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Methods of Characterization
In presenting and establishing character, an author has two basis methods or techniques at his disposal. One method is telling, which relies on exposition and direct commentary by the author. The other method is the indirect, dramatic method of showing, which involves the author’s stepping aside, as it were, to allow the character to reveal themselves directly through their dialogue and their actions.
Direct methods of revealing character – characterization by telling – include the following methods:
1. CHARACTERIZATION THROUGH THE USE OF NAMES. Names are often used to provide essential clues that aid in characterization. Some characters are given names that suggest their dominant or controlling traits, as, for example, Edward Murdstone (in Dickens’ David Copperfield) and Roger Chillingsworth (in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter). Both men are cold-hearted villains their names suggest. Other characters are given names that reinforce (or sometimes are in contrast to) their physical appearance, much in the way that Ichabod Crane, the gangling schoolmaster in Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, resembles his long-legged namesake. Names can also contain literary or historical allusions that aid in characterization by means of association. The name ‘Ethan Brand’, referring to the wandering lime burner who gives his name to Hawthorne’s short story, contains an allusion to the mark or brand of Cain a legacy of guilt that the outcast Brand shares with his Biblical counterpart. One must also, however, be alert to names used ironically which characterize through inversion. Such is the case with the foolish Fortunato of Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, who surely must rank with the most unfortunate of men.
2. CHARACTERIZATION THROUGH APPEARANCE. Although in real life most of us are aware that appearances are often deceiving, in the world of fiction details of appearance often provide essential clue to character.
Details of dress and physical appearance should be scrutinized closely for what they may reveal about character. Details of dress may offer clues to background, occupation, economic and social status, and perhaps, as with Robin Molineux, even a clue to the character’s degree of self-respect. Details of physical appearance can help to identify a character’s age and the general state of his physical and emotional health and well-being: whether the character is strong or weak, happy or sad, calm or agitated. Appearance can be used in other ways as well, particularly with minor characters who are flat and static. By common agreement, certain physical attributes have become identified over a period of time with certain kinds of inner psychological state. For example, the characters who are tall and thin are often associated with intellectual or aesthetic types who are withdrawn and introspective. Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingsworth, the two major male characters in The Scarlet Letter, share these traits. Portly or fat characters, on the other hand, suggest an opposite kind of personality, one characterized by a degree of laziness, self-indulgence, and congeniality, as in the case of Fielding’s Parson Adams or Dickens’ Tony Weller. Such convenient and economical shortcuts to characterization are perfectly permissible, of course, as long as they result in characters who are in their own way convincing.
3. CHARACTERIZATION BY THE AUTHOR. In the most customary form of telling, the author interrupts the narrative and reveals directly, through a series of editorial comments, the nature and personality of the characters, including the thoughts and feelings that enter and pass through the characters’ minds. By doing so, the author asserts and retains full control over characterization. The author not only directs our attention to a given character, but tells us exactly what our attitude toward the character ought to be. Nothing is left to the reader’s imagination. Unless the author is being ironic – and there is always that possibility – we can do little more than assent and allow our conception of character to be formed on the basis of what the author has told us.
4. CHARACTERIZATION THROUGH DIALOGUE. Real life is quite literally filled with talk. People are forever talking about themselves and between themselves, communicating bits and pieces of information. Not all of the information is important or even particularly interesting; much of it smacks of the kind of inconsequential small talk we expect at a cocktail party; it tells us relatively little about the personality of the speaker, except, perhaps, whether he or she is at ease in social situations. Some light fiction reproduces dialogue as might occur in reality, but the best authors trim everything that is inconsequential. What remains is weighty and substantial and carries with it the force of the speaker’s attitudes, values and beliefs. We pay attention to such talk because it is interesting, and if we are attempting to understand the speaker, because it may consciously or unconsciously serve to reveal his innermost character and personality.
The task of establishing character through dialogue is not a simple one. Some characters are careful and guarded in what they say: they speak only by indirection, and we must infer from their words what they actually mean.
It is rare work of fiction whose author does not employ dialogue in some way to reveal, establish, and reinforce character. For this reason the reader must be prepared to analyze dialogue in a number of different ways: for what is being said, the identity of the speaker, the occasion, the identity of the person or persons the speaker is addressing, the quality of the exchange, and the speaker’s tone of voice, stress, dialect, and vocabulary.
a) What is being said. To begin with, the reader must pay close attention to the substance of the dialogue itself. Is it small talk, or is the subject an important one in the developing action of the plot? In terms of characterization, if the speaker insists on talking only about himself or only on a single subject, we may conclude that we have either an egoist or a bore. If the speaker talks only about others, we may have merely a gossip and busybody.
b) The identity of the speaker. Obviously, on balance, what the protagonist says must be considered to be potentially more important (and hence revealing) than what minor characters say, although the conversation of a minor character often provides crucial information and can also shed important light on the personalities of the other characters and on his or her own as well.
c) The occasion. In real life, conversations that take place in private at night are usually more serious and, hence, more revealing than conversations that take place in public during the day. Talk in the bedroom, for example, is usually more significant than talk in the street or at the supermarket. On the whole, this is probably also true in fiction as well, but the reader should always consider the likelihood that seemingly idle talk on the street or at the supermarket ahs been included by the author because it is somehow important to the story being told.
d) The identity of the person or persons the speaker is addressing. Dialogue between friends is usually more candid and open, and thus more significant, than dialogue between strangers. The necessary degree of intimacy is usually established by the author in setting a scene or through the dialogue itself. When a character addresses no one in particular, or when others are not present, his speech is called a monologue, although, strictly speaking, monologues occur more frequently in drama than in fiction.
e) The quality of the exchange. The way a conversation ebbs and flows is important, too. When there is real give-and-take to a discussion, the characters can be presumed to be open-minded. Where there is none, one or more of the characters are presumably opinionated or close-minded. Where there is a certain degree of evasiveness in the responses, a character may be secretive and have something to hide.
f) The speaker’s tone of voice, stress, dialect and vocabulary. The speaker’s tone of voice (either stated or implied) may reveal his attitude toward himself (whether, for example, he is confident and at ease or self-conscious and shy) and the attitude toward those with whom he is speaking. His attitude to others may, for example, be either warm and friendly or cold, detached, and even hostile. Moreover, the reader must also be alert to suggestions of irony in the speaker’s voice, which would suggest that what is being said is quite the opposite from what is actually meant. Finally, dialect, stress and word choice all provide important clues to character: they may reflect the character’s origin, occupation or social class.
5. CHARACTERIZATION THROUGH ACTION. Character and action are often regarded as two sides of the same coin. To establish character on the basis of action, it is necessary to scrutinize the several events of the plot for what they seem to reveal about the characters, about their unconscious emotional and psychological states as well as about their conscious attitudes and values. Some actions are inherently more meaningful in this respect than others. A gesture or facial expression usually carries with it less significance that some larger and overt act, but it is not always the case. Very often it is the small and involuntary action, by very virtue of its spontaneous and unconscious quality, that tells us more about a character’s inner life than a larger, premeditated act, reflecting decision and choice. In either case, whether the action is large or small, conscious or unconscious, it is necessary to identify the common pattern of behaviour of which each separate action is a part. One helpful way of doing so is on the basis of motive, the attempt to trace certain effects back to their underlying causes. If we are successful in doing so, a consistent pattern of motivation appears, then it is fairly safe to assume that we have made some important discoveries about the character.