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.