The aim of this thesis is to analyse David Lodge&rsquo / s campus novels Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975) and Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) to see how nihilism is dealt with in the modern academic world by the main characters in the novels. The characters will be examined in the light of Friedrich Nietzsche&rsquo / s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-85). As the prophet Zarathustra in Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the mouthpiece of Nietzsche himself, this thesis aims at studying Lodge&rsquo / s novels in the light of Nietzsche&rsquo / s ideas. In this respect, this thesis provides a closer look into Zarathustrian (Nietzschean) concepts of &ldquo / will to power&rdquo / , &ldquo / eternal recurrence&rdquo / and &ldquo / overman&rdquo / , and it reveals to what extent Lodge&rsquo / s main characters can achieve a full &ldquo / will to power&rdquo / , attain a joyful acceptance of &ldquo / eternal recurrence&rdquo / , and overcome themselves on the way to becoming &ldquo / overman&rdquo / . With the elaboration of these three concepts, this thesis aims to uncover the ways in which Lodge&rsquo / s main characters recover from the negative effects of futility and depression caused by nihilism in the modern world.

The dream about an earthly paradise, rediscovery of an original, absolutely harmonic paradisal life is, in Dostoevskij's opinion, one of the deepest and the most valuable dreams of the human heart. The spiritual course of any human being has its own history, it is born from thesis (babtism), goes through antithesis (crises) and finishes in synthesis (beauty). A man comes from the Eden Paradise and aims at heaven. So, a man in course of his spiritual life is in a real split into two paradises: the Eden Paradise from which he is coming from and the Kingdom of God where he is aiming at. The midpoint of the life course is accompanied by a crisis, that can also be described as separation from the the paradise. The characters of novels by Dostoevskij failed due to the fact, that they were not able to admit their presence between two "paradise states" and so their ideas about earthly paradise establishment were being corrupted. In our piece of work we are going to follow four trends: 1. Time corruption, incorrectly understood sense of history. The tendency to return back where a man came from, in an origenestic, cyclic interpretation of a comeback is apparent in a story The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. Another extreme shows marxism ideas going around Europe which deny both the importance and the sense of...