HFCC Learning Lab
Creative Writing 9.5
Recognizing Character Traits
What is a character in a short story?
In reality, a character is just a collection of images: a mere representation in words of a person who does
not exist. This collection of images helps the reader shape a character in his or her mind. These images
give the fictional person life. The character seems real. The ability to portray fictional characters
successfully is one of the most important skills of an author of fiction.
How to Identify Character Traits
An author has essentially five methods at his disposal to create his characters:
1. Development Through Appearance:
The author describes a person’s outward appearance in such a way that it reflects
his/her inner nature.
2. Development Through Authorial Comments:
The author makes direct or indirect comments on the nature of the person whose
character he is developing. For example, the author could use the words of another
character in the story.
3. Development Through Speech:
The author lets the character speak, and the nature of the character is revealed by what
is said and how it is said.
4. Development Through Reaction to Others:
The author reveals the character’s nature by letting the character react to a person or
situation. His or her nature is disclosed by what the character says or does or how the
character is described.
5. Development Through Action:
“A man is what he does when we know he has a chance to do something.” The author
lets the character reveal certain traits through the character’s decision to act or not to
act and the way the action (or lack of action) is carried. The reader must wait and see
the character’s total action before making a judgment.
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As you read a story or directly after finishing it, you may want to ask some questions about the author’s
ability or success in characterization. Not all questions will be appropriate for every story.
1. Are the characters lifelike?
2. Are they like “real people” or “super” people? Are they capable of surprising the reader in a
convincing way?
3. Does the writer present “good” characters and “bad” characters, or does he blend good and bad
within the same character?
4. Are the characters static pr developing? If changes occur, does the writer provide motivation for
the change?
5. Toward which characters does the writer show sympathy? Antipathy? Which words reveal the
author’s attitude?
6. Who is the hero? What are the hero’s chief character traits? What traits do you admire?
Read the following excerpt from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Then answer the following
questions for this selection. After the questions decide what method of development was used.
NOTE: An author can use more than one method of development.
Exercise: Read the following excerpts and then answer the questions that follow, on a separate piece
of paper.
…They each had their own room and all. They were both around seventy years old, or even more than
that. They got a bang out of things, though—in a half-assed way, of course. I know that sounds mean to
say, but I don’t mean it mean. I just mean that I used to think about old Spencer quite a lot, and if you
thought about him too much, you wondered what the heck he was still living for. I mean he was all
stooped over, and he had very terrible posture, and in class, whenever he dropped a piece of chalk at
the blackboard, some guy in the first row always had to get up and pick it up and hand it to him. That’s
awful in my opinion. But if you thought about him just enough and not too much, you could figure it out
that he wasn’t doing too bad for himself. For instance, one Sunday when some other guys and I were
over there for hot chocolate, he showed us this old beat-up Navajo blanket that he and Mrs. Spencer’d
bought off some Indian in Yellowstone Park. You could tell old Spencer’d got a big bang out of buying it.
That’s what I mean. You take somebody old as hell, like Spencer, and they can get a big bang out of
buying a blanket.
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His door was open, but I sort of knocked on it anyways, just to be polite and all. I could see where he
was sitting. He was sitting in a big leather chair, all wrapped up in that blanket I just told you about. He
looked over at me when I knocked. “Who’s that?” He yelled. “Caulfield? Come in, boy.” He was always
yelling, outside the classroom. It got on your nerves sometimes.
The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I’d come. He was reading the Atlantic Monthly and there were
pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled like Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty
depressing. I’m not too crazy about sick people, anyways. What made it even more depressing, old
Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old bathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I don’t
much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always
showing. And their legs. Old guys’ legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy…
1. Are the characters lifelike?
2. Are they like “real people” or “super” people? Are they capable of surprising the reader in a
convincing way?
3. Does the writer present “good” characters and “bad” characters, or does he blend good and bad
within the same character?
4. Are the characters static or developing? If a change occurs, does the writer provide motivation
for the change?
5. Toward which characters does the writer show sympathy? Antipathy? Which words reveal the
author’s attitude?
6. Who is the hero? What are the hero’s chief character traits? What traits do you admire?
7. List methods of development and briefly defend your answer.
“Miss Spence will be down directly, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Hutton, without turning around. Janet Spence’s parlor maid was so ugly, ugly on
purpose, it always seemed to him, malignantly, and criminally ugly that he could not bear to look at her
more than was necessary. The door closed. Left to himself, Mr. Hutton got up and began to wander
around the room, looking with meditative eyes at the familiar objects it contained.
…Mr. Hutton came to a pause in front of a small oblong mirror. Stooping a little to get a full view of his
face, he passed a white, well-manicured finger over his mustache. It was as curly, as freshly auburn as it
had been twenty years ago. His hair still retained its color, and there was no sign of baldness yet-only a
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certain elevation of the brow. “Shakespearean,” thought Mr. Hutton, with a smile as he surveyed the
smooth and polished expanse of his forehead.
Other abide our questions, though art free…Footsteps in the sea…Majesty…, Shakespeare, thou shouldst
living at this hour. No, that was Milton, wasn’t it? Milton, the Lady of Christ’s. There was no lady about
him. He was what the women would call a manly man. That was why they liked him—for the curly
auburn mustache and the discreet redolence of tobacco. Mr., Hutton smiled again; he enjoyed making
fun of himself. Lady of Christ’s? No, no he was the Christ of Ladies. Mr. Hutton wished there were
somebody he could tell the joke to. Poor, dear Janet wouldn’t appreciate it, alas!
He straightened himself up, parted his hair, and resumed his peregrination. Damn the Roman Forum; he
hated those dreary photographs.
Suddenly he became aware that Janet Spence was in the room, standing near the door. Mr. Hutton
started; as though he had been take in some felonious act. To make these silent and spectral
appearances was one of Janet Spence’s peculiar talents. Perhaps she had been there all the time, and
seen him looking at himself in the mirror. Impossible! But, still, it was disquieting.
“The Giaconda Smile” Aldous Huxley
1. Are the characters lifelike?
2. Are they like “real people” or “super” people? Are they capable of surprising the reader in a
convincing way?
3. Does the writer present “good” characters and “bad” characters, or does he blend good and bad
within the same character?
4. Are the characters static pr developing? If a change occurs, does the writer provide motivation
for the change?
5. Toward which characters does the writer show sympathy? Antipathy? Which words reveal the
author’s attitude?
6. Who is the hero? What are the hero’s chief character traits? What traits do you admire?
7. List methods of development and briefly defend your answer.
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Mr. Martin bought the pack of Camels on Monday night in the most crowded cigar store on Broadway. It
was theatre time and seven or eight men were buying cigarettes. The clerk didn’t even glance at any of
the staff at F & S had seen him buying cigarettes, they would have been astonished, for it was generally
known the Mr. Martin did not smoke, and never had. No one saw him.
It was just a week to the day since Mr. Martin had decided to rub out Mrs. Ulgine Barrows. The term
“rub out” pleased him because it suggested nothing more than the correction of an error—in this case
an error of Mr. Fitweiler. Mr. Martin had spent each night of the past week working out his plan and
examining it. As he walked home now he went over it again. For the hundredth time he resented the
element of imprecision, the margin of guesswork that entered into the business. The project as he
worked it out was casual and bold, the risk were considerable. Something might go wrong anywhere
along the line. And therein lay the cunning of his scheme. No one would ever see in the cautious,
painstaking hand of Erwin Martin, head of the filing department at F & S, of whom Mr. Fitweiler had
once said, “Man is fallible but Martin isn’t.” No one would see his hand, that is, unless it were caught in
the act.
The next day, Mr. Martin followed his routine as usual. He polished his glasses more often and once
sharpened an already sharp pencil, but not even Miss Parid noticed. Only once did he catch sight of his
victim; she swept past him in the hall with a patronizing “Hi!” At five-thirty he walked home, as usual
and had a glass of milk, as usual. He had never drunk anything stronger in life—unless you could count
ginger ale. The late Sam Schollser, the S of F & S, had praised Mr. Martin at a staff meeting several years
before for his temperate habits. “Our most efficient worker neither drinks nor smokes,” he has said.
“The results speak for themselves.” Mr. Fitweiler had sat by, nodding approval.
Mr. Martin was still thinking about that red-letter day as he walked over to the Schrafft’s on Fifth
Avenue near Forty-Sixth Street. He got there, as he always did at eight o’clock. He finished his dinner
and the financial page of the Sun at a quarter to nine, as he always did. It was his custom after dinner to
take a walk. This time he walked down Fifth Avenue at a casual place. His gloved hands felt moist and
warm, his forehead cold. He transferred the Camels from his overcoat to a jacket pocket. He wondered,
as he did so, if they did not represent an unnecessary note of strain. Mrs. Barrows smoked only Luckies.
It was his idea to puff on a Camel (after the rubbing out), stub it out in the ashtray holding her lipstickstained Luckies, and thus drag a small red herring across the trail. Perhaps it was not a good idea. It
would take time. He might even choke, too loudly.
“The Catbird Seat” by James Thurber
1. Are the characters lifelike?
2. Are they like “real people” or “super” people? Are they capable of surprising the reader in a
convincing way?
3. Does the writer present “good” characters and “bad” characters, or does he blend good and bad
within the same character?
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4. Are the characters static pr developing? If a change occurs, does the writer provide motivation
for the change?
5. Toward which characters does the writer show sympathy? Antipathy? Which words reveal the
author’s attitude?
6. Who is the hero? What are the hero’s chief character traits? What traits do you admire?
7. List methods of development and briefly defend your answer.
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