CHAPTER THREE

Characterization
What does characterization mean in literature?
 Characterization in literature is the way an author introduces,
develops, and describes a character. It is the process of revealing
details about character's personality, life, and goals. It can be
direct, when an author tells and describes details directly to the
reader, or indirect, where the author shows traits through the
actions, thoughts, and speech of the character.
Why characterization is an important part of literature?
 Characterization is an important part of literature because
authors rely on it to create functional and significant characters.
On the other hand, good characterization translates into
interesting and excellent stories.
 The preceding chapter considered plot apart from
characterization, as if the two were separable. But in any good
story, plot and characterization 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 analyzing characterization is 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 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 and two-dimensional, even stereotypical.

Two-dimensional character: simple, flat, relatively lifeless, and fictional character

Stereotypical character: clichéd or predictable characters
 In such fiction ( commercial one), characters must be easily
identifiable 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.
 Protagonist

The protagonist of a story is its central character, who has the sympathy and
support of the audience, and also drives the plot forward. A protagonist is a very
important tool to develop a story. There are different terms for a protagonist,
such as hero, focal character, central character, and main character. Regardless
of what title you give a protagonist, he or she remains the key ingredient in the
development of the story, which is why the story revolves around him or her.

Examples:

Hamlet
Harry potter
Sherlock Holmes
 Antagonist
In literature, an antagonist is a character, or a group of characters, which stands in
opposition to the Protagonist, which is the main character.

It is common to refer to an antagonist as a villain (the bad guy), against whom a Hero (the
good guy) fights in order to save himself or others.

Examples:

Lago (The bad guy in William Shakespeare’s play, Othello.)

Lord Voldemort ( in Harry potter)
Mr. Hyde ( in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde book written by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The main character in commercial fiction

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 he 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.
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.

For instance, the main character in successful commercial fiction

may be sexually promiscuous—James Bond is a good example—and
thus allow 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

beloved by millions of readers
 Both the narrator in “A Family Supper” and
Edie in “How I Met My Husband” are likable characters as well.

But literary protagonists are less easily labeled and pigeonholed than their counterparts
in commercial fiction. 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 composed of both good and evil impulses, three-
dimensional human beings who live in our memory as “real” people long after we have
stopped reading.
• Such fiction offers an exciting opportunity to observe human
nature

• know people, understand them, and to develop compassion for

them

• we can know fictional characters even better than we know real

people in our lives
• view a character’s inner life in a way that’s
impossible in ordinary life.

• In real life, of course, we can only guess at

another person’s thoughts and feelings from
external behavior
 • Direct:
tell us straight out, by exposition or
analysis

or they have another character in the story

describe them.
Presentation of characters

• indirect :
shows us the characters through their
actions
we determine what they are like by what
they say or do
Graham Greene
uses direct presentation when he tells us about Blackie:
“He was just, he had no jealousy.”
He 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.
Alice Munro
Used indirect presentation to show that Chris Watters
is a charming but irresponsible barnstormer
Edie never directly criticizes him, but we feel her
disillusionment as she waits day after day for a letter
that will never come.
direct presentation clear and economical ( but good writers use
it sparingly)

to involve the reader in a character

the author must show the character in Action

• “show, don’t tell” one of the basics of fiction writing.

• 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.
 • In almost all good fiction, therefore, the characters are
dramatized.
• They are shown speaking and behaving, as in a stage play

Instead of telling us that Frank in “Hunters in

the Snow” is a selfish man, Wolff gives us
dramatic scenes in which Frank exhibits his
selfishness
and self-delusions through his dialogue and
actions
 three other principles of characterization
• First ,the characters are consistent in their behavior

• Second, the characters’ words and actions spring from

motivations the reader can understand and believe.

• Finally, the characters must be plausible or lifelike.

so that we can have the illusion that the person is real and
forget we are reading fiction at all
Flat character
- A flat character is one who has only one or two character
traits
-These characters have no depth and can be summed up in a
few words.
- We know very little about them
Ex . – Ivan from The Most Dangerous Game
He is a fearsome thug , and that is all we need to know about
him.

Round characters
-A round character is one who has many character traits.
-They are fully developed.
-They are complex.
-Can feel like real people which can help the audience
connect with them . The better the roundness the More the
audience is likely to care about the characters fears , failures ,
goals and triumphs .
-They have the three –dimensional quality of real people .
Cinderella is a round character ,because the movie gives great detail
about her and what she wants in life. It reveals the three
dimensional quality of real people .

Jane Eyre, as the protagonist, is a major or round,

character. These characters are ones that are central to
a story and are fully developed.
Shrek from the Shrek series is also another classic round character. He goes
from a grumpy, mean old ogre to a kind soul transformed by his love for the
princess.

Merida has an appearance unique to any other Princess. she has long, curly,
red hair. Merida is a straight girl who likes to run, shoot and fight.
She was very hard-headed at the beginning of the story but as the story
goes, Merida changes and she proves herself to her family that she learns
her lesson.

Pinocchio changes from a misbehaved boy into a well-behaved boy,

triggered by certain condition, indicated that Pinocchio was actually a
round character with all kinds of development and improvement.
 Daddy Long Legs is more flat because we don't have much
information about him. The only thing we know about him
is that he is tall. Judy Abbot would be more a round
character.

The Fairy is a Flat characters in the story . You only know one
or two facts about her .
 Huckleberry Finn
He is a 14- year- old boy whose father is an abusive drunkard . He
lives most of his life without a mother and homeless . He is used
to wearing ragged cast –off clothes never goes to school and
doing pretty much what he wants . He is very good at outdoor
things like hunting , fishing and trapping . He is adopted by a rich
widow and she was trying to civilize him . widow also owned a
number of slaves . After a while His father kidnaps Huck and takes
him to live within a cabin in the woods by the river .Huck was
happier in some way being out of school, but his father drunk a
lot and beats Huck , and even tries to kill him when he gets so
drunk . One night when his father died , he escapes . After a few
days he meets someone else in the island . A slave owned by Miss
Watson. Huck promises not to tell anyone that Jim ran away . Huck
also knows that other white people would despise him for helping
him run away, but he doesn't care because he spend his whole life
not following the rule. They strike up a friendship very quickly.
Huck and Jim have a number of adventures on the raft travelling at
night …..
Huck Finn is a round character .Mark Twain imagined
him so successfully as an individual , lives in the
imaginations of millions of readers
Catch -22s Capt. John Yossarian is an example of a round character . John Yossarian is the
protagonist of catch -22. His characteristics are not those of typical hero he doesn't risk his life to
save others . In fact his primary goal throughout the novel is to avoid risking his life, but the
system of values around Yossarian is so illogical that this approach seems to be the only truly
moral stance he can take .We come to hate about military as we read catch -22 because of its
lack of logic. Men are asked to risk their lives again and again for reasons that are illogical and
unimportant in this illogical world Yossarian thinks that he should try to preserve life unlike a
conventional hero.
This is not to say that the flat characters can not be memorable.
They can be memorable in the hand of expert author who creates some vivid details of their
appearance, gesture, 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 .
Ebenezer is the protagonist of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of
the novella, Scrooge is a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. The tale of his redemption by
three spirits (the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of
Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday in the English-speaking
world.
Dickens describes Scrooge thus early in the story: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped
his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, made his eyes red, and spoke out in his grating voice." Towards
the end of the novella, the three spirits show Scrooge the errors of his ways, and he becomes a
better, more generous man.
His catchphrase, "Bah! Humbug!" is often used to express
disgust with many modern Christmas traditions.
It conveys displeasure .
Flat characters
Why have them in a story?
- They help develop other elements of the story.
- It takes a lot of space to develop a complex character.
- You need other people in the world to make it feel authentic.
- Sometimes they gets up to next event.
 Whether round or flat , all characters in a good fiction are dramatized to
whatever extent needed to make them convincing and to fulfil their roles in
the story.
A special kind of flat character is 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 cruel stepmother,
the strong silent sheriff, the brilliant detective ….
Commercial author often rely on such stock characters precisely because they can be grasped quickly and
easily by readers.
Such characters are like interchangeable parts that can 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.

Sherlock Holmes follows a stock pattern of the detective , but he remains more
memorable than many have come before and since.
Sherlock Holmes is more than just his deductive powers. The detective is
knowledgeable in many subjects, including chemistry, mathematics, law, and
literature, just to name a few. He also has a deep appreciation for music and plays
the violin.

Wolff’s character Tub in ‘’Hunters in Snow’’ embodies the stereotype of the

overweight ; but certain details about him –his insecurity, his habit of hiding the
food he eats so compulsively – help to make him distinctive.
We often call good characters “three-dimensional.”
Three-dimensional characters are complex and unique. This makes them seem
like real people.
And the more real the character seems, the more the audience will identify
with them and care about what happens to them.
We need realistic characters to ground us in these strange environments.
Underdeveloped characters are called “flat” or “cardboard” for a reason. They
don’t engage our emotions. We don’t care about what happens to them, so we
don't care about the story.
You can get a good start building a multidimensional character by simply listing traits under
those three categories. Here are two additional exercises that will help make your
characters into more fully realized, complex human beings.
Static : The static character remains essentially
the same person from the beginning of the
story to the end.

Dynamic : The developing (or dynamic) character,

on the other hand, undergoes some distinct change
of character, personality, or outlook.
This change may be a large or a small one; it may be
positive or negative; but it is something significant
and basic.
❑ The Irish writer James Joyce used a term that has become widely
adopted today, noting that a character in a story often experiences an
epiphany, which he termed a moment of spiritual insight into life or
into the character’s own circumstances.

❑ This 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.

▪ In commercial fiction, changes in 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.
Marjaneh Morakkaby
Nasim Talebi
Zahra Jeddi Hosseini
Negin Bakhshi