(Adapted from Perrine s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense) Section 3: Characterization Last time, we considered plot apart from characterization, as if the two were really separable, but in any good story the two work very much together. In commercial fiction, plot is usually more important than in- depth characterization, while literary writers are usually more concerned with complex characters than with the mechanics of plot. - Many literary fiction writers, in fact, consider characterization to be the most important element of their art. Why might analyzing characterization be more difficult than describing plot? - Human character is infinitely complex, variable, and ambiguous. - Anyone can summarize what a person in a story has done, but a writer needs considerable skill and insight into human beings to describe convincingly who a person is. - Even the most complicated plot device in a detective story puts far less strain on our understanding than does human nature. This is why commercial fiction may feature an elaborate plot but offer characters who are simple, two- dimensional, even stereotypical. Characters must be easily identifiable in such fiction and clearly labeled as good or bad; the commercial author s aim is to create characters who can carry the plot forward, not to explore human psychology and motivation. The main character in a commercial work must also be someone attractive or sympathetic. If the protagonist is male, he need not be perfect, but usually must be fundamentally decent honest, good- hearted, and preferably good- looking. He may also have larger- than- life qualities, showing himself to be daring, dashing, or gallant. He may defy laws made for ordinary people, but this makes him even more likable because he breaks the rules for a good reason: to catch a criminal, or to prevent a disaster (see any story/film, etc. that features an antihero) In commercial fiction, the reader enjoys identifying with such a protagonist, vicariously sharing his adventures, escapes, and triumphs
If the protagonist has vices, they must be the kind a typical reader would not mind or would enjoy having (e.g. sexual promiscuity, i.e. James Bond) thus allowing readers to indulge imaginatively in pleasures they might not allow themselves in real life. Literary fiction does not necessarily renounce the attractive character... - Jane Eyre - Huckleberry Finn - Holden Caulfield...are literary characters loved by millions of readers. Edie in How I Met My Husband is a likeable character as well. BUT literary protagonists are less easily labeled than their commercial fiction counterparts. Sometimes they may be wholly unsympathetic, even despicable. But because human nature is not often entirely bad or perfectly good, literary fiction deals usually with characters who are composted of both good and evil impulses - three- dimensional human beings who live in our memory as real people long after we have stopped reading. Why read fictional stories about such real characters? - It offers us an exciting opportunity to observe human nature in all its complexity and multiplicity. - It enables us to know people, to understand them, and to develop compassion for them in a way we might not do without reading serious fiction. - In some ways, we can know fictional characters even better than we know real people in our lives. How? 1. We observe fictional people in situations that are always significant and serve to illuminate their characters in a way that our daily, routine exposure to real people seldom does. 2. We can view a character s inner life in a way that is impossible in ordinary life.
- Authors can show us, if they wish, exactly what is happening in a character s mind and emotions. In real life we can only guess at another s thoughts and feelings from their external behavior (which may be designed to conceal the person s inner life/self). - Because of the opportunity literary fiction affords is of knowing its characters so thoroughly, it also enables us to understand the motives and behavior of people in real life. Direct vs. Indirect Presentation Direct Presentation (of character) - Method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story do so - Graham Greene uses direct presentation when he tells us about Blackie: Indirect Presentation (of character) He was just, he had no jealousy. - Method of characterization in which an author shows us a character in action, compelling us to infer what the character is like from what is said or done by the character - Greene uses indirect presentation when he shows Blackie allowing the gang to vote on Trevor s project, accepting the end of his leadership fairly calmly, taking orders from Trevor without resentment, burning banknotes with Trevor, and racing him home. Also, the word just has a slight ironic twist it applies only to behavior within the gang and Greene presents this indirectly. - Alice Munro relies on indirect presentation to show that Chris Watters is a charming but irresponsible barnstormer; Edie never criticizes him, but we feel her disillusionment as she waits day after day for a letter that will never come.
Generally, good writers use direct presentation sparingly, though it does have the advantages of being clear and economical. In order to involve the reader, however, the author must show the character in action ( show, don t tell ) If characters are merely described, then the story will read more like an essay. The direct method usually has little emotional impact unless it is bolstered by the indirect. Using only direct presentation will give us only the explanation of a character, not the impression of a living, breathing human being. Therefore, in almost all good fiction, the characters are dramatized. Dramatization - The presentation of character or of emotion through the speech or action of characters rather than through exposition, analysis, or description by the author If we are to really believe in the selfishness of a character, we must see the character acting selfishly. - Instead of telling us that Frank in Hunters in the Snow is a selfish, self- deluding man, Wolff gives us dramatic scenes in which Frank exhibits his selfishness and self- delusions through his dialogue and actions. Most literary writers rely on indirect presentation and may even use it exclusively. Good fiction follows three other principles of characterization as well: 1. Characters are consistent in their behavior: They do not behave one way on one occasion and a different way on another unless there is a clear and sufficient reason for the change. 2. The characters words and actions spring from motivations the reader can understand and believe: If we can t understand why they behave in a certain way immediately, that understanding comes by the end of the story. 3. The characters must be plausible or lifelike. They cannot be perfectly virtuous or monstrously evil; nor can they have some impossible combination of contradictory traits.
In short, the author must convince the reader that the character might well have existed so that, at least while we re reading, we have the illusion that the person is real and forget we are reading fiction at all. Flat vs. Round Characters Flat characters - Those characters who usually have only one or two predominant traits; they can be summed up in a sentence or two Round characters Ex. Ivan from The Most Dangerous Game - He is a fearsome thug, and that is all we need to know about him. - Those characters who are complex and many- sided; they have the three- dimensional quality of real people. - Huck- Finn, for example, because Mark Twain imagined and dramatized him so successfully as an individual, lives vigorously in the imaginations of millions of readers. - Catch- 22 s Capt. John Yossarian is an example of a round character we will be getting to know soon. *This is not to say, however, that flat characters cannot be memorable. Though essentially two- dimensional, they can be made memorable in the hands of an expert author who creates some vivid detail of their appearance, gestures, or speech. Ex. Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol Though he could easily be defined as a stereotype of the miserly misanthrope, his Bah! Humbug! has made him an immortal character. Whether round or flat, all characters in good fiction are dramatized to whatever extent needed to make them convincing and to fulfill their roles in the story. Most short stories will have room for only one or two round characters. Minor characters must necessarily remain flat. There are, however, some literary stories where the exploration of individual character is not the main focus of interest Shirley Jackson s The Lottery is an example and in such stories, none of the characters may be developed fully.
Basic Character Types A special kind of flat character is the stock character. - A stereotyped character: one whose nature is familiar to us from prototypes in previous literature. - These characters have recurred so often in fiction that we recognize them at once: the strong, silent sheriff, the brilliant detective with eccentric habits, the mad scientist, the international man of mystery, the comic Englishman with a monocle, the cruel stepmother, etc. - Commercial authors often rely on such stock characters precisely because they can be grasped quickly and easily by the reader. Such characters are like interchangeable parts that might be transferred from one story to another. - When literary writers employ a conventional type, however, they usually add individualizing touches to help create a fresh and memorable character Ex. - Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) follows a stock pattern of the detective, but he remains more memorable than many who have come before and since. Ex. - Wolff s character Tub in Hunters in the Snow embodies the stereotypes of the overweight, comic buffoon; but certain details about him his insecurity, his habit of hiding the food he eats so compulsively help to make him distinctive. Foil Character A minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimentary to the major character. Fictional characters may also be classified as either static or dynamic Static Character A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a work as at the beginning
Dynamic (or developing) Character A character who during the course of a work undergoes a permanent change in some distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits or outlook The change may be a small one; it may be positive or negative; but it is something significant and basic, not some minor change of habit or opinion The English writer James Joyce used a term that has become widely adopted today, noting that a character in a story often experiences an epiphany: - A moment of spiritual insight into life or into the character s own circumstances, the epiphany or insight usually defines the moment of the developing character s change. Edie in Munro s How I Met My Husband is a dynamic character, for she learns a painful lesson about romance and growing up that alters the entire course of her life. Many stories show a change in the protagonist as the result of some crucial situation in his or her life. This change is usually at the heart of the story, and defining and explaining the change will be the best way to arrive at its meaning. In commercial fiction changes in a character are likely to be relatively superficial., intended mainly to effect a happy ending. Readers of literary fiction, however, usually expect that a convincing change in a character meet three conditions: 1. It must be consistent with the individual s characterization as dramatized in the story. 2. It must be sufficiently motivated by the circumstances in which the character is placed. 3. The story must offer sufficient time for the change to take place and still be believable. Essential changes in human character, after all, do not usually occur suddenly. For this reason, good fiction will not give us a confirmed criminal who miraculously reforms at the end of a story, or a lifelong racist who wakes up one day and decides to be tolerant and open- minded. If fiction is to be convincing, it must show us believable, dynamic, but often quiet changes or turning points in a character s life. Ultimately, it is the quality of characterization by which a literary story stands or falls. Long after we have read even the greatest novels and short stories, we tend to remember not the incidents of plot, but the unforgettable characters who made our reading such a rich, vibrant experience. Through the creation of character, an author can summon up a new personality, a new voice, and an entirely new and original way of seeing the world. Such characters come alive each time a reader takes up the story, renewing the miracle of the human imagination.
Works Cited Arp, Thomas R., and Greg Johnson. Perrine s Literature: Structure, Sound & Sense. 11 th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. Print.