Women's fates in the novel nice work by David Lodge

Nice Work describes a love story (or at least a story of encounters) between Doctor Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher of women's writing, and Vic Wilcox, the managing director of an engineering firm. In her early thirties, Robyn comes from an academic background, her father being a historian. She is a temporary lecturer at the University of Rummidge. Robyn specializes in the 19th-century industrial novel and the role of women in literature. She is a follower of feminism and a passionate devotee of semiotic materialism. Robyn

Penrose is thoroughly liberated and independent. She wears loose dark clothes that do not make her body into an object of sexual attention. She posits that love does not exist; there are merely chemicals and nerve reactions. According to Robyn’s definition, love is “a rhetorical device”, “a bourgeois fallacy”. She insists that language and biology are the most and foremost important factors which determine the person’s life. Bodies, physical needs and appetites control our existence and therefore our lives. Everything can be explained through metaphors and metonymies. Robyn finds her sanctuary in the world of education, science, women's rights, and books. Robyn is almost completely wrapped up in her work. It seems that she has found her own path, the way which Robyn finds the most appropriate to her principles. Even her unsteady relations with Charles and her precarious position at university don’t undermine her confidence. However, the relationship that develops between Robyn and Vic reveals the weaknesses in each character.

Vic’s wife, Marjorie, represents Robyn’s exact antithesis. While Robyn’s house is cluttered with students’ papers and books, Vic and Marjorie’s house is cramming with useless house appliances, bought by Marjorie. One gets an impression that with the help of kettles, microwaves, toasters, coffee-makers, waffle-makers, food-processors, electric woks, chip-friers, and other sophisticated devices, drugged with Valium, Marjorie tries to build a shelter. It seems to me that she is afraid of the outer world. Her home is her castle. The castle filled with lumber. The house becomes some sort of a refuge for her. I feel that Marjorie tries to be a good housewife or at least does some attempts at it. She thinks that redecorating the lounge and new loose covers will make her family’s house cosier and the lives of her husband and children happier. While Robyn Penrose shows little interest in consumer goods, for Marjorie buying things becomes an obsession. Shopping becomes the only thing that gives her pleasure. So, it is obvious that Maqorie represents one of the victims of consumerism. For her, like for many other women, shopping becomes a safety valve for problems and dissatisfaction with their lives. .,

It seems to me that being a girl she dreamt about a loving husband, three nice children, a cosy house, and family happiness. But, now being a mature woman and an exhausted housewife, having problems with her children-teenagers and husband, Marjorie tries to hide her inner problems behind the material prosperity, expressed in having an en suite bathroom and four toilets.

As for Basil’s ex-girlfriend Debby, she is a foreign-exchange dealer, who comes from a family of bookies in Whitechapel. She lives in the world of business. The barrow-boy mentality, quick wits and an appetite for non-stop dealing are the qualities which help her to be a successful business lady. Debby seems to be interested only in the world’s currencies and financial issues. Property, prices, mortgage, swaps, capital markets, spot dealers, the Stock Exchange, money make up Debby’s world. It’s obvious that Debby is very hardworking. Basil calls her dealing room a madhouse, in which she manages to thrive on. A special gadget, which Debby always carries with herself, informs her of the state of the world’s principal currencies twenty-four hours a day. One gets an impression that business has absorbed Debby entirely. She is very tense. She thinks only of making money. One mistake would cost her everything she has.

To sum it up, I’d like to share my own thoughts on the fates of these three women. In spite of the fact that they belong to different social strata, different age groups, and have different views on life, Robyn, Marjorie, and Debby have one thing which unites them. I mean their shell.

Robyn has withdrawn into her educational shell. She has found her refuge in women’s studies, post-structuralism, and her books. Scientific work has become for her a sort of substitution for love and emotions. She feels very secure and confident within the university life. Although Robyn believes that she is close to common people, I cannot share this point of view. In my opinion, Robyn knows very little about them and their real lives. As for her private life, once Robyn mentioned that she doesn’t need a man to complete her. My personal point of view coincides with that of Vic: Robyn hasn’t met her man yet. If she finds him, I’m sure that she would be a devoted wife and caring mother.

Marjorie has retreated into the shell, lumbered with useless items, depressive thoughts, and feeble attempts to change the situation. However, I’m sure that Marjorie’s life will improve. Her problems are solvable. To illustrate this, I’d like to give the following quotation.

■ Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.”

I’d like to finish my essay with Robyn’s words: “Once you realize there is nothing outside the text, you can begin to write it yourself.” As far as I can observe it, this remark can be explained metaphorically. The metaphor is based on the similarity between text and fate. So, let’s begin to write our fates ourselves.