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Characterization or characterisation is the representation of persons (or other beings or creatures) in narrative and dramatic
works Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * '' ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album)'', a Pink Floyd album from 1983 * ''Works'', a Gary Burton album ...
. 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'
action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
s, dialogue, or appearance. Such a personage is called a
character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
. Character is a literary element.


History

The term ''characterization'' was introduced in the 19th century.Harrison (1998, pp. 51-2) 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 An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
can convey information about a character: ;''Direct'' or ''
explicit Explicit refers to something that is specific, clear, or detailed. It can also mean: * Explicit knowledge Explicit knowledge (also expressive knowledge) is knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified, stored and accessed. It can be expres ...
'' characterization: The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. This may be done via the
narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the a ...
, another character or by the character themselves. ;''Indirect'' or ''
implicit Implicit may refer to: Mathematics * Implicit function * Implicit function theorem * Implicit curve * Implicit surface * Implicit differential equation Other uses * Implicit assumption, in logic * Implicit-association test, in social psycholog ...
'' 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 Classification is a process related to categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Classification is the grouping of related facts into classes. It may also refer to: Business, organizat ...
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. Mythological characters have influence that extends to recent works of literature. The poet
Platon Oyunsky Platon Oyunsky (; ( sah, Платон Алексеевич Ойуунускай; — 31 October 1939) was the pseudonym of Platon Alekseevich Sleptsov () who was a Yakut Soviet writer, philologist and public figure and one of the founders ...
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. 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. 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.


Character archetypes

The psychologist
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
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. 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.


Character's voice

A character's voice is their manner of speech. 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. When a character voice has been created that is rich and distinctive, the writer can get away with omitting many speech attributions (tag lines). The manner of a character's speech is to literature what an actor's appearance and costume are to cinema. In fiction, what a character says, as well as how they say it, makes a strong impression on the reader. Each character should have their distinctive voice. 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. 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, age, culture, family background, region, gender, education, and circumstances. Words characterize by their diction, cadence, complexity, attitude 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. 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. 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. 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.


See also

*
Character creation Character creation (also character generation or character design) is the process of defining a game character or other character. Typically, a character's individual strengths and weaknesses are represented by a set of statistics. Games with a ...
*
Character traits In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of ''traits'', which can be defined as habitual patterns of behaviour, ...


Notes


References

*Aston, Elaine, and George Savona (1991)
''Theatre as Sign-System: A Semiotics of Text and Performance''
London and New York: Routledge. . * * * * *Harrison, Martin (1998), ''The Language of Theatre''. London: Routledge. . * * * Pelican, Kira-Anne (2020), ''The Science of Writing Characters: Using psychology to create compelling fictional characters''. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 1501357255


External links

* by Dr. Marilyn H. Stauffer of the University of South Florida
Lecture about Fiction
by Professor Waters of the
Western Kentucky University Western Kentucky University is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a quarter-century earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glasgow, Elizabethtow ...
, especially th
accompanying PowerPoint presentation
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(from the University of Victoria)
Drama Theory15 Days to Stronger CharactersHow to Create Compelling Characters
{{Authority control Narratology Fiction Literary terminology