Small World--A Realistic Depiction Of The Academic World In Post-modern Society

Since its first publication in 1984, Small World and its author David Lodge have both received favorable comments and attention. Most western critics and novelists regard this novel as a comedy of present western academic world. Many western Sinologists call it western 'Fortress Besieged1 (Wang Fengzhen 1992:2).Chinese scholars and critics tend to classify Small World as a post-modernistic novel and have published several essays mainly focusing on its post-modernistic features. One reason that has made them regard Small World as a post-modernistic novel is grounded in so-called post-modernistic characteristics in the novel such as pastiche, carnivalesque tone, and uncertainty of the language, parody, travesty, an open ending and so on. It is pointed out in this thesis that many of these writing techniques have long been in existence and are not confined to the so-called 'post-modernistic novel'. These writing techniques used by Lodge are aimed at presenting to us a realistic picture of the academic world in post-modern society,This thesis concludes that Small World is a realistic text with the veil of post-modernistic characteristics and the novel also reveals a combination of different theories developed by Bakhtin, Brooke-Rose and Lodge. The various writing techniques used by the author such as 'laughter', 'parody and travesty', 'pastiche' and 'canivalesque tone' are much favored by Bakhtin. It is as a whole a polyphonic novel. It is a new realistic novel. In Brooke-Rose's opinion, realism can different types by various means and in this way Small World can be called a new type of realism. Lodge himself is very fond of realistic novels and in his writing practice, he provides us with realistic texts by various writing skills.The realistic meanings represented by Small World include that it authenticallyrepresents the modern western academic world, it reflects and refracts a wider social condition and also provides some criticism on newly emerging literary theories.The conclusion of this thesis is that Small World is a new realistic novel and its author Lodge is a realist.