This is an extract taken from Nice Work, a postmodern novel written by David Lodge. The text records a conversation between Vic Wilcox and Robyn Penrose (the novel's main characters) about the use of subliminal messages in everyday's life, expecially in advertisings, to induce people to buy something instead of other things, mainly reagrding sexual matters.

The aim of the text is to entertain the reader and at the same time to make explicit the different function of metaphor and metonymy in communication. To get to this point, the narrator adopts a dialogical structure in which the 2 protagonists argue about the meaning of the Silk Cut brand of cigarettes advertisement, with Robyn explaining all the hidden sexual messages in it and Vic stating that there's nothing under the mere image of silk, just representing the brand's name. The extract goes on explaining that there are two kinds of people in the world, the ones with a metaphorical view of life, who can see beyond the superficial meaning of things and the ones with a metonymical view, who can only see things as they are.

In the extract the writer adopts the dialogue form to make sure the reader is entertained and keeps the focus both on the message (the differences between metaphor and metonymy) and the characters' behaviors, in order to understand their positions towards the argument and, indirectly, towards the whole view of life they have. David Lodge also gives the reader the key to develop his own critical capacity to think about all the hidden messages inside everyday communication, highlighting the uncertainty of language, an extremely postmodern concept.