character the buried self

CharacterThe Buried Self

AP English LiteratureHilltop High School

Mrs. Demangos

from Discovering Literature, Guth & Rico, 2nd ed. (68-110)

Isaac Bashevis Singer“I don’t invent characters because the Almighty has already invented millions, just as experts at fingerprints do not create fingerprints but learn how to read them.”

Joyce Carol Oates“I am enormously interested in other people, other lives, and with the least provocation I could “go into” your personality and try to imagine it, try to find a way of dramatizing it. I am fascinated by people I meet, or don’t meet, people I only correspond with, or read about…It seems to me that there are so many people who are inarticulate but who suffer and doubt and love, nobly, who need to be explained.”

Focus on Character

Storytellers create characters and set them in motion.

The writers appeal to an ancient curiosity: we are fascinated with the variety of people in our world.

We are willing to hear about their hopes and fears, their goals and self-doubts, their quirks and ploys, their clever and dense ways.

The more we learn about them, the harder it is for us to stay aloof.

We begin to care; we take sides; we become involved.

Characterization

How do you come to understand a character?

In modern fiction, you read to see a character unfold.

You see people act out (and hear them talk out) who they are.

CHARACTERS UNFOLD

Characterization

An author may choose to make you watch a character from outside, letting you draw your own conclusions.

Or the author may take you inside the character’s mind, letting you overhear private thoughts and share in feelings masked to the outside world.

What is Characterization?

Characterization is the way in which authors convey information about their characters. Characterization can be direct, as when an author tells readers what a character is like (e.g. "George was cunning and greedy.") or

indirect, as when an author shows what a character is like by portraying his or her actions, speech, or thoughts (eg. "On the crowded subway, George slipped his hand into the man's coat pocket and withdrew the wallet, undetected.").

DIRECT

INDIRECT

Characterization

Descriptions of a character's appearance, behavior, interests, way of speaking, and other mannerisms are all part of characterization. For stories written in the first-person point of view, the narrator's voice, or way of telling the story, is essential to his or her characterization.

WHAT IS IT?

Characterization

Characterization is a crucial part of making a story compelling. In order to interest and move readers, characters need to seem real. Authors achieve this by providing details that make characters individual and particular.

Good characterization gives readers a strong sense of characters' personalities and complexities; it makes characters vivid, alive and believable.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Methods of Characterization

Tell the reader directly what a character's personality is like:

"Mrs. Freeman could never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point."

—Flannery O'Connor, “Good Country People”

1


Describe a character's appearance and manner:

"The Baker, who was an older man with a thick neck, listened without saying anything when she told him the child would be eight years old next Monday. The baker wore a white apron that looked like a smock. Straps cut under his arms, went around in back and then to the front again, where they were secured under his heavy waist. He wiped his hands on his apron as he listened to her. He kept his eyes down on the photographs and let her talk."

—Raymond Carver, “A Small, Good Thing"

2


Portray a character's thoughts and motivations:

“She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers."

—Guy de Maupassant, “The Necklace”

3


Portray a character's thoughts and motivations:

"I didn't come to Utah to be the same boy I'd been before. I had my own dreams of transformation, Western dreams, dreams of freedom and dominion and taciturn self-sufficiency. The first thing I wanted to do was change my name. A girl named Toby had joined my class before I left Florida, and this had caused both of us scalding humiliation. I wanted to call myself Jack, after Jack London. "

—Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life

3


Use dialogue to allow a character's words to reveal something important about his or her nature:

4"Unable to contain herself, [Mrs. Bennet] began scolding one of her daughters. 'Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.'"

—Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice


Use a character's actions to reveal his or her personality:

"He would hang around our place on Saturdays, scornful of whatever I was doing but unable to leave me alone. I couldn't be on the swing without him wanting to try it, and if I wouldn't give it up he came and pushed me so that I went crooked. He teased the dog. He got me into trouble—deliberately and maliciously, it seemed to me afterward—by daring me to do things I wouldn't have thought of on my own: digging up the potatoes to see how big they were when they were still only the size of marbles, and pushing over the stacked firewood to make a pile we could jump off." —Alice Munro, "Miles City, Montana"

5


Show others' reactions to the character or person you're portraying:

"No respect at all was shown him in the department. The porters, far from getting up from their seats when he came in, took no more notice of him than if a simple fly had flown across the reception room."

—Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat"

6


Give fictional characters meaningful names or use real people's nicknames that relate to their personalities:

Severus Snape—"Severus" means "strict" or "severe" in Latin. Severus Snape is a strict professor who treats Harry harshly.Sirius Black—"Sirius" is the brightest star in the Canis Major or "Great Dog" constellation. Sirius Black is a wizard who transforms into a black dog.Peeves—"To peeve" means "to annoy." Peeves is a ghost who pesters people at Hogwart's School.—J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter series

7

Flat and Round Characters

Flat characters have a one-track personality: the miser is always a Scrooge, the whiner always finds fault

Such one-dimensional characters are common in popular fiction and make for easy recognition (and sometimes, the easy laugh)

FLAT

ROUND

Flat and Round Characters

Round characters have the combination of traits that make real people complicated and at time infuriating.

Ex.: They may be loyal to a person or a cause—with their loyalty tempered by private doubts. They may be a patriot but discover they have unexpected sympathies for a prisoner of war—the enemy. Be prepared to recognize divided loyalties and mixed emotions.

FLAT

ROUND

Static & Growing Characters

Characters may prove capable of growth, of development.

Ex: stories of Initiation—reenact rites of passage, from childhood to adolescence, or adulthood.

A story may chronicle a stage in a character’s spiritual journey or focus on an important turn in the road of a character’s life.

INITIATION

Person & Persona

Many writers of modern fiction go beyond the surface, beyond stereotype.

They probe for the hidden personality, the buried self, beneath the public persona.

They explore the contrast between the image, the face we present to the outside world and our private insecurities, hang-ups, or vendettas.

PERSONA

The Interplay of Characters

Sometimes only a single character emerges from the background—giving a solo performance.

More typically, a character’s personality is revealed in the interaction with others. We see characters as part of a web of relationships

Ex: the character who is influenced by two conflicting role models, her father and her mother.

WEBOF

RELATIONSHIPS

Self Check

Ask yourself these questions when trying to understand characterization:

1) What does the character look like?2) How does the character behave towards

others? 3) How do others behave toward the

character?4) What does the character seem to care

about?5) What adjectives does the author use to

describe the character's personality?6) What does the character think or say?

character the buried self

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