Contemporary classifications of fictional characters
workStylistics
“Contemporary
classifications of fictional characters”
Plan
IntroductionI
.Character as the fundamental element of the fiction
The
notion of “character”of the concept and its study
People
or words and actionto Charactersand MeaningTraitsand CharacterII .Different
approaches to classify the characters
Characterization
and Genreand developing charactersthe flat and round characters
Stock
characterscharacterscharacters and AntagonistHero
Types
of hero -bad and good points
Character,
action and plotclassifications of characters
Terry
W. Ervin and his classification
character protagonist hero
Introduction
is wonderful about the great
literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of
the man who wrote.
(E. M. Forster,Two Cheers for Democracy,1951)
The study of different aspect of
fiction is very actual nowadays. Different approaches to the investigation of
elements of literature show us the resplendence
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the view that “stories and the people in them are made of words”
(Leitch,1986).On the other hand, a prominent tendency in pre-20th century
research on character attempts to look for prior reasons for a character’s
behaviour, even if these reasons are not found in the story itself.of character
may also change through history. Notions of characterization may not even exist
in certain periods in the development of literary criticism. The conception of character
as we know it today, for example, did not exist in Aristotle. However, whether
character or characterisation exist at all in Aristotle is a moot point, with
some scholars arguing that the conception of character exist in his Poetics,
but it is not as important as plot
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In more recent years, the ‘death of character’ has been proclaimed by, for
example, in his
Structuralist Poetics (1975: 230): to Culler, the notion of character is a
myth.in spite of the problems or negative tendencies noted above, the concept
of character cannot be neglected in narrative analysis.continues to be
important in certain genres of narrative, especially with regard to certain
types of fiction, such as realistic fiction, and in relation to the evaluation
of narrative . With reference to the second point above, W.J. Harvey (1986),
for example, has noted that ‘most great novels exist to reveal and explore
character’ (1965).
of the
concept and its study
recently,
there was nothing like a coherent field of research for the concept of
character, but only a loose set of notions related to it touching on such
issues as the ontological status of characters, the kind of knowledge necessary
to understand characters, the relation between character and action, the naming
of characters, characterization as process and result, the relation of the
reader to a character centering around the notions of identification and
empathy, etc. The situation has changed over the past ten or fifteen years
thanks to a series of monographs on character by Culpeper (2001), Eder (2008),
Jannidis (2004), Koch (1992), Palmer (2004), and Schneider (2001), all of which
are indebted to the ground-breaking work done by Margolin in the 1980s and
1990s. Most of these studies draw on the cognitive sciences and their models of
text processing and perception of persons (Cognitive Narratology). However,
even though there is now a consensus on some aspects of character in narrative,
many other aspects continue to be treated disparately.or words have long been
regarded as fictive people. To understand characters, readers tend to resort to
their knowledge about real people. In this framework, an anthropological,
biological or psychological theory of persons can also be used in character
analysis, as in Freud’s analysis of Hamlet where he claims “I have here
translated into consciousness what had to remain unconscious in the mind of the
hero” (Freud, 1950).school of thought pictured character as mere words or a
paradigm of traits described by words. A well-known example of this approach is
Barthes’s (1970) in which one of the codes, “voices,” substitutes for person,
understood as the web of semes attached to a proper name. In this view, a
character is not to be taken for anything like a person, yet on closer
examination these semes correspond to traditional character traits. Although he
differs from Barthes in many regards, Lotman (1970), in a similar vein,
describes character as a sum of all binary oppositions to the other characters
in a text which, together, constitute a paradigm. A character thus forms part
of a constellation of characters who either share a set of common traits (parallels)
or represent opposing traits (contrasts).was not the first attack against a
mimetic understanding of character during the last century, a comparable
approach to character having already been advocated by the New Criticism.
Wellek & Warren (1949) claimed that a character consists only of the words
by which it is described or into whose mouth they are put by the author.
Knights (1933) had earlier ridiculed the tendency in British criticism to treat
character presentations like the representations of people with the question
“How many Children had Lady Macbeth?” Despite this criticism, the reduction of
characters to words was not convincing, for it posed many practical problems in
literary criticism and also seemed to some critics unsatisfactory for theoretical
reasons. Hochman (1985), for example, defended the idea of character as
human-like against structuralist and post-structuralist conceptions with moral
and aesthetic arguments.this situation, the series of essays by Margolin, by
combining elements of structuralism, reception theory and the theory of
fictional worlds, proved to be a breakthrough. For Margolin (1983), characters
are first and foremost elements of the constructed narrative world:
“character,” he claims, “is a general semiotic element, independent of any
particular verbal expression and ontologically different from it” (7). He
further points out that characters can have various modes of existence in
storyworlds: they can be factual, counterfactual, hypothetical, conditional, or
purely subjective (1995). Also taken up are questions such as how characters
come into existence and what constitutes their identity (Identity and
Narration), especially in storyworlds as a transtextual concept., especially
those with roots in analytical philosophy, have discussed the special
ontological status of character under the label of incompleteness of
characters. Unlike persons who exist in the real world and are complete, we can
speak meaningfully only about those aspects of characters which have been described
in the text or which are implied by it. Consequently, descriptions of
characters have gaps, and often the missing information cannot be inferred from
the given information. In contrast to the description of real persons in which
a gap may appear even though it is assumed that the person is complete,
characters have gaps if the description does not supply the necessary
information (Eaton 1976; Crittenden 1982; Lamarque 2003).though there is
currently a broad consensus that character can best be described as an entity
forming part of the storyworld, the ontological status of this world and its
entities remains unclear. Narratological theory presently offers three
approaches to addressing this problem: drawing on the theory of possible
worlds, the storyworld is seen as an independent realm created by the text
(Margolin,1990); from the perspective of cognitive theories of the reading
process, character is seen as a mental model created by an empirical reader
(Schneider, 2001); from the perspective of the neo-hermeneutical theory of
literary communication, the text is an intentional object and character is a
mental model created by an hypothetical historical model reader. This approach
incorporates a number of insights into text processing, but focuses on the text
(Jannidis, 2004). The main differences between these approaches lie in how the
presentation of character is described and in the use of principles borrowed
from the cognitive sciences.and actionof the oldest theoretical statements on
character reflects on the relation of character and action: “for tragedy is not
a representation of men but of a piece of action[…]. Moreover, you could not
have a tragedy without action, but you can have one without character-study”
(Aristotle, 1932). What Aristotle said in relation to tragedy became the origin
of a school of thought which claims that in order to understand a character in
a fictional text, one need only to analyze its role in the action. This
approach was put on a new foundation by Propp (1928) in a ground-breaking
corpus study of the Russian folktale. In analyzing a hundred Russian fairy
tales, he constructed a sequence of 31 functions which he attributed to seven
areas of action or types of character: opponent; donor; helper; princess and
her father; dispatcher; hero; false hero. Greimas (1966) generalized this
approach with his actant model in which all narrative characters are regarded
as expressions of an underlying narrative grammar composed of six actants
ordered into pairs: the hero (also sujet) and his search for an object; the
sender and the receiver; the hero’s helper and the opponent. Each actant is not
necessarily realized in one single character, since one character may perform
more than one role, and one role may be distributed among several characters.
Schank’s concept of story skeletons also starts from the idea that stories have
an underlying structure, but in his model there are many such structures and
therefore many different roles for actors, e.g. the story of a divorce using
the story skeleton “betrayal” with the two actors: the betrayer and the
betrayed (Schank, 1995).(1949) described in an influential work what he called,
using a term coined by James Joyce, the “monomyth,” which is an abstraction of
numerous mythological and religious stories marking the stages of the hero’s
way: separation/departure; the trials and victories of initiation; return and
reintegration into society (Campbell, 1949). According to Campbell, who bases
his argument on Freud’s and especially on Jung’s form of psychoanalysis, the
monomyth is universal and can be found in stories, myths, and legends all over
the world. In contrast to these generalized model-oriented approaches,
traditional approaches tend to employ a genre- and period-specific vocabulary
for action roles such as confidant and intriguer in traditional drama, or
villain, sidekick, and henchman in the popular media of the 20th century.of the
common labels for character in use refer to the role a character has in action.
“Protagonist,” in use since Greek antiquity, refers to the main character of a
narrative or a play, and “antagonist” to its main opponent. In contrast to
these neutral labels, the term “hero” refers to a positive figure,
usually in some kind of representative story. In modern high-culture
narratives, there is more often an anti-hero or no single protagonist at all,
but a constellation of characters (Tröhler, 2007).to
Charactersto characters in texts occurs with the use of proper names, definite
descriptions and personal pronouns (Margolin, 1995). In addition to these
direct references, indirect evocations can be found: the untagged rendering of
direct speech, the description of actions (e.g. “a hand grabbed”) or use of the
passive voice (“the window was opened”). The role of names in interpreting
characters has been treated repeatedly, resulting in different ways of
classifying name usage (e.g. Lamping, 1983; Birus,1987).can be viewed as a
succession of scenes or situative frames, only one of which is active at any
given moment. An active situative frame may contain numerous characters, but
only some of them will be focused on by being explicitly referred to in the
corresponding stretch of text. The first active frame in which a character
occurs and is explicitly referred to constitutes its “introduction.” After
being introduced, a character may drop out of sight, not be referred to for
several succeeding active frames, and then reappear. In general, whenever a
character is encountered in an active frame, it is to be determined whether this
is its first occurrence or whether it has already been introduced in an earlier
active frame and is reappearing at a particular point. Determining that a
character in the current active scene has already appeared in an earlier one is
termed “identification.” A distinction is to be made between normal, false,
impeded, and deferred identifications. A “false identification” occurs when a
previously mentioned character is identified but it then becomes clear later
that some other character was in fact being referred to. An “impeded
identification” does not refer unequivocally to any specific character, and a
clear reference to the character or characters is never given in the text,
while in the case of “deferred identification” the reader is ultimately able to
establish the identity of an equivocally presented character. Deferred
identification can further be broken down into an overt form in which the
reader knows that he is kept in the dark and a covert form (Jannidis, 2004:
chap. 4 & 6, based on Emmott, 1997).can be described as ascribing
information to an agent in the text so as to provide a character in the
storyworld with a certain property or properties, a process often referred to
as ascribing a property to a character. In the 19th century, critics spoke of
the difference between direct and indirect characterization and of the
preference of contemporary writers and readers for the latter (Scherer, 1977).
Until recently, characterization was understood as the text ascribing
psychological or social traits to a character (e.g. Chatman, 1978), but in fact
texts ascribe all manner of properties to characters, including physiological
and locative (space-time location) properties. Yet some textually explicit
ascriptions of properties to a character may turn out to be invalid, as when
this information is attributable to an unreliable narrator or to a
fellow-character (Narrator). Moreover, a textual ascription may turn out to be
hypothetical or purely subjective. There are also texts and styles of writing
(e.g. the psychological novel) which tend to avoid any explicit statements of
characterization. The crucial issue in the process of characterization is thus
what information, especially of a psychological nature, a reader is able to
associate with any character as a member of the storyworld and where this
information comes from. There are at least three sources of such information:
(a) textually explicit ascription of properties to a character; (b) inferences
that can be drawn from textual cues (e.g. “she smiled nervously”); (c)
inferences based on information which is not associated with the character by
the text itself but through reference to historically and culturally variable
real-world conventions (e.g. the appearance of a room reveals something about
the person living there or the weather expresses the feelings of the
protagonist). A systematic description of such inferences employed in
characterization is given by Margolin (1983). Inferences can be understood in
terms of abductions (Keller, 1998: chap. 9, based on Peirce), so that the
fundamental role of character models and of the character encyclopedia becomes
obvious: the information derived from them is not included in the text, but is
presupposed to a greater or lesser degree by it.key problem concerns the limits
and underlying rules of such inferences when they are applied to fictional
beings. Ryan (1980), noting that readers tend to assume that a storyworld
resembles the real world unless explicitly stated otherwise, adopts the
philosopher David Lewis’s “principle of minimal departure.” In a thorough
criticism of this and similar hypotheses, Walton points out that this would
make an infinite number of inferences possible, and he comes to the conclusion:
“There is no particular reason why anyone’s beliefs about the real world should
come into play. As far as implications are concerned, simple conventions to the
effect that whenever such and such is fictional, so and so is as well, serve
nicely […]” (Walton,1990). This approach, in turn, increases the number of
conventions without necessity and without providing any convincing argument as
to how readers go about accessing these conventions, aside from drawing on
their real-world knowledge, despite the fact that many conventions apply only
to fictional worlds. Even so, this does not invalidate Walton’s criticism,
which can probably be refuted only by including another element: the fact that
characters are part of storyworlds which are not self-contained, but
communicated. Readers’ assumptions about what is relevant in the process of
communication determine the scope and validity of inferences (Sperber &
Wilson, 1986).presentation of characters is a dynamic process, just as is the
construction of characters in the reader’s mind. A powerful model for describing
the psychological or cognitive dynamics coming into play here, based on the
“top-down” and “bottom-up” processes observed during empirical studies on
reading comprehension, has been proposed by Schneider (2001) building on
concepts developed by Gerrig & Allbritton (1990). A top-down process occurs
in the application of a category to a character, integrating the information
given by the text into this category, while a bottom-up process results from
the text information integrating a character into a type or building up an
individualized representation. At the beginning of a character presentation,
textual cues may trigger various types of categorization: social types (“the
teacher,” “the widow”); literary types (the hero in a Bildungsroman);
text-specific types (characters that do not change throughout the story). In
contrast to the top-down processing that takes place in these forms of
categorization is bottom-up processing. This occurs when the reader is unable
to integrate the given information into an existing category, resulting in
personalization of the character (reader). Personalized characters can also be
members of a category, but this is not the focus of their description. Reading
a text involves building up either categorized or personalized characters, but
information subsequently encountered in the text may change their status and
possibly decategorize or depersonalize those characters.characters are to a
certain extent predictable. On the basis of some data, we can usually expect
certain actions or behaviour from a character. In a sense, every character is
more or less predictable, as we can predict how a character will act or behave
on the basis of his or her profession, sex, external factors, the genre of the
work, etc.; however, so-called ‘round’ characters are less predictable than
‘flat’ onesand Meaningcan be seen as entities in a storyworld. However, this
should not be understood to mean that characters are self-contained. On the
contrary: they are at the same time devices in the communication of meaning and
serve purposes other than the communication of the facts of the storyworld as
well. This matter was discussed above in the relation between character and
action. In many forms of narrative, however, action is not the organizing
principle, but a theme or an idea, and the characters in these texts are
determined by that theme or idea. An extreme example is personification, i.e.
the representation of an abstract principle such as freedom or justice as a
character, as found in allegorical literature. Another example is certain
dialogue novels, where the characters’ role is to propound philosophical ideas.
On the other hand, even the most life-like characters in a realistic novel can
often also be described in light of their place in a thematic progression.
Thus, Phelan (1987) has proposed to describe character as participation in a
mimetic sphere (due to the character’s traits), a thematic sphere (as a
representative of an idea or of a class of people), and a synthetic sphere (the
material out of which the character is made). In his heuristic of film
characters, Eder (2007, 2008) adopts a similar breakdown, but adds a fourth
dimension relating to communication between the film and the audience: (a) the
character as an artifact (how is it made?); (b) the character as a fictional
being (what features describe the character?); (c) the character as a symbol
(what meaning is communicated through the character?); and (d) the character as
a symptom (why is the character as it is and what is the effect?). The difference
between characters as part of storyworlds and the meaning of character cannot
be aligned with the difference between (narratological) description and
interpretation because elements of a character or the description of a
character are often motivated by their role in thematic, symbolic, aesthetic
and other networks.Traitsprominent attempt to analyse character views them as a
sum of traits. Chatman, for example, views a character in terms of a ‘paradigm
of traits’ (1978: 126): a character exists in a paradigmatic relationship with
the plot, which is syntagmatic. Another scholar who holds this view is
Rimmon-Kenan (1983), to whom a character is a construct of traits. These
traits, according to her, are hierarchically arranged; she also views characterization
in terms of how the network of character traits, in reference to a particular
character, is created.Chatman (1978) and Leitch (1986), characterization can be
analysed through an analysis of routine behaviour, which can be defined, in my
view, in terms of the repeated appearance of certain dynamic traits associated
with a character. In this light, Chatman (1978), has noted that ‘tiredness’ is
not a trait unless persistent. A persistent trait may become a habit: we can
further note that only habitual traits are significant in the analysis of
characterisation, and not those which are temporary., it has been noted that
character traits ‘are not, after all, physical objects to be drawn like trees’
(1978), and Leitch, while agreeing with Chatman, believes that some characters
become memorable through the subtraction, and not the addition of traits: some
minor characters, for example, are memorable because they lack certain common
human traits.omission of traits is also noticeable in film characters; we do
not know, for example, about the film characters’ introspective traits, unless
the character tells us about them through voice-over narration.and real-life
people have unique attributes called traits. This table is devoted to the most
popular traits of the fiction characters which can be noted in narratives.
Honest
|
Excited
|
Bright
|
Unselfish
|
Humble
|
Ambitious
|
Light-hearted
|
Inventive
|
Considerate
|
Patriotic
|
Bossy
|
Adventurous
|
Leader
|
Thrilling
|
Clever
|
Reserved
|
Curious
|
Daring
|
Demanding
|
Sad
|
Ugly
|
Quiet
|
Tireless
|
Friendly
|
Brave
|
Poor
|
Handsome
|
Cheerful
|
Able
|
Witty
|
Keen
|
Rich
|
Funny
|
Timid
|
Reserved
|
Pleasing
|
Happy
|
Tall
|
Successful
|
Shy
|
Busy
|
Dark
|
Agent and Character
distinction is sometimes made
between two notions- agent and character. An agent is a simplified character,
whereas the term character is reserved for more complex personages in a
narrative. However, it’s worthy to question the extent of the validity of the
distinction.is one narratologist who believes that agent must be distinguished
from character (1978). In making the distinction, he has undoubtedly been
influenced by the French narratologists., the term character is also used in
relation to narrative agents, without a clear indication that the two should be
distinguished. According to Margolin for instance, the ‘ascription of
individual properties to [a narrative agent] may be called “characterization”’
(1983; also Margolin, 1986). The danger in ascribing to the view of Chatman and
others on this matter, is that too rigid a distinction between character and
agent may be made, and there will thus be no characterisation as such in many
contemporary works of fiction.
Chapter II.Different approaches to
classify the characters
and Genre
reference to genre, the presence of
‘real’ characters my be limited to certain genres.
It’s notable
here that the term realistic fiction is actually a generic classification. It
has also been argued by (1962) that
real characters are seldom accomplished outside of comedy.division of
characters into realistic and fantastic should also be regarded as generic.
Another generic division is that between mimetic and didactic characters,
although a mixture between the two may be involved. Phelan, for example, has
noted that ‘authors may employ mimetic means to didactic ends’ .
Generic
division of characters
|
realistic
|
vs
|
fantastic
|
vs
|
didactic
|
Another classification of characters
which may have an effect on generic classification divides them into imitative,
illustrative and independent (or ‘aesthetic’).
Classification of characters that may affect
generic classification
|
Character
type
|
Explanation
|
Imitative
|
Characters exist in relation to actual human
beings, of which they are supposed to resemble.
|
Illustrative
|
Characters are didactic, and are supposed to
represent moral ideas.
|
Independent
|
Characters exist in their own right, and are
not directly or closely related to mimetic or didactic considerations.
|
Static and developing characters
classification of characters
involves those who are static and those who are developing.
A changes,
and for change in such a character to be convincing, it must be, in traditional
literary criticism:in the character;impelled by circumstances;time must be
given for the change to be believable.the same time, change requires selection:
an entire lifetime cannot be presented within the span of a narrative.reference
to change, we may look again at Lawrence’s ‘allotropic states’. In this
conception, characters change all the time, and so, the criteria on how to make
change convincing mentioned above, may not apply.possibilities of change and
development in cinematic characters are usually more restricted than in
characters of a novel. If a character in a film changes or develops, certain
large and significant segments of the character’s life are presented. If the
character develops from childhood (or even babyhood) to adulthood, more than
one actor is needed, and this may have an effect on our perception of the
character’s development: we may ask, for example, whether some of the changes
we see are due more to the peculiarities of the actor and are not really
necessary to the character’s development.
the flat and
round characters
categorization
of characters involves their division into flat and round. This categorization
has been attributed to E. M. Forster, who wrote about it in his “Aspects of the
Novel”. characteristics of a flat character can be summed up in a sentence.
Flat characters are simple: they have only one or two traits. They are also
stable, stereotypical, and undeveloping. Flat characters are mainly found in
fairy tales, detective fiction, pulp fiction, and such works; in this regard,
flatness and roundness may thus be linked to the genre of the
narrative.characters are complex and have manifold characteristics. They are
closer to actual persons than flat characters. They change in the course of the
story; they develop and are capable of surprising the reader. According to
Chatman, it is easier to identify with round characters, even though they may
not ‘add up’, and may not always be uniform or logically consistent. Round
characters are open-ended: we can at best only speculate about their future
actions; they are thus less determinate than flat characters.
Distinction between round and flat characters
|
Flat
characters
|
Round
characters
|
Simple
and uniform:
|
Complex
and manifold:
|
Only one or two traits
|
numerous
traits
|
Characteristics can be summed up in a sentence
|
characteristics
need elaborate description
|
Stable:
|
Changeable:
|
undeveloping
|
developing
|
closed
|
open-ended
|
More distant from actual human beings:
|
Closer to actual human beings:
|
stereotypical
|
not easily analysable according to rigid
formulation or preconceived notions
|
harder
to sympathize with
|
easier
to sympathise with
|
Their
actions are:
|
Their
actions are:
|
determinate
|
difficult to determine in advance
|
logically consistent with what was given
earlier
|
not always logically consistent with what was
given earlier
|
not surprising to readers most of the time
|
surprising to readers some of the time
|
distinction between flat and round
characters may also apply to the analysis of cinematic narratives. A director
may want to have flat characters in his film, and chooses non-actors to play
their parts, so that there will be less concentration on the actor’s acting
skills, and more scope will be given to other aspects of the film.
Rimmon-Kenan
has criticised the division into ‘flat’ and ‘round’ characters in written
narratives. According to her, the belief that round characters are developing
and complex may not always be correct. She gives the example of ’s here, who
according to her, is complex but undeveloping. To Rimmon-Kenan, instead of the
division of characters into ‘flat’ and ‘round’, we should have 3 continua
(1983; based on Ewen):
) the extent
to which there is a penetration into the inner life of the character,
) the degree
of the character’s complexity, and
) the extent
of the character’s development.
characters
characters are
different from flat characters, a character who is closely associated although
they may share some characteristics: indeed, with a given narrative genre many
of the characteristics associated with flat characters, are also found in stock
characters. Stock characters are those who are likely to appear in relation to
a given narrative genre: e.g. cowboys and Indians or the murderer and detective
fiction.characterscharacters do not form themselves into a category like flat
or stock, but are dependent on the reader’s evaluative judgment of a character
as such. However, it is highly probable that stock characters have a tendency
to be superficial when compared to those who cannot be described as such, and
flat characters are likely to be more superficial than those who are round. The
evaluation of a character as superficial is usually based, amongst other
considerations, on whether there is too much concentration on external details
in the depiction of the character.
Tellable characters
characters are characters who can be
easily or conveniently told in a story, and rare usually:
readily understood by the listener,
not complex(as full -fledged human beings)consistent changes, consistency may
not always be a feature of literary characters, as noted earlier, thus making
many literary characters less ‘tellable’.
We can
relate tellable characters to readable characters (’
distinction).It’s noteworthy to say that in complex works of literature, which
are usually writerly texts, the characters are usually less tellable or
readerly, thus making them, in a sense, ‘difficult’ (which of course, does not
mean that they are not ‘interesting’).
and
Antagonist
protagonist
is chief character in a narrative. In popular narratives, it is traditionally
believed that the protagonist is usually attractive, honest and good-hearted
(although there are variations on this in recent years). In serious fiction
however, the protagonist may sometimes be portrayed unsympathetically.antagonist
may be the villain, or ( more neutrally), a counter - character to the
protagonist.
Hero
to, but not
necessarily identical to the protagonist, is the hero. The hero is less easy to
define than the protagonist. Attempts to define the conception of the hero have
not resulted in anything definite, as the criteria for what the hero should be
are different from reader to reader. There is also a difference between
nineteenth and twentieth century conceptions of the hero. However, there is
some agreement that the hero should embody positive qualities, although what
these positive qualities exactly are, and how they could be measured or
balanced against less positive qualities, are not definite.definition which we
can easily reject, is that given by Coste for written fiction: that the ‘hero’
is the anthropomorphic bearer of the largest number of words (1979).It is not
easy to resort to mechanical means to define the hero, as features of heroes
and heroines are of human relevance, and may not be dependent on external
details such as the number of words in a work referring to them.
of hero -bad
and good points
are few
types of hero:active, successful hero;hero-victim;passive anti- hero;hero-
villain. the above, it can be seen that the hero is not always good. Only the
active, successful hero can be described as clearly ‘good’. The hero-victim may
be ‘good’, but he is someone who suffers, and his suffering certainly cannot be
described as ‘good’ to him. A hero-villain, , is only a ‘hero’ because he is the
protagonist of the play, but is, in almost every other respect, a
villain.opponent of the hero is the , but as we have seen, features of
the two may coalesce in the hero-villain. Although badness seems to be an
inherent quality of villains, villains may not be morally ‘bad’ in some works,
but may have an aesthetic, instead of a purely moral reason for their
categorisation as villains.French narratologist A. J. Greimas pursued the
classification of the elements which make a story move on by proposing a
well-known actantial schema, whose source is in Propp’s typology. From the
perspective of the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp, the author of “Morphology
of the Folktale”(1928), a classification of fairy tales should set out from the
functions, i.e. the actions performed by characters, and from the functional
roles. There are 31 functions, defined by their significance for the plot
development, which remain practically the same in the whole corpus of Russian
tales (e.g. test, mission, reward, and so on). Although not all of them appear
in every story, their sequence appears identical if viewed comparatively. The
roles describe the characters’ participation in the events, irrespective of
their individual traits: Propp identified such roles as Hero, Sought-for
Person, Dispatcher, Helper, Donor (Provider), Villain, False Hero.
, action and
plot
are some
interconnections between character with action, and hence, also, between
character and plot. Tragedy , according to Aristotle, isn’t possible without
plot, but it is possible without character (at least as the term is understood
by some literary critics today). If we accept a looser definition of character,
we can say that there is an intimate relationship between action and character
to Aristotle. For this reason, the approach to character as a function of the
plot has been described by some scholars as Aristotelian.interconnection of
character with action is also made by the , to whom character is a product of
plot. Character is therefore secondary to the plot to them, and is described as
a function or actant (Margolin, 1983: 2). A function or actant when used in
relation to a character refers to an abstract sphere of action: a character is
therefore identified by what kind of actions he or she has done or will do. In
this connection, some kind of formalization may be used to determine a
character’s functional range. This approach to characterisation is interested
in what characters do in a story, not what they are, another way of formulating
this is to say that what characters do is what they are.actional approach to
characterization is that of (1968), who divides characters into
seven spheres of action: 1) villain, 2) donor, 3) helper, 4) sought-for-person,
5) dispatcher, 6) hero, 7) false hero. Although Propp’s spheres of action could
also be seen in terms of character roles, their roles are inseparable from what
they do.actional approach to characterization is that of Greimas, whose
conception of actants views characters as a function of the plot. To Greimas
(1990), there are 6 actants: sender, object, receiver, helper,
subject,opponent., the relationship between character and plot is not always
seen in terms of character being a function of the plot. The novelist Henry
James reverses the relationship by insisting that it is the plot that should be
a product of character. Although James' idea here may have more general
applicability, he may be referring more specifically to fictional narratives;
and to his own approach to the writing of fiction in particular.criticism of
the actional approach to characterisation is that we do not always respond to
characters in relation to the plot: this is true even in fairy tales and other
simple stories where plot is important. This is partly due to the apparent
presence of human consciousness in narrative, which makes us try to look at
aspects of characterisation which are not manifested in characters’ actions. We
can also note that in many complex narratives, characters are viewed more
directly in terms of their inherent qualities, and not in terms of their
actions. Furthermore, a distinction is sometimes made between narratives that
concentrate on action and plot, and those that concentrate on character, such
as that made between the novel of character and the novel of incident in
nineteenth century approaches to the novel. Although this approach to the novel
has been criticised by Henry James, in his attempt to reverse the relationship
between character and plot mentioned above, the more general distinction
between narratives that concentrate on character and those in which action and
plot predominate, is still very much with us.
Other classifications of characters
may be also divided into other of
several types:
Point-of-view
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_view_(literature)> character: The
character from whose perspective (theme) the audience experiences the story.
This is the character that represents the point of view the audience will
empathise, or at the very least, sympathise with. Therefore this is the
"Main" Character.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist>:
The driver of the action of the story and therefore responsible for achieving
the story's Objective Story Goal (the surface journey). In western storytelling
tradition the Protagonist is usually the Main
Character.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonist>: The character that
stands in opposition to the protagonist.character <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_character>:
A character who does not significantly change during the course of a
story.character <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_character>: A
character who undergoes character development <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characterization>
during the course of a
story.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(literature)>: The character
that contrasts to the protagonist in a way that illuminates their personality
or characteristic.character <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supporting_character>:
A character that plays a part in the plot, but is not majorcharacter
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minor_character&action=edit&redlink=1>:
A character in a very little, not vivid part.after this classification we can
distinguish the following methods of developing
characters:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_physical_appearance>:
explains or describes the character's outward appearance for the readers to be
able to identify them<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue>: what they
say and how they say
it<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_(literature)>: what the character
does and how he/she does itof others: how other characters see and treat
him/her
Terry W. Ervin and his
classification
writers employ a variety of
characters while weaving their tales. Beyond the standard definitions of
protagonist (the main character in a literary work) and antagonist (the main
character or force that opposes the protagonist in a literary work),
recognizing the types of characters and the parts they play while reading an
interesting story can add to the experience. In addition, a fuller
understanding of the character types and their uses can increase a writer’s
effectiveness in weaving his own fictional tales.is a list of common character
types, followed by an explanation and short example.someone in whom the central
character confides, thus revealing the main character’s personality, thoughts,
and intentions. The confidante does not need to be a person.: In a story, Melvin
Sanders is a detective on the trail of a serial killer. He travels with his pet
dog, a pug named Chops. Instead of listening to the radio, Melvin talks to
Chops, telling him his theories about the serial killer and his concern he may
never discover the killer’s identity.this example Chops is a
confidante.Character - a character which changes during the course of a story
or novel. The change in outlook or character is permanent. Sometimes a dynamic
character is called a developing character.: Ebenezer Scrooge, in A Christmas
Carol by Dickens, was very stingy with his money. He worked his employees very
very hard for little pay. After his experiences with the ghosts that visited
him, he changed his ways, paying his employees a more than fair wage, providing
days off work and actually giving gifts.this example Ebenezer Scrooge is a
dynamic character.Character - a character who reveals only one, maybe two,
personality traits in a story or novel, and the trait(s) do not change.: In a
story about a friendly teacher named Sandra Smith, Louis Drud is a janitor in
her building. Louis is always tired and grumpy whenever Sandra runs across him
and says hello.this example Louis Drud is a flat character.- a character that
is used to enhance another character through contrast. Cinderella’s grace and
beauty as opposed to her nasty, self-centered stepsisters is one clear
illustration of a foil many may recall from childhood.: The main character in a
story, a teenager named Sally, is a very honest person. She always tries to tell
the truth and consider everyone’s feelings. The teacher assigns Betty to be
Sally’s science lab partner. Betty enjoys gossip and likes to see people’s
reactions, especially if it involves hurt or embarrassment.this example Betty
is a foil.Character - a well developed character who demonstrates varied and
sometimes contradictory traits. Round characters are usually dynamic (change in
some way over the course of a story).: A character in a story named Elaine
never cuts anybody a break. She tells her friends and coworkers that charity
and compassion have no place in society. On the other hand, Elaine can never
pass up feeding a stray kitten or puppy, and always tries to find a good home
for lost or abandoned pets.this example Elaine is a round character.Character -
a character that remains primarily the same throughout a story or novel. Events
in the story do not alter a static character’s outlook, personality,
motivation, perception, habits, etc.: Bert, a bumbling salesman, never takes
the time to organize his files, properly record his sales, or follow up with
customers. Finally, his boss gets fed up and fires him. Bert struggles for two
months to find a new sales position. During that time, his car is repossessed
for nonpayment and he maxes out his credit cards. Bert finally finds a new
sales position but, before a week passes, he is called into a conference with
his new boss. Bert is informed he must get organized or he’ll be fired. A week
later the new boss fires Bert after he fails to follow up with an important
customer.this example Bert is a static character.Character - a special kind of
flat character who is instantly recognizable to most readers. Possible examples
include the “ruthless businessman”, “shushing old librarian” or “dumb jock.”
They are not the focus nor developed in the story.: The main character in a
story, Bernard, is hired by a computer company. His secretary is a blonde named
Gidget, who is cute but forgetful and never gets a joke.this example Gidget is
a stock character.
the character types are listed
separately, characters may be (and often are) a combination. A foil, for
example, could also be a round, flat, or even a stock character. While most
protagonists in novels are dynamic (change over the course of the novel) and
round, they don’t have to be, especially if the novel is plot driven as opposed
to character driven. It’s not unheard of for a short story to feature a static
protagonist.character types are, by definition, opposite and cannot be
considered. For example, one cannot have a character that is both flat and
round, or a character that is both static and dynamic.
The terms are useful for
understanding a character and his place within the story. But, in the end, it
is not about how a character can be named and classified (except maybe within
the confines of a literature course). As a writer, it’s all about understanding
the characters as you create and bring life to them for the reader.
List of sources
,Criticism
and Style by Steven Croft, Helen Cross (Oxford University Press)Dictionary of
Literary Terms by Chris Baldick (Oxford University Press)Vogler-The Writer's
Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters.A. Rees Cheney,
Writing Creative Nonfiction: Fiction Techniques for Crafting Great Nonfiction .
Ten Speed Press, 2001. N. Friedman, “Point of View in Fiction: The Development
of a Critical Concept”, in PMLA, 70; 1160-84. Also G. Prince (1989), 74-75.. M.
Forster, Aspects of the Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), 87.. J.
Greimas, Structural Semantics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983),
205-6.Prince, “Introduction to the Study of the Narratee”, in Jane P. Tompkins
(ed.), Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism
(Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 8