Characters Characters in action Motivation The rounded personality Caricature Active and passive characters Characters determining plot Number of characters The basic character roles Devices of characterization The development of character

Characters in action We learn a great deal about the characters in a play by closely observing their actions. There are countless questions which can be asked about the characters in action. We ask primarily why a character does what he does and conclude that it must be because he is a certain kind of person.

Motivation The fact remains that the larger actions which characters complete in the course of a play have identifiable motives behind them and thus we as critics have every right and duty to analyze character motivation : love, hope of reward, jealousy, revenge, religious feeling, greed etc.

The rounded personality While we can usually speak of a character’s central motive for doing what he does in the course of the play, we can rarely assume that he has one and only one motive. The playwright has the option of course to allow his character to have only one motive, but, in general, characters come to us as complex human personalities with many facets.

Caricature In fiction we speak of a “caricature’ when a character’s outstanding trait becomes so outstanding that it becomes unbelievable. In drama we generally refer to this kind of character as a type In general we find types among minor characters but almost never among major.

Active and passive characters Some characters in plays do not change; they begin as the same kinds of characters as they are in the end. These passive characters are acted upon by the events of the play: they are usually matic or unchanging Conversely, some characters are active

Characters determining plot The essence of drama, its plot, develops out of the characters themselves. Things should happen in the play because the characters in the play are the way they are. The plot with all of its small episodes and incidents, its complications and simplifications, is motored by the natures of the characters.

Number of characters We must pay attention to the number of characters in the play. Obviously the dramatist cannot include more than he has time enough to develop. Thus in a play which runs for several hours, only a limited number of its characters can be developed

The Basic character roles Lovers Wives Husbands Friends Enemies Tragic heroes Protagonist antagonist

The characters in time When a character walks onto the stage, we know almost nothing about him. We must learn action as well as witness action: the same principle of revealing the events prior to the opening of the play operates in revealing death offstage

Devices of characterization The appearance of the characters Asides and soliloquies Hidden narration Language Character in action

The development of the character Our central task when analyzing character is to delineate and describe the character’s development within the play.