Realism In Postmodernism: A Brooke-rosean Study Of Realistic Dimensions In Small World

David Lodge (1935- ) is a famous contemporary British writer who has achieved significantly in both literary criticism and novel writing. His novels often focus on the environment he is familiar with, which takes intellectuals as characters and academic life as the background. Small World, as the masterpiece of Lodge's trilogy of campus novels, has received praises from literary critics and big welcome of common readers since its publication in 1984. It wins the honor of being nominated for Booker Prize.Small World has been labeled as a typical postmodernist work for it bears some postmodernist features such as meta-fiction, textual indeterminacy and"boundary-crossing". However, that can not be the reason of defining this novel as a postmodernist work. Contrarily, according to Brooke-Rose's theory of realism, Small World should be a realistic work with the postmodernist features. This thesis attempts to interpret Small World with the application of Brook-Rose's theory of realism to argue that it is a realistic work with seeming postmodernist features.This thesis contains three parts. The first part expounds the realistic dimensions in Small World through analyzing the postmodern device of meta-fictional principles of parody and"play"of realism. The second part tries to illustrate the realistic dimensions in Small World from the perspective of indeterminacy. The third part is devoted to explore the realistic dimensions in Small World in terms of"boundary-crossing". To sum up the foregoing interpretation, the author reaches the conclusion that Small World is basically a realistic work with postmodernist features.