" (12). Persse's argument mirrors the intentions of Eliot's poem. The audience comes to understand that , for Persse anyhow, his Grail is the "love of a good woman," thus making light of the Arthurian Grail to begin with. Immediately, the name "Persse" becomes an allusion to the nanve hero "Percival" of Arthurian legend. As Mews points out, "àat a conference at the University of Rummidgeùfamiliar from Changing Placesùhe has fallen in love, head over heels, with the beautiful and intelligent but elusive Angelica," (720). It is this love with the elusive Grail that will carry the plot through the rest of the novel, as he chases her across the country in search of his holy love. This leaves room for Lodge to insert more comedy, obviously.
My hero's story is very straightforward: he's questing for a girl, and this leads to wordplay on girl and Grail. It's easy enough to generate narrative interest when a man is pursuing a girl who keeps escaping him. The problem was what I should do with the other characters. What would they pursue? So I thought up this idea of a UNESCO Chair, which would be the academic job to end all jobs, and everybody would be trying to get it. That is the Grail the older characters are pursuing (Interview).
So on one hand, Lode is mocking the world of academia, and on the other, he is mocking the naivete of young love. This is a perfect working example of satire; Lodge uses his caustic wit to attack those conventions in society that he finds particularly sillyùin his novel.
Satire is a form of comedyùthat which is meant to make one laugh. Satire employs wit, which is a
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