【2.2】
Methods of Characterization
In presenting and establishing character, an author has two basic methods or
techniques at his disposal. One method is telling, which relies on expositions and
direct commentary by the author. In telling, the guiding hand of the author is very
much in evidence. We learn primarily from what the author explicitly calls to our
attention. The other method is indirect, dramatic method of showing, which involves
the author’s stepping aside, as it were, to allow the characters to reveal themselves
directly through their dialogue and their actions. With showing, much of the burden of
character analysis is shifted to the reader, who is required to infer character on the
basis of the evidence provided in the narrative. However, telling and showing are not
mutually exclusive. Neither is one method necessarily superior. Most authors employ
a combination of the two, even when the exposition, as in the case of most of
Hemingway’s stories, is limited to several lines of descriptive detail establishing the
scene.
Direct Characterization: Telling
Direct methods of revealing character---characterization by telling---include the
following:
Characterization through the use of names
Names are often used to provide
essential clues that aid in characterization. Some characters are given names that
suggest their dominant or controlling traits, as, for example, Young Goodman Brown,
the naïve young puritan in Hawthorne’s story, and Mr. Blanc, the reserved Easterner
in Stephen Crane’s The Blue Hotel. Other characters are given names that reinforce(or
sometimes are in contrast to) their physical appearance, much in the way that Ichabod
Crane, the gangling schoolmaster in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow, resembles his long-legged namesake. Names can also contain literary or
historical allusions that aid in characterization by means of association, as they
obviously do in Woody Allan’s The Kugelmass Episode. One must also, of course, be
alert to names used ironically that characterize through inversion. Such is the case
with the foolish Fortunato of Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, who surely must rank
with the most unfortunate of men.
Characterization through appearance
In real life, appearances are often
deceiving. In the world of fiction, however, details of appearance (what a character
wears and how he looks) often provide essential clues to character. Take, for example,
the second paragraph of My Kinsman, Major Molineux, (cf. P. 217) in which
Hawthorne introduces his protagonist to the reader. The several details of the
paragraph tell us a good deal about Robin’ character and basic situation. We learn that
he is a “country-bred” youth nearing the end of a long journey, as his nearly empty
wallet suggests. His clothes confirm that he is relatively poor. Yet Robin is clearly no
runaway or rebel, for his clothes though “well-worn” are “in excellent repair”, and the
references to his stockings and hat suggest that a loving and caring family has helped
prepare him for his journey. The impression thus conveyed by the total paragraph and
underscored by its final sentence describing Robin’s physical appearance, is of a
decent young man on the threshold of adulthood who is making his first journey into
the world. The only disquieting note---a clear bit of foreshadowing---is the reference
to the heavy oak cudgel that Robin has brought with him. He later will brandish it at
strangers in an attempt to assert his authority and in the process reveal just how
inadequately prepared he is to cope with the strange urban world in which he finds
himself.
As in Hawthorne story, details of dress and physical appearance should be
scrutinized closely for what they may reveal about character. Details of dress may
offer clues to background, occupation, economic and social status, and, perhaps, as
with Robin Monlineux, even a clue to the character’s degree of self-respect. Details of
physical appearance can help to identify a character’s age and the general state of his
physical and emotional heath and well-being: whether the character is strong or weak,
happy or sad, calm or agitated. Appearance can be used in other ways as well,
particularly with minor characters who are flat and static. By common agreement,
certain physical attributes have become identified over a period of time with certain
kinds of inner psychological states. For example, characters who are tall and thin, like
Irving Crane and Poe’s Roderick Usher, are often associated with intellectual or
aesthetic types who are withdrawn and introspective. Portly or fat characters, on the
other hand, suggest an opposite kind of personality, one characterized by a degree of
laziness, self-indulgence, and congeniality. Such convenient and economic shortcuts
to characterization are perfectly permissible, of course, as long as they result in
characters who are in their own way convincing.
Characterization by the author
In the most customary form of telling, the
author interrupts the narrative and reveals directly, through a series of editorial
comments, the nature and the personality of the characters, including the thoughts and
feelings that enter and pass through the character’s minds. By so doing the author
asserts and retains full control over the characterization. The author not only directs
his attention to a given character, but tells us exactly what our attitude toward that
character ought to be.