PROSE III
Daniel Schulze
Booking Khan Singh Kumar
What is the stylistic impression of the poem
(language, rhyme, verse)?
 Who is the speaker?
 What type of imagery is being used?
 What issues does the poem debate?
 Character and Characterisation
E.M. Forster: Characters
Typology of Characters (Forster)
“(i) We may divide characters into flat and round.
Flat characters were called ‘humours’ in the seventeenth
century, and are sometimes called types, and sometimes
caricatures. In their purest form, they are constructed round a
single idea or quality: when there is more than one factor in
them, we get the beginning of the curve towards the round.
The really flat characters can be expressed in one sentence
such as “I never will desert Mr. Micawber”.”
(Aspects of the Novel, p. 65)
Flat Characters
“One great advantage of flat characters is that they are easily
recognized whenever they come in – recognized by the reader’s
emotional eye, not by the visual eye which merely notes the
recurrence of a proper name. […] A second advantage is that they
are easily remembered by the reader afterwards. They remain in
the mind as unalterable for the reason that they were not changed
by circumstances; they moved through circumstances, which gives
them in retrospect a comforting quality, and preserves them when
the book that produced them may decay.” (p. 66-67)
“…we must admit that flat people are not in themselves as big
achievements as round ones, and also that they are best when they
are comic. A serious or tragic flat character is apt to be a bore.” (p.
70)
Round Characters
“It is only round people who are fit to perform tragically for any
length of time and can move us to any feelings except humour and
appropriateness.” (p. 70)
“As for the round characters proper, they have already been defined
by implication and no more need be said.” (74)
“The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising
in a convincing way. If it never surprises, it is flat. If it does not
convince, it is flat pretending to be round. It has the incalculability
of life about it – life within the pages of the book” (75)
Flat Character vs. Round Character
Characterization
Characterisation
Characterisation
Auto Characterisation
 Altero Characterisation
 Explict Characterisation
 Implicit Characterisation
 Explicit altero-characterisation is always implicit
auto-characetrisation!
Characterisation
Characterization (Rimmon-Kenan)
Direct definition of traits
2. Indirect presentation
3. Reinforcement through analogy
1. Direct Definition
• • traits and character qualities are named by
 an adjective
 a noun (abstract or not)
 part of speech
less frequently used in 20th-century fiction
Indirect Presentation
• (1) (2) (3) (4) displays and exemplifies
action
speech
external appearance
environment
Indirect Presentation
Action
• • one-time/non-routine
action
habitual action
Speech
• • in conversation and as
silent activity of the mind
form and style of the
character’s speech
Indirect Presentation
External Appearance
• • • facial expressions,
gestures
features beyond the
character’s control
(height, colour of eyes etc)
features which can be
‘manipulated’ by the
character (hair-style,
clothes etc)
Environment
• • a character’s physical
surrounding (room, house,
street, town etc)
human environment
(family, friends/peergroups, social class, work
etc)
Characterization (Rimmon-Kenan, Bal, Berendsen)
(1) direct definition
(2) indirect
presentation
Characterisation (Rimmon-Kenan)
1. 2. 3. Direct definition of traits
Indirect presentation
• behaviour
• speech
• action
• external appearance
Reinforcement through analogy
• setting, space
• contrasts of characters
• names (telling names)
Characterization
Taken from: Manfred Jahn: Narratology
Feuille D’Album
What is the narratological situation?
 How is the protagonist characterised by the
narrator?
 How is the protagonist characterised by
himself?
 What is the theme of the story?
 How would you interpret it?
 Feuille D’Album
Modernism (ca. 1900 -1950)
 Short Stories
the “Iceberg Principle” (Hemingway)
“slice of life”
short: anything form 800 to 20.000 words
(Cuddon)
Increased popularity since mid 19th century
E. A. Poe as one of the first great masters
 Literatur
Gérard Genette. Narrative Discourse. und Narrative
Discourse Revisited.
E.M. Forster. Aspects of the Novel.
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. Narrative Fiction.
Contemporary Poetics.
Homework
 Read Shakespeare’s Macbeth!