Characters and characterization

All stories have characters

• Characters are fictive or real persons that think,
act or are acted upon in a narrative
• The term plot-driven is sometimes used to
describe fiction in which a preconceived storyline
is the main thrust, with the characters' behavior
being molded by this inevitable sequence of
events. Plot-driven is regarded as being the
opposite of character-driven, in which the
character(s are) the main focus of the work.
– Wikipedia
 Not all characters are people
• Characters can be any psychological presence
or personality
– Animals
– Robots
– Aliens
– Artificial intelligence
– Magical beings
– Spirits/ghosts
– Even objects
 Characterization
• Characterization is the many ways that
characters are constructed for the audience
member. The narrator can explicitly provide
character information or can provide
information that implies things about a
character.
Means of conveying character information
to the audience
• The narrator can describe the character directly:
– “She was tall and muscular, but with dark eyes and a soft
voice”
• Other characters can describe her
– To another character
– To himself (internal focalization)
• The character can describe herself
– To another character
– Internal focalization (VO)
• A character’s actions and thoughts can
provide clues to the character’s personality,
etc.
– Actions and thoughts can be revealed directly or
through focalization techniques, other characters’
talk, etc.
 Flat v. round characters
• The depth with which the character is
presented determines whether the character
is ‘round’ (deep) or ‘flat’ (shallow)
 Round characters
• Round characters are fully developed by an
author, physically, mentally, and emotionally,
and are detailed enough to seem real.
• Rarely can more than a few characters be
‘round’
– Too much detail, time spent in development, etc.
– Stereotypic characters are efficient
– Usually only main characters are round
 Flat characters
• Flat characters are distinguished by their lack
of detail and depth.
• Supporting characters are usually flat, as most
minor roles do not require a great deal of
complexity.
 Stock characters
• A number of stereotypical, or "stock"
characters, have developed throughout the
history of drama.
– E.g., country bumpkin, con artist, city slicker.
• Stock characters are often flat characters,
though elements of stock characters can be
found in round characters as well.
 Stock characters
• Stock characters are defined more by their
role in the narrative than by their personality.
– The sidekick
– The prostitute with a heart of gold
– The hired killer
– The well-meaning but clueless parents
– The unknown soldier brought along just to be
killed
 Propp’s Character Roles
• Propp concluded that all the characters could
be resolved into only 7 broad character types
in the 100 Russian Folk tales he analyzed:
• The villain — struggles against the hero.
• The donor — prepares the hero or gives the
hero some magical object.
• The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the
quest.
• The princess and her father — gives the task
to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries
the hero, often sought for during the
narrative.
• Propp noted that functionally, the princess and
the father can not be clearly distinguished.
• The dispatcher — character who makes the
lack known and sends the hero off.
• The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to
the donor, weds the princess.
• False hero/anti-hero/usurper — takes credit
for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the
princess.
• These roles can sometimes be distributed
among various characters
– E.g., the hero kills the villain dragon, and the
dragon's sisters take on the villainous role of
chasing him
• A single character could take on more than
one role
– E.g, a father could send his son on a quest and
give him a sword, acting as both dispatcher and
donor
 Dynamic v. static characters
• A dynamic character is one who changes
significantly during the course of the story.
• changes in insight or understanding
• changes in commitment
• changes in values
• Protagonists are often dynamic characters
– Being changed by a quest
– Coming of age
– Gaining insight and wisdom
Dimensions of characterization
• Physical appearance
• Capabilities
• Demographics
• Personality
• Behavior
• Role
• Relationships
 What makes a good character?
• Audience members can relate to him
– One of the most important influences over the
emotion generated in watching a narrative is
whether the audience members can identify
with the characters
• Different audience members may identify with
different characters
• “Tim Shafer agreed that empathizing with
characters is definitely the key. Great stories
have characters that seem real, characters
you can't stop thinking about. Characters you
want to help. "It's hard to do," he confesses.
But a memorable story will stick with you for
years, and that empathy is the major reason
why.”
– “Why Isn't the Game Industry Making Interactive Stories?”
www.gamespy.com
 What makes a good character?
• The character takes action based on some
motivation
– Not a ‘lump’
– Not merely reactive
 What makes a good character?
• Whatever strengths, weaknesses, personality
quirks the the character has, she has them in
abundance (but not to the point of neuroses)
– Star Trek
• Not unidimensional
– Good guys have faults
– Bad guys have redeeming qualities
 Archetypes
• Though Carl Jung identifed the first archetypes
based on story patterns in 1919, authors like
Joseph Campbell and James Hillman
continued the work he'd begun. Other authors
have reorganized the information, often
blending Jungian archetypes or recognizing
sub-archetypes within Jung's structure.
 Jung’s four main archetypes:
• The Self, the regulating center of the psyche
and facilitator of individuation
• The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image,
often containing qualities that the ego does
not identify with but possesses nonetheless
• The Anima, the feminine image in a man's
psyche
• The Animus, the masculine image in a
woman's psyche
• Although the number of archetypes is
limitless, there are a few particularly notable,
recurring archetypal images:
• The Syzygy
• The Child
• The Hero
• The Great Mother
• The Wise old man
• The Trickster or Fox
• The Puer Aeternus (Latin for "eternal boy")
• The Cosmic Man
• The artist-scientist
• The Scarlet Women
• The Faceless Man
 Dramatica
• Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley’s Dramatica defines eight
different archetypes defined by their "Action" and "Decision"
characteristics:
• Driver Characters:
– Protagonist: "... the driver of the story: the one who forces the action." Defined by
"Pursue" and "Consideration" characteristics.
• Jungian equivalent: Hero
– Antagonist: "... the character directly opposed to the Protagonist." "Prevent" & "Re-
consideration".
• Jungian equivalent: Shadow
– Guardian: "... a teacher or helper who aids the Protagonist..." "Help" & "Conscience"
• Jungian equivalent: Wise Old Man or Wise Old Woman, also sometimes referred to collectively
as The Mentor
– Contagonist: "... hinders and deludes the Protagonist..." "Hinder" & "Temptation"
• Passenger Characters
– Reason: "... makes its decisions and takes action on the
basis of logic..." "Control" & "Logic"
– Emotion: "... responds with its feelings without thinking..."
"Uncontrolled" & "Feeling"
– Sidekick: "... unfailing in its loyalty and support." "Support"
& "Faith".
– Skeptic: "... doubts everything..." "Oppose" & "Disbelief"
• Jung's Trickster archetype often overlaps here, since its purpose is
to question and rebel against the established way of doing things
• Wikipedia
 Character as symbol
• In some readings, certain characters are
understood to represent a given quality or
abstraction. Rather than simply being people,
these characters stand for something larger.
• Characters have symbolized:
• Christ
• Capitalist greed
• The futility of fulfilling the American Dream
• Romanticism
• Feminism
• Wikipedia
 Character as Representative
• Another way of reading characters
symbolically is to understand each character
as a representative of a certain group of
people.
– Concern over stereotyping
• Stock characters
• The Media Awareness Network of Canada (MNet)
has prepared a number of statements about the
portrayals of American Indian and Alaskan Natives in
the media:
– “Westerns and documentaries have tended to portray
Natives as stereotypes: the wise elder, the aggressive
drunk, the Indian princess, the loyal sidekick. These images
have become ingrained in the consciousness of all North
Americans.”
• Native Americans have been stereotyped as nature
lovers who believe that all people must respect it.
• Hollywood's portrayal of the American West
essentially used Native tribes as a malignant
presence to be wiped out or reined in.
• Portrayals of Native characters as primitive, violent
and deceptive, or as passive and full of childlike
obedience, extended to TV, novels and comics.
– Media Awareness Network
 Characters as historical or
biographical references
• Sometimes characters obviously represent
important historical figures.
• Nazi-hunter Yakov Liebermann in The Boys from
Brazil by Ira Levin is often compared to real life
Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal
• Corrupted populist politician Willie Stark from All
the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is often
compared to Louisiana governor Huey P. Long.
 Character popularity
• http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/show-
patrol/2010/03/best-tv-character-
tournament-round-1.html
• Frequently authors base stories on themselves
or their loved ones. Sometimes writers create
composite characters based on two or more
individuals.
• Many critics devote their time to seeking out
real people on whom literary figures were
likely based.
 Characters as patients
• Psychoanalytic criticism usually treats
characters as real people possessing complex
psyches. Psychoanalytic critics approach
literary characters as an analyst would treat a
patient, searching their dreams, past, and
behavior for explanations of their fictional
situations.
• Alternatively, some psychoanalytic critics read
characters as mirrors for the audience's psychological
fears and desires. Rather than representing realistic
psyches then, fictional characters offer readers a way
to act out psychological dramas of their own in
symbolic and often hyperbolic form.
– Freud’s analysis of Oedipus
 Characters as words
• Some language- or text-oriented critics
emphasize that characters are nothing more
than certain conventional uses of words on a
page: names or even just pronouns repeated
throughout a text. They refer to characters as
functions of the text.
 Actor and character
• With the rise of the "star" system in Hollywood,
many famous actors are so familiar that it can be
hard to limit our reading of their character to a
single film. In some sense, Bruce Lee is always
Bruce Lee, Woody Allen is always Woody Allen,
Tom Cruise is always Tom Cruise, and Harrison
Ford is always Harrison Ford; all often portray
characters that are very alike, so audiences fuse
the star persona with the characters they tend to
play.