Characterization

• modern writers have tended to see characterization as an element of fiction that is equal to plot or
even more important than it.
• In short stories, the scope is limited for the development of the character but a skillful writer
portrays the characters and make them remarkable

• The Greeks added complexity to characters in tragedy by making them subject ro hamartia, a
tragic
flaw or weakness that eventually brings about a characters downfall
• Medieval authors idealized the knights and ladies in chivalric romances and enjoyed the strictly
allegorical characters of morality plays like Everyman.
• By the early Renaissance certain scientific (or what we would now term pseudoscientific) approaches to
character began to gain prominence, especially the notion of the four “humours,” fluids found in varying
proportions in the body, that tended to define characters as predominantly “choleric,” “melancholic,”
“sanguine,” or “phlegmatic.”
• In the late nineteenth century, Naturalist writers, led by Emile Zola, applied the scientific approaches of
Charles Darwin and Cesare Lombroso to fictional characters, resulting in a deterministic view of human
destiny as largely shaped by forces of heredity and environment that are beyond the individual’s control.
• Freudian psychology later led to further probing into the unconscious motives of actions
• In more recent times, the sciences of genetics, sociology, and psychology have dominated literary
approaches to characterization.
• No matter what approach to characterization a writer employs, every story depends on the
actions undertaken by its main character, or protagonist.
• Additionally, stories may contain an opposing character, or antagonist, with whom the
protagonist is drawn
into conflict.
• It may be more often accurate to use a negative term, antihero, to designate one who
occupies center stage but otherwise seems incapable of fitting the traditional heroic mold.
•
In fact, modern writers often don't want to seem didactic by making their main characters
"moral beacons." Instead, they go the other way and make their main characters so
obviously flawed that we feel sorry for them or even disgusted by them instead of
admiring them.
• When writing short stories, characters are often called "flat" or "round," based on how much the
author does to describe them.
• Flat minor characters in stories are often stock characters, stereotypes who may be necessary to
advance the plot but otherwise are not deserving of more than the barest outlines of description.
• Round characters, on the other hand, are given more than one trait, some of which may even seem
contradictory. They are also explored in depth as the author delves into the character’s past and
even into his or her unconscious mind.
• Round characters are usually the protagonists of stories.
• Characters can be termed either static or dynamic depending on the degree to which they change
in the course of the story.
• The mother in Tillie Olsens “I Stand Here Ironing” is incapable of change. She is too
embittered and rooted in the pessimism of her own past.
• Her daughter, on the other hand, has developed from an ugly duckling to a comedian
and performer for whom there remains, in spite of the mother’s doubts, some chance
of a better future.
• Perhaps Olsen’s title phrase “I stand here” offers an insight in the mother’s static
character.
• Character development is usually apparent to the reader.
• But character motivation, which is the rationale the reader is given for a
character’s actions, may not be so obvious. In many cases an author will simply
describe what is going on in a character’s mind, but in others we are denied access
to this level of understanding.
• Motivation, of course, may be supplied directly by an author’s comments, but in
other stories writers may try to present a character’s thoughts directly by using
interior monologue, a method of narration that is somewhat like a soliloquy in
drama, or stream of consciousness, an attempt to duplicate raw sensory data in the
same disordered state that the mind receives it.
• Physical description of characters also helps us to understand the author’s intent. In real life we are told from an early age not to judge
people by external appearance, but in fiction the opposite is usually the case.
• Physical description is often a sign of what lurks beneath the surface.
• Protagonist The main or central character in a narrative. The protagonist usually initiates the main action of the story, often
in conflict with the antagonist.
• Antagonist The most significant character or force that opposes the protagonist in a narrative.
• Antihero A protagonist who is lacking in one or more of the conventional qualities attributed to a hero. Instead of being brave and strong,
for instance, the antihero may be weak and cowardly. The antihero is often considered an essentially modern form of characterization, a
satiric or realistic commentary on traditional portrayals of idealized heroes or heroines.
• Character An imagined person who inhabits a narrative.
• Characterization The techniques a writer uses to create, reveal, or develop the characters in a narrative.
• Character Description An aspect of characterization in which the author overtly relates either physical or mental traits of a character.
This description
is almost invariably a sign of what lurks beneath the surface of the character.
• Character Development The process in which a character is introduced, advanced, and possibly transformed in a story. This
development can prove to be either static (the character’s personality is unchanging throughout the narrative) or dynamic (the
character’s personality undergoes some meaningful change during the course of the narrative).
• Character Motivation The reasons a reader is given for a character’s actions. Motivation can be either explicit (in which reasons
are specifically stated in a story) or implicit (in which the reasons are only hinted at or partially revealed).
• Flat Character A term coined by English novelist E. M. Forster to describe a character with only one outstanding trait. Flat
characters are rarely the central characters in a narrative and are often based on stock characters. Flat characters stay the same
throughout a story.
• Round Character A term coined by English novelist E. M. Forster to describe a complex character who is presented in depth and
detail in a narrative. Round characters are those who change significantly during the
course of a narrative. Most often, round characters are the central characters in a narrative.
• Hero/Heroine The central character in a narrative. Hero is masculine and heroine feminine, although many call female protagonists
heroes. When a critic terms the protagonist a hero, the choice of words often implies a
positive moral assessment of the character.
• Static Character A fixed character who remains unchanged during rhe
course of a narrative.
• Stock Character A common or stereotypical character that occurs frequently in
literature. Examples of stock characters are the mad scientist, the battle-scarred
veteran, or the strong-but-silent cowboy.
• Stream of Consciousness Not a specific technique, but a type of modern narration
that uses various literary devices, especially interior monologue, in an attempt to
duplicate the subjective and associative nature of human consciousness. This
technique often focuses on imagistic perception in order to capture the preverbal level
of consciousness.
• Interior Monologue An extended presentation of a character’s thoughts in a
narrative. Usually written in the present tense and printed without quotation marks, an
interior monologue reads as if the character were speaking aloud to himself or herself
for the reader to overhear.
The Terms Related to Plot
• Plot The particular arrangement of actions, events, and situations that unfold in a narrative. A plot is not merely the general story of a
narrative but the author’s artistic pattern made from the parts of the narrative, including the exposition, complications, climax, and
denouement. How an author chooses to construct the plot determines the way the reader experiences rhe story. Manipulating a plot,
therefore, can be the author’s most important expressive device when writing a story.
• Episodic Plot (Also called episodic structure) A form of plotting where the individual scenes and
events are presented chronologically without any profound sense of cause-and-effect relationship. In
an episodic narrative the placement of most scenes could be changed without greatly altering the
overall effect of the work.
• Exposition The opening portion of a story during which the scene is set, the protagonist is introduced, and the author discloses any
other background
information necessary to allow the reader to understand and relate to the events that are to follow.
• In Medias Res A Latin phrase meaning “in the midst of things” that refers to the narrative device of
beginning a story midway in the events it depicts (usually at an exciting or significant moment)
before explaining the context or preceding actions. Epic poems such as Virgil’s Aeneid or John Milton’s
Paradise Lost commonly begin in media res, but the technique is also found in modern fiction.
• Rising Action The part of a narrative preceding the climax. In the rising action the protagonist usually faces
the complications of the plot to reach his or her goal.
• Peripeteia (Also called peripety or reversal) A sudden change of circumstance affecting the protagonist of a
narrative. This change may effect him or her contrary to the way it had been intended. In tragedy, a peripeteia
usually signals the downfall of the protagonist. In comedy, it often restores a character to good fortune.
• Epiphany A moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life is
greatly altered. An epiphany generally occurs near the end of a story. The term, which
means “showing forth” in Greek, was first used in Christian theology to signify the
manifestation of God’s presence in the world. This theological idea was adapted by
James Joyce to refer to a heightened moment of secular revelation.
• Foreshadowing An indication of events to come in a narrative. The author may introduce
specific words, images, or actions in order to suggest significant later events. The effective use of
foreshadowing by an author may prevent a story’s outcome from seeming haphazard or
contrived.
• Flashback A scene relived in a character’s memory. Flashbacks can be related by the narrator in
a summary, or they can be experienced by the characters themselves. Flashbacks allow the
author to include events that
occurred before the opening of the story, which may show the reader something significant that
happened in the character’s past or give an indication of what kind of person the character used
to be.
• Falling Action The events in a narrative that follow the climax and bring the story to its
conclusion, or denouement.
• Resolution The final part of a narrative, the concluding action or actions that follow the climax.
• Denouement The resolution or conclusion of a story. In French, denouement means “unknotting.”

• Open Denouement One of the two conventional types of denouement or resolution. In open denouement,
the author ends a narrative with a few loose ends, or unresolved matters, on which the reader is left to
speculate.
• Closed Denouement One of the two types of conventional denouement or resolution in a narrative. In closed
denouement, the author ties everything up at the end of the story so that little is left unresolved.

• O. Henry Ending (Also called Trick Ending) A surprising climax that depends on a quick reversal of the
situation from an unexpected source. The success of the O. Henry ending is relative to the degree to which the
reader is surprised but not left incredulous when it occurs. The American writer O. Henry popularized this type
of ending.