The University of Edinburgh | WK2 NAMES AND APPEARANCES

Starting at the most superficial level possible, from the outside in if you like, and depending on the type of author
you're dealing with, a character's name might give a lot away. Let's look at the name Tom Jones for an instance

the title character of Henry Fielding's novel from 1749. Incidentally, one of the earliest novels in the English
language. His name, Tom Jones, serves to underline his very ordinariness. He's from a non aristocratic

background. Has faults and virtues like anyone else. Embarks on affairs, and falls in love. In short, he is a

perfectly normal individual with healthy appetites, and his very ordinary name reflects that.

Victorian novelist Charles Dickens also had a tendency to name some of his characters after certain aspects of

their personality. His 1854 novel Hard Times lays bare appalling factory conditions in the fictional industrial city of
Coketown, northern England. The school master Thomas Gradgrind, whose emphasis on efficiency and a strictly

utilitarian mode of thinking directly contributes to such hardship, is interested only in cold dry facts, which we
witness him grinding into people's heads in a mechanised fashion. And Mr. M'Choakumchild, a teacher at

Gradgrind's school, smothers all the vitality out of the children he teaches, which is again suggested by his name.

But that last example is also a caricature rather than a fully rounded character. He feels two-dimensional, able to
be summed up in a single idea or sentiment. M'Choakumchild appears only a handful of times in Dickens' novel,

and we only really need to know that one thing about him, that he's cruel to the children under his care.
Characters like this represent a type, and are created as a plot device, or for comic effect. We don't really imagine

them in other scenarios beyond those they appear in, or suppose they have much of an interior life. And they tend
to make only brief appearances before being ushered off the page.

The more developed characters on the other hand, those that come to be central to the plot, need more
explication than that. They can't be summed up so easily, and we need time to get to know them properly. They're

likely to be more complex, and act in surprising, unexpected ways. Often the author won't do anything as
straightforward as describing to you all the aspects of these more rounded characters' personalities on their first

entrance into the novel. But it's possible that we will learn some things about their appearance. Their hair colour

for instance, or the way they dress. D. H. Lawrence's 1920 novel Women in Love has, as two of its central

characters, the Brangwen sisters, Gudrun and Ursula. On the second page of the novel we're introduced to the
younger of the two, 25-year-old Gudrun, in the following way:

"Gudrun was very beautiful, passive, soft-skinned, soft-limbed. She wore a dress of dark-blue silky stuff, with
ruches of blue and green linen lace in the neck and sleeves; and she had emerald-green stockings. Her look of

confidence and diffidence contrasted with Ursula's sensitive expectancy."

But in terms of actual character - temperament, likes and dislikes, behaviour towards others, and so on - we

usually have to be a little more patient.

Now, one way we might learn about a character's personality would be from the statement of an authoritative

voice in a novel, such as the narrator. The opening of Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma is a famous example of

this.

"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite

some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to
distress or vex her." There we are offered some insight into Emma's personality or disposition. She's happy,

bright, and worry free. So in this example, much of the work appears to have been done for us. A judgement has

been made, and it's assumed that we as readers will go along with it. Because this is the opening description,
offered by someone in authority, the impact tends to be quite powerful.

But of course this is also a static impression, one that leaves no space for character development or surprises.

And, to complicate things further, that judgement or description may well have been offered by someone with a

biased attitude towards that particular character. He or she might have reason to feel a certain way towards the
person being described. He might be in love with her for instance, or she might be his sworn enemy. Or, on the

other hand, they might not know enough about the person to provide a complete assessment. And, as we saw in

the previous week, even if it is the narrator offering a judgement, as is the case with this example from Jane

Austen, this might not be a reliable one, or one we can take on trust. The character might also start to behave

differently depending on what's going on around them. So, when we meet this individual for ourselves, our

assessment of them might well change.