CHARACTERS

1. Since literature is about human experience, all literary works have characters A character is usually an imaginary person created to play a role in a literary work.  Some are pure creations & some are drawn from writer’s experience. Literary characters are created for a purpose, but real-life ppl just are what they are.  Since they are created for a purpose, they usually have certain coherence & definition.definition. Nonhuman characters figure prominently in some forms of literature.  Animals, trees, rocks, other things in nature (wind, thunder) that can talk can be found in Aesop’s Fables, children’s literature & animated cartoons.  Anthropomorphism – animal & nonliving things are humanized (human speech & feeling are attributed to them)  Generally they can only be used in literature if they are given human characteristics.  Compare describing a duck in scientiifc terms, a farmyard animal & Donald Duck

TYPES OF CHARACTER Protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most emphaty. An antagonist is a character or force opposing the main character. The characters which are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work is known as flat characters. A round character is fully-developed & three-dimensional character that is utterly plausible. A foil character serves as a contrast to another primary character, so as to point out specific traits of the primary character. Stock characters rely on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. An exaggerated character type is known as a Grotesque. A non-fictional character is a character that is a real-life figure, whether played by an actor or used as an actual historical figure in a work of fiction.

How much the reader should know about a character depends on the nature of the literary work.  A literary work is often like a view through a keyhole.  We see only a portion of a character’s life, the rest is implied.  To make characters realistic, writers have to know more about the character than is revealed to the reader  Unnecessary for writers & readers to know everything about a character to create the illusion of reality, just need depth of understanding and skilful presentation. Characters in literature can be presented with the help of a number of literary devices.  Diff genre may use diff devices to bring character to life.  Common devices to use in all forms of creative writing are description, dialogue and thoughts.  There are certain goals to achieve when you present your characters: What do your characters look like? (appearance) What are your characters thinking? (depth) Why do your characters do what they do? (motivation) How believable are your characters? (plausibility)

2. There is often some literary significance in a character’s physical appearance A character’s physical appearance is sometimes influenced by literary traditions.  Internal good or evil is reflected in the external qualities of a character.  Heroes are attractive, villains are ugly. In some works the physical appearance of a character is merely implied or is left entirely up to the reader’s imagination.  The amount of physical detail provided by the author involves questions of style & influenced by the conventions of the genre.  Refer to Hemingway.

3. Characters in literary work should have a certain depth of development. Characters can be classified as flat or round.flat round.  Entertainment literature does not require characters with depth- need only stock characters to amuse readers.stock characters The deeper qualities in round characters are those qualities that make the characters more lifelike & meaningful.

4. The behaviour of a three-dimensional character has to be logically motivated. Every human action is motivated by some internal or external factor.

5. Proper development makes characters believable Some characters are not plausible because they are fantasy figures and not realistic human beings. Realistic characters must be believable.