Analysis del Discurso y la Literatura en Lengua Inglesa

Character and Characterisation

Character as a sign:
According to C.S. Pierce, a sign is something that stands to somebody for something
else in some respect or capacity; a physical presence referring to something absent.
If we take the case of a character on stage, this may also be the case.
Umberto Eco considers the example of a drunken man presented before the crowd at a
Salvation Army meeting.
At a first level, the drunken man stands for a drunken man. That is to the class of drunk
men to which he belongs; it may, at another level, suggest to the audience that there are,
among us, drunk men at this particular place and time; or that there are many drunken
men in the world; or that this (red face, red nose, dirty clothes) is what will happen to
you if you become a drunk man, as a warning against intemperance, etc. Here, our
interpretation is dependent on convention, and is determined by the particular context
that surrounds the presentation of the drunk man.
However, we should always remember that the actor on stage plays the part of a
particular person; the actor is a sign of an individual, although that individual, in turn,
may be representative.

Theories of Character and Characterisation.

Here are a couple of typical definitions of characterisation:
“The depicting in writing of clear images of a person, his actions and manners of
thought and life. A man’s nature, environment, habits, emotions, desires, instincts:
all these go to make people what they are, and the skilful writer makes his important
people clear to us through a portrayal of these elements.”

“Characters are people endowed with specific moral and dispositional qualities, who
carry on the action . . . the sphere of character can be widened to include even the
thought and speeches in which it manifests itself as well as actions motivated by
character.”

Note the tendency to equate character and person: is this legitimate?

Is it acceptable to consider thoughts and speeches as part of character, or are they
manifestations of character?
A widespread tendency is to think in terms of character features or traits, which we
will return to.

Aristotle:

In Aristotle’s theories action is uppermost. Agents who perform actions come

second.
Although agents are necessary to action, character is not.
Traits are added on to agents later.
One trait is essential: that which derives from the action he performs: e.g. the
murderer is murderous; the usurer is usurious.
Therefore, the key traits of agents are determined by their function, even before the
addition of “character.”
Aristotle considers one more trait as being practically essential: he must be either
noble or base as human character often conforms to these distinctions as all persons are
different in terms of some quality of good or evil.
Aristotle’s view is that these traits are not added on, but are inherent in the actions the
agents perform: “By character I mean that element in accordance with which we say
that agents are of a certain type.”
In this regard Chatman suggests: “This element is a composite of personality features,
or traits, culled from such sources as ethics and, especially, the type-formulas in
classical rhetoric”: e.g. the young, the old, the man of power, etc.

Aristotle considers 4 dimensions of characterisation:

Being good (chrestos) (or bad);
“Appropriate” traits allowing features to be delineated in greater detail in ways
related to action (harmotton);
the characteristic “like”: this suggests being “like an individual”; idiosyncratic
traits which soften but do not obscure the general outline (note: these traits are taken
from legend, not from nature) (homoios);
consistency: those traits revealed in speeches at the end should be the same as at the
start (homalon).

Formalist and Structuralist Views.

Formalist and structuralist views of character emphasise the status of characters as
functions or actants above their status as personages.
For Vladimir Propp, sex, age, appearance, status, etc., are merely similarities and
differences.
Tomashevsky considered character as:
a sort of living support for motives;
a running process for grouping and connecting;
an auxiliary means for classing and ordering particular motives.
Character is a composite of characteristics: the system of motifs tied to the
personage that constitute his “psyche” although the hero isn’t really necessary for the
plot
Such a theory (with its lists of functions and actants) does not account for the
heterogeneity and complexity of the character traits of modern fictional characters.

Henry James: What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident
but the illustration of character?
Note that both incident and character are necessary to narrative.
The modern tendency is to place greater emphasis and importance on character but plot
is necessary for both narrative and drama.
Todorov distinguishes between plot-centred/apsychological narratives (and dramas)
and character-centred/psychological narratives (and dramas).
Roland Barthes: in S/Z he refers to the semic code which reveals properties of
character and setting (code is sometimes referred to as voice or area of significance).
He writes:
Character is a product of combinations: the combination is relatively stable
(denoted by the recurrence of the seme) and more or less complex (involving
more or less contradictory figures [traits]); this complexity determines the
character’s ‘personality’, which is just as much a combination as the odour of a
dish or the bouquet of a wine.
He also says, “To read is to struggle to name, to subject the sentences of the text to a
semantic transformation.” We continually transform the qualities of characters in such
a way that we recognise them as heroes, villains, good, evil, etc.

Character as an open or closed construct:

One view; character as a closed construct: Characters are just words on a page and
it is pointless to speculate about their “personality.”

However, we do speculate about characters, we interpret their character, we know

them in that we reconstruct them and speculation and inference are involved in our
interpretation of character.

An Open Theory of Character:

The reader reconstructs what the characters are like (interpretation, speculation,
inference). Characters are not merely functions or actants.
Character is the totality of mental traits that make up a self which is the quality of
uniqueness and persistence through changes . . . leading to the distinction among
selves (Chatman).
These traits are.
1) A system of interdependent habits; 2) observed through repeated
actions/reactions which seem to be consistently a function of the same underlying
determinant; 3) traits not totally independent of each other (e.g. expansion goes
with extroversion; ascendance with conservatism; humour with insight, etc.); 4) acts
and even habits not consistent with a trait do not prove the non-existence of the
trait: there are contradictory traits in a personality, dependent on the moment.
We should pay attention to features like: the importance of the persistence of a trait in
characterisation: complex characters may have contradictory traits.
Trait names (sources): the source of trait names (how we name the qualities we
attribute to characters) is really a social thing derived from institutions, arts and
science, etc.
Virtues and vices as established by the church (devotion, pity, patience); Astrology as a
source for jovial, saturnine, etc.; Galenian medicine and the comedies of humours for
good humoured, cold bloodied, sanguine (beneficent, joyful, amorous), choleric
(impatient, obstinate, vengeful, easily angered), phlegmatic (dull, pale, cowardly),
melancholic (gluttonous, thoughtful, sentimental, affected); comedies of manners,
deriving from this, for witty, rakish, a dandy, etc.; the Reformation for its references to
sincere, bigoted, fanatic, self-assured; neo-Classicism for fatuous, callous, countrified;
Romanticism for depressed, melancholy, dejected, apathetic, diffident,; psychology
and psychoanalysis for introverted, neurotic, schizoid; etc. (see Chatman). The theatre
itself and in particular the tragedy has often highlighted a particular character trait as
being the “fatal flaw” (hamartia) which leads to the hero’s downfall: ambition, jealousy,
contemplation, etc.
Note: in the 17th and 18th centuries “Characters” were popular: i.e. “A Character of
…”. These were sketches which presented a personage, not as an individual, but as a
type; someone who typifies a particular quality, or is an example of a particular virtue or
vice. Such characters were busybodies, happy milkmaids, country bumpkins, etc. These
are the types or stereotypes that we often come across. These “characters” seem to have
been influenced by the “man of humours” from the comedies of that type.
There is also a structuralist or transformational view of the text which can be considered
as having a semantic deep structure like that of a sentence. Characters, then, can be
considered in terms of their roles (like syntactical role types), as agents or patients, for
example, and the plot becomes a sequence of verbs or predicates. If characters are
described in terms of their roles, like agent, patient, beneficiary, intermediary, goal, or
location here, then typical predicates would be the pursuit, flight, quest, murder,
captivity, rejection, etc. Such roles can be considered as typical and allows us to turn
characters into types, like hero, villain, helper, donor, princess, etc.
These roles can also be considered as obvious types and can be classified into hero,
villain, rogue, princess, helper, etc.
Here, again, we can think in terms of stock characters and stock situations.

Role analysis is related to the function of characters within the plot. As far as roles are
concerned, individual differences are not significant:
e.g.
The king sends Ivan to find the princess. Ivan leaves.
The blacksmith sends his apprentice to find the cow. The apprentice leaves.

These are functionally equivalent but there are obvious differences when we consider
these nouns as lexical items: they become characters and are identified in terms of
particular qualities or traits which do allow us to distinguish them.
Individuality is dependent upon specific details although we can consider fictional
characters as being like nouns constructed out of conventional semantic materials.

One way we can describe character is through componential analysis where each
character is considered as a cluster of semantic features, distinctive features, attributes,
traits, or semes.

One way of considering this kind of analysis is as if it were a game of “20 Questions”:
Is the person still living?
Male or female?
Adult or child?
Young or old?
Good or bad?
Strong or weak?
And so on…
This is not something that we actually do when reading a text but we intuitively become
aware of similarities, differences and other relations in terms of these attributes and
qualities, the distinguishing features of characters.

Hence, we realise that characters are subject to distinctions of gender and other
attributes so that each character is constructed out of a system of semes which
constitute the qualities or traits of the character.
To a large extent, our notion of character in a novel is dependent on convention.
As with stock characters and situations there is a stock of physical, behavioural,
psychological and verbal attributes with which characters are put together.

The semes or traits of characters in literary texts sometimes reflect clichés or social
stereotypes: aggression, materialism, possessiveness, piety, innocence, elegance, etc.
Here is one notion of how character is constructed:
A character is an actant who has a particular function within the plot: i.e he has a
particular role. A character is also an assemblage of semes or traits; the qualities and
attributes that are “hung” on a name which becomes the repository of these
traits/attributes. Don’t forget the importance of naming characters.

The configuration of features of a character (or place) often overlaps or contrasts

with others which allows the reader to fit them into categories and discover their
relations.

From this perspective, just as the story is a sentence and the characters are nouns, then
the traits of the characters are adjectives.
Note that the character need not be described in terms of a particular trait as the reader
will infer that trait from the character’s way of speaking, his actions or lack of action (a
character does not have to be described as timid in order to be so).

We can view character as being a grouping or paradigm of traits.

Note that traits may change as a character develops. For example, in Great
Expectations, Pip is first shy, then snobbish then humble.
This means we can distinguish between passing moods and abiding qualities.
The reader is involved in putting together the fragments of evidence which are
indicative of the character’s qualities.
These qualities or traits come together in the name of the character: the name is the
locus of the characters qualities. The proper name is the sum of these traits, or the
point of convergence of them.
The proper name allows the person to exist outside the semes (that is, the
characteristics, once related to a particular proper name, need not be named for us to
associate these traits with that name).

Kinds of character:
One broad distinction in terms of character is that suggested by E.M. Forster: flat
characters and round characters, which is basically the distinction between characters
who have one single distinguishing trait and those which have a variety of traits,
traits which develop and change; an agglomerate of traits.

We should bear in mind that we often infer a character’s traits from the following:
What a character does and does not do (actions and his reaction to actions and
events);
What a character says and does not say;
What is said to a character;
What is said about a character;
What a character says about himself;
How what a character says about himself and how what others say about him is
corroborated or denied by his actions.
Often, there is a distinction between a character’s public image, what others say about
him, and what he is really like.
A.C. Bradley considers the character of Iago in Othello by Shakespeare:
His public image, what others say, includes the following traits: courageous, vulgar,
blunt, jovial, a plain-dealer, satiric, serious, and honest (above all).
Of course, Iago is, in fact, an equivocal character whose motives for conspiring to bring
about the downfall of Othello are never completely clear.

General:
In lyric poetry, autobiography and the essay, the author reveals aspects of his own
character.
In biography and history, the author presents the characters of actual persons other
than himself.
In fiction (narrative and dramatic), the author reveals the character of imaginary
persons.

There are 3 basic methods (these may be combined):

Explicit presentation through direct exposition (on introducing a character and/or
throughout a work; character would also be illustrated by action;
The presentation of the character in action (dramatic) with little or no explicit
comment by the author (narrator): the reader has to deduce/infer the character’s
attributes;
Representation from within the character without authorial comment: the
representation of the impact/effect of emotions and events/actions on the mind/inner self
of the character in the belief the reader will thus infer the attributes of the character.
Some critics see the dramatic approach as more direct without the intervening
mediation of a narrator which they consider (perhaps paradoxically) an indirect form
of presentation of character.

Remember we infer the attributes of characters from what we are told about them by
the narrator, what they say about themselves, what others say about them, and by
how their actions corroborate our understanding of their character

All of the above can be related to the question of point of view in a narrative text,
whether the narrator is a limited, first person narrator or an omniscient narrator. In a
narrative text, there is the possibility of stream of consciousness (interior monologue)
where we contemplate the effect of actions and events on the inner self of the
character.
In a drama, we know about character through what a character says and does (this is
true also of narrative although there are alternative forms of presentation).

Static and dynamic:

A static character is one to whom things happen although there is no change within
him (to his character).
A dynamic character is one whose character is modified during the progress of the
action; his character is affected by action and events; often the object of the work is
to show the effects of action and events on the character: e.g. a sentimental
education; the growth of the artist’s mind (bildungsroman; künstlerroman), etc.

The Concrete Universal:

We recognise typical or universal traits in the individual (we recognise them
because they are typical); the particular individual depicted in a work becomes
representative of something universal.
In the commentary:
State what characters are presented/introduced;
Is this the object of the text (i.e. to present character)?
Describe how character is presented (through dialogue, action, narrative description,
interior monologue, etc.; a combination of these);
Consider whether characters are static or dynamic;
Consider whether characters are consistent with their actions;
Consider whether what characters say about themselves is consistent with what
others say, what the narrator says, etc;
Consider whether the nature of the character is clear or open to interpretation
(ambiguous).
Consider the naming of characters: if the dramatist/narrator calls a character by
his first name or last name, is more or less formal, then our attitude toward the
character may change: e.g. a character who is always called Tom may strike us as more
familiar and likeable than a character who is always referred to as Jones.
Pay attention to forms of address in dialogues in this respect, too, as the attitude of the
addresser is implied.
Consider if the characters are not named.