that "the truly determined subject is he who is not aware of the discursive formations that determine him". Capitalists and novelists are similar in two aspects: first of all they are suitable to show the Protestant ethic (based on the idea of progress), secondly both capitalism and novel believe in character, in the single defined individual.

In addition, another aspect that connects fiction to capitalism is the way of novelists' production: they adequate themselves to economic needs and the novel is subdued to market roles. However the main concept concerns the idea of the self that Robyn doesn't share: she refuses the idea of a compact, definite identity and she believes identity is multiple, it includes a succession of conscious or unconscious states.

Further more she holds that a text is never original: according to Derrida and to literary Structuralism, a text has not to be considered an isolated creation, but inside a system in which it is linked to other texts with quotes and allusions.

Robyn's reflection considers also language: the way in which someone speaks reveals his/her identity both conscious and unconscious.