David Lodge, Nice Work, extract from chapter II – Analysis’s scheme

Narrative technique: third person omniscient intrusive narrator (“let us leave” – “for me”)

General elements

-       Creates a setting

-       The character is generated by contrast

Objective introduction of the character

-       The character’s way of thinking convictions

-       The character’s idiolect

-       The character’s proper name (a male name; a reminder of he who fought for the poor protection)

-       The character’s surname (it evokes the writing activity; literature)

-       The character’s profession (“temporary”; unstable, unidentified; instability, relativity)

Character’s personality introduction

-       The character’s idea about the structural elements of the novel

-       The character’s interest in ideology (philosophy, politics)

-       The character’s historical knowledge

-       The character is skilled in literature and micro-language

-       The character is an expression of postmodernism

-       The character is skilled at recognizing/understanding cause-effect relations

-       The character is skilled at argumentations

Character’s ideas introduction

-       The character has strong ideas about novel writing (a product of imagination)

-       The character believes there is a strong connection/relationship between novel writing and economic production

-       The character thinks novel writing is a form of mass production