There are three principal techniques narratives can use to convey a sense of character and to influence our responses to and estimation of that character
- They can show us directly such things as how the character thinks, how she or he speaks, the things she or he says, and/or the manner in which they behave in a particular situation
- They can report how a character thought, spoke and/or behaved in a particular situation without actually letting us see the character think, say or do those things for ourselves. Alternatively, they can leave it to one of the other characters in the story to report these things.
- They can associate the character with a particular idea, theme, motif, activity or symbol
The first of these techniques (showing) would seem to allow for a more objective portrait to emerge than the other two, since it is the closest to letting that character speak, think and/or act for themselves. Even here, however, we need to consider if the portrait is being ‘framed’ or ‘skewed’ in any way, either through selection (e.g. only showing those thoughts and actions which cast the character in a particularly good/bad light) or through couching the presentation in words that predetermine our interpretation of it (for instance, “David marched threateningly towards Tamara and demanded of her ‘what’s for tea?’” gives a very different spin on events than “David went over to Tamara and asked her ‘what’s for tea?”).
The second technique (reporting) more obviously allows for the presentation of a character to be skewed in some way. It is therefore incumbent upon us on these occasions to attend to the character of the reporter as well as to the character that emerges of the person whose thoughts, words and/or actions are being reported. Do we trust the source of this information or might they have particular reasons for wanting people to look upon and judge that character in a particular way? Even if we grant that they are trying to give as accurate and neutral a report as possible, how reliable is their report – or, to put this another way, how do they know what they know?
The third of these techniques (associating) is the most subtle. For that very reason, though, it is often the most effective in shaping our response to a character without our realising this is happening. If, for instance, every time we meet a character they are always holding a pint of beer, say, or wandering around some abandoned docks at night, or standing in the vicinity either of a yew tree or of something made of yew (yew being, amongst other things, a symbol of death), it will affect our sense of the kind of person they are, what they stand for and the role they play in the narrative as a whole.
Only once we have established how a character is characterised – which is to say, only once we have established how we know what we know about a character and have determined whether this knowledge is reliable or not – should we proceed to consider what kind of character she or he is. To do this, it is helpful to answer the following questions:
- Is the character flat or round? To put this another way, are we given an in-depth understanding of the character – of how they think, feel, and so on – or is their portrait somewhat superficial?
- Is the character static or dynamic? In other words, do they more or less stay the same throughout the duration of the narrative or do they change?
- Is the character a clearly individuated personality or is s/he primarily a type (of, for instance, the romantic lover, the evil stepmother, the social climber, and so on)?
Finally, we should consider the role the character plays in
a. participating in and contributing to the action of the narrative (whether that be in the form of advancing it, hindering it, diverting it, or whatever)
b. characterising other characters. In addition to actively commenting on other characters, this can include throwing a clearer light on another character by virtue of their similarities and differences. A ’round’ character can look all the rounder, for instance, if s/he is surrounded by several ‘flat’ characters; a ‘static’ character can seem all the more ‘static’ if s/he is surrounded by ‘dynamic’ characters; a ‘clearly individuated’ character can seem all the more individuated if everyone s/he deals with is little more than a stereotype; and so on
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