Characterization

Last updated

Characterization or characterisation is the representation of characters (persons, creatures, or other beings) in narrative and dramatic works. The term character development is sometimes used as a synonym. This representation may include direct methods like the attribution of qualities in description or commentary, and indirect (or "dramatic") methods inviting readers to infer qualities from characters' actions, dialogue, or appearance. Such a personage is called a character. [1] Character is a literary element. [2]

Contents

History

The term characterization was introduced in the 19th century. [3] Aristotle promoted the primacy of plot over characters, that is, a plot-driven narrative, arguing in his Poetics that tragedy "is a representation, not of men, but of action and life." This view was reversed in the 19th century, when the primacy of the character, that is, a character-driven narrative, was affirmed first with the realist novel, and increasingly later with the influential development of psychology.

Direct vs. indirect

There are two ways an author can convey information about a character:

Direct or explicit characterization
The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. This may be done via the narrator, another character or by the character themselves.
Indirect or implicit characterization
The audience must infer for themselves what the character is like through the character's thoughts, actions, speech (choice of words, manner of speaking), physical appearance, mannerisms and interaction with other characters, including other characters' reactions to that particular person.

In drama

Characters in theater, television, and film differ from those in novels in that an actor may interpret the writer's description and dialogue in their own unique way to add new layers and depth to a character. This can be seen when critics compare, for example, the 'Lady Macbeths' or 'Heathcliffs' of different actors. Another major difference in drama is that it is not possible to 'go inside the character's head' in the way possible in a novel, meaning this method of character exposition is unavailable. Still another is that in drama, a character usually can be seen and heard and need not be described.

In mythology

Mythological characters have been depicted to be formulaic and are a part of a classification that consists of several differing, limited archetypes, which is type of component. Multiple components, such as archetypes and other elements of a story, together form a type of configuration that results in fully realized myth. These configurations can be mixed and matched together to form new types of configurations, and humans have never tired of using these configurations for their mythologies. This is an idea that uses the kaleidoscopic model on narrating for mythology. Another perspective holds that humans when reading or hearing a mythology do not dissect it into various parts, that when physically together humans do not tell stories by using limited components in a configuration, and that people and their cultures do change and thus this leads to new developments in stories, including characters. [4]

Mythological characters have influence that extends to recent works of literature. The poet Platon Oyunsky draws heavily from the native mythology of his homeland, the Yakut region in Russia and the Sahka people. In several of his stories, he depicts a main character that follows historic examples of heroism, but fashions the main character using Soviet examples of heroism, even using real life figures, such as Stalin, Lenin, etc. in a new type of mythology. These figures often play the lead in tragic stories full of sacrifice. [5] An example of this includes his character Tygyn, who on his quest for peace determines that the only way for peace to exist is to use military strength to enforce. [6] The use of mythology is used in Shakespeare's Hamlet as a device to parallel the characters and to reflect back on them their role in the story, such as the use of the Niobe myth and the twin sister of Gertrude. [7]

Character archetypes

The psychologist Carl Jung identified twelve primary 'original patterns' of the human psyche. He believed that these reside in the collective subconscious of people across cultural and political boundaries. These twelve archetypes are often cited in fictional characters. 'Flat' characters may be considered so because they stick to a single archetype without deviating, whereas 'complex' or 'realistic' characters will combine several archetypes, with some being more dominant than others – as people are in real life. Jung's twelve archetypes are: the Innocent, the Orphan, the Hero, the Caregiver, the Explorer, the Rebel, the Lover, the Creator, the Jester, the Sage, the Magician, and the Ruler. [8] However, Jung's notions of character archetypes have been considered problematic in a variety of ways. First, the use of these archetypes is often reductive and unhelpful for many writers since it simplifies character complexity into clichéd tropes. [9]

Character's voice

A character's voice is their manner of speech. [10] Different characters use different vocabularies and rhythms of speech. For example, some characters are talkative, others taciturn. The way a character speaks can be a powerful way of revealing the character's personality. In theory, a reader should be able to identify which character is speaking simply from the way they talk. [11] When a character voice has been created that is rich and distinctive, the writer can get away with omitting many speech attributions (tag lines). [12]

The manner of a character's speech is to literature what an actor's appearance and costume are to cinema. [10] In fiction, what a character says, as well as how they say it, makes a strong impression on the reader. [13] Each character should have their distinctive voice. [14] To differentiate characters in fiction, the writer must show them doing and saying things, but a character must be defined by more than one single topic of conversation or by the character's accent. The character will have other interests or personality quirks as well. [15] Although individual temperament is the largest determinant of what a character says, it is not the only one. The writer can make the characters' dialogue more realistic and interesting by considering several factors affecting how people speak: personality psychology, [9] age, culture, family background, region, gender, education, and circumstances. [16] Words characterize by their diction, cadence, complexity, attitude [17] and fluency. Mannerisms and catch-phrases can help too. Considering the degree of formality in spoken language is also useful. Introverts tend to use more formal language compared to extroverts, who typically speak in a more casual and colloquial manner. [9] Characters who spend a lot of their lives in a more formal setting often use a more formal language all the time, while others never do. [11] Tone of voice, volume, rate of delivery, vocabulary, inflection, emphasis, pitch, topics of conversation, idioms, colloquialisms, and figures of speech: all of these are expressions of who the character is on the inside. [18] A character's manner of speech must grow from the inside out. The speaking is how their essential personality leaks out for the world to see; it is not the sum total of their personality. [10]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Baldick (2004 , p. 37)
  2. ↑ Literature (2015 , p. 353)
  3. ↑ Harrison (1998, pp. 51-2)
  4. ↑ Georges, Robert (1979). "The Kaleidoscopic Model of Narrating: A Characterization and a Critique". The Journal of American Folklore. 92 (364): 164–171. doi:10.2307/539386. JSTOR   539386.
  5. ↑ Romanova, Lidia Nikolaevna (2018-09-30). "Myth Creation in the Poetic Evolution of P. A. Oyunsky". Journal of History Culture and Art Research. 7 (3): 280–292. doi: 10.7596/taksad.v7i3.1729 . ISSN   2147-0626 – via Academic Search Complete.
  6. ↑ Myreeva, Anastasiya Nikitichna (2018-09-30). "Folklore and Epic Traditions in Yakut Novels between Two Ages". Journal of History Culture and Art Research. 7 (3): 460–468. doi: 10.7596/taksad.v7i3.1737 . ISSN   2147-0626 – via Academic Search Complete.
  7. ↑ McCollum, Cayla (2012). "Mirrors: Shakespeare's use of Mythology in Hamlet". Journal of the Wooden O Symposium. 12: 114–119. ISSN   1539-5758 – via Academic Search Complete.
  8. ↑ Golden, Carl. "The 12 Common Archetypes". SoulCraft. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  9. 1 2 3 Pelican, Kira-Anne (2021). The Science of Writing Characters: Using Psychology to Create Compelling Fictional Characters. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-1-5013-5724-4. OCLC   1142394142.
  10. 1 2 3 Gerke (2010 , p. 70)
  11. 1 2 Hamand (2009 , pp. 73–74)
  12. ↑ Gerke (2010 , p. 114)
  13. ↑ Kress (2005 , p. 104)
  14. ↑ Lamb (2008 , pp. 184–185)
  15. ↑ Gerke (2010 , p. 68)
  16. ↑ Kress (2005 , pp. 106–108)
  17. ↑ Kress (2005 , p. 179)
  18. ↑ Gerke (2010 , pp. 70–71)

Related Research Articles

The concept of an archetype appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.

In anthropology, folkloristics, and the social and behavioral sciences, emic and etic refer to two kinds of field research done and viewpoints obtained.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Character (arts)</span> Fictional being in a narrative

In fiction, a character is a person or other being in a narrative. The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character may be made. Derived from the Ancient Greek word χαρακτήρ, the English word dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones by Henry Fielding in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor" developed. Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theater or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person". In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase "in character" has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor. Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers, has been called characterization.

A persona is a strategic mask of identity in public, the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. It is also considered "an intermediary between the individual and the institution."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Narrative</span> Account that presents connected events

A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, which is derived from the adjective gnarus. The formal and literary process of constructing a narrative—narration—is one of the four traditional rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and exposition. This is a somewhat distinct usage from narration in the narrower sense of a commentary used to convey a story. Many additional narrative techniques, particularly literary ones, are used to build and enhance any given story.

Narrative exposition, now often simply exposition, is the insertion of background information within a story or narrative. This information can be about the setting, characters' backstories, prior plot events, historical context, etc. In literature, exposition appears in the form of expository writing embedded within the narrative.

In analytical psychology, the shadow is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow, leading to a conflict with it. In short, the shadow is the self's emotional blind spot - the part the ego does not want to acknowledge - projected as archetypes—or, in a metaphorical sense-image complexes, personified within the collective unconscious; e.g., trickster.

In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject". Themes are often distinguished from premises.

A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. If a story has a character arc, the character begins as one sort of person and gradually transforms into a different sort of person in response to changing developments in the story. Since the change is often substantive and leading from one personality trait to a diametrically opposite trait, the geometric term arc is often used to describe the sweeping change. In most stories, lead characters and protagonists are the characters most likely to experience character arcs, although lesser characters often change as well. A driving element of the plots of many stories is that the main character seems initially unable to overcome opposing forces, possibly because they lack skills or knowledge or resources or friends. To overcome such obstacles, the main character must change, possibly by learning new skills, to arrive at a higher sense of self-awareness or capability. Main characters can achieve such self-awareness by interacting with their environment, by enlisting the help of mentors, by changing their viewpoint, or by some other method.

Fiction writing is the composition of non-factual prose texts. Fictional writing often is produced as a story meant to entertain or convey an author's point of view. The result of this may be a short story, novel, novella, screenplay, or drama, which are all types of fictional writing styles. Different types of authors practice fictional writing, including novelists, playwrights, short story writers, radio dramatists and screenwriters.

Show, don't tell is a narrative technique used in various kinds of texts to allow the reader to experience the story through actions, words, subtext, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description. It avoids adjectives describing the author's analysis and instead describes the scene in such a way that readers can draw their own conclusions. The technique applies equally to nonfiction and all forms of fiction, literature including haiku and Imagist poetry in particular, speech, movie making, and playwriting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhetorical modes</span> Major types of writing and speaking

The rhetorical modes are a broad traditional classification of the major kinds of formal and academic writing by their rhetorical (persuasive) purpose: narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. First attempted by Samuel P. Newman in A Practical System of Rhetoric in 1827, the modes of discourse have long influenced US writing instruction and particularly the design of mass-market writing assessments, despite critiques of the explanatory power of these classifications for non-school writing.

In literature, writing style is the manner of expressing thought in language characteristic of an individual, period, school, or nation. As Bryan Ray notes, however, style is a broader concern, one that can describe "readers' relationships with, texts, the grammatical choices writers make, the importance of adhering to norms in certain contexts and deviating from them in others, the expression of social identity, and the emotional effects of particular devices on audiences." Thus, style is a term that may refer, at one and the same time, to singular aspects of an individual's writing habits or a particular document and to aspects that go well-beyond the individual writer. Beyond the essential elements of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, writing style is the choice of words, sentence structure, and paragraph structure, used to convey the meaning effectively. The former are referred to as rules, elements, essentials, mechanics, or handbook; the latter are referred to as style, or rhetoric. The rules are about what a writer does; style is about how the writer does it. While following the rules drawn from established English usage, a writer has great flexibility in how to express a concept. Some have suggested that the point of writing style is to:

In literature and other artistic media, a mode is an unspecific critical term usually designating a broad but identifiable kind of literary method, mood, or manner that is not tied exclusively to a particular form or genre. Examples are the satiric mode, the ironic, the comic, the pastoral, and the didactic.

Jungian archetypes are a concept from psychology that refers to a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings. The psychic counterpart of instinct, archetypes are thought to be the basis of many of the common themes and symbols that appear in stories, myths, and dreams across different cultures and societies. Some examples of archetypes include those of the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood, among others. The concept of the collective unconscious was first proposed by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

A fiction-writing mode is a manner of writing imaginary stories with its own set of conventions regarding how, when, and where it should be used.

Olonkho is a series of Yakut heroic epics. The term Olonkho is used to refer to the entire Yakut epic tradition as well as individual epic poems. An ancient oral tradition, it is thought that many of the poems predate the northwards migration of Yakuts in the 14th century, making Olonkho among the oldest epic arts of any Turkic peoples. There are over one hundred recorded Olonkhos, varying in length from a few thousand to tens of thousands of verses, with the most well-known poem Nyurgun Bootur the Swift containing over 36,000 verses.

Transitions in fiction are words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or punctuation that may be used to signal various changes in a story, including changes in time, location, point-of-view character, mood, tone, emotion, and pace. Transitions are sometimes listed as one of various fiction-writing modes.

In literature, pace or pacing is the speed at which a story is told—not necessarily the speed at which the story takes place. It is an essential element of storytelling that plays a significant role in maintaining reader interest, building tension, and conveying the desired emotional impact. The number of words needed to write about a certain event does not depend upon how much time the event takes to happen; it depends upon how important that moment is to the story. The pace is determined by the length of the scenes, how fast the action moves, and how quickly the reader is provided with information. A well-paced story effectively balances moments of high intensity and slower-paced sections to create a dynamic reading experience. It is also sometimes dictated by the genre of the story: comedies move faster than dramas; action adventures move faster than suspense. A dragging pace is characteristic of many novels turned down by publishers, and of some that find their way into print but not into the hearts and recommendations of readers. Manuscripts that move too slowly usually discourage readers from reading on. Through various editing techniques, such as cutting unnecessary details, rearranging scenes, or suggesting additions, editors assist in maintaining an engaging pace that keeps readers captivated. Yanna Popova and Elena Cuffari elaborate that as editors they, "explore the participatory structure of a narrative through its temporal unfolding and the specific, non-linear nature of the temporal dynamics of interacting with a storytelling agency". Popova and Cuffari make clear that the way an author unfolds a story through structuring that narrative's tale is essential to the way the audience will interpret it.

In literature, action is the physical movement of the characters.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.