Literary Elements
Characterization
“A man’s disposition is never well known till he be crossed.”
Francis Bacon
Advancement of Learning
The above words by Francis Bacon tell us that we do not really know what a
person is like until that person is faced with adversity. The way a person reacts
when facing a problem will often reveal his true nature. In literature, we find that
as we study the character in a story and examine the way he reacts to the problems
in the story, we are able to get to know the character and come to an understanding
of what his personality is like.
The word character refers to the people, animals, or objects that a story is
about. Protagonist is a term that refers to the main character in the story. The
protagonist is the person that the reader cares most about and is the “good guy” in
the story. Often in stories the protagonist is in conflict with another character. The
character that is against the protagonist and causes problems for him/her is known
as the antagonist. The antagonist might be considered to be the “bad guy” in the
story.
As an author writes a story, she will use a variety of techniques to help
readers get to know the characters in the story and what the characters are like.
Characterization is a name for the methods a writer uses to reveal a character’s
values, feelings, goals, etc. to readers. When revealing a character’s traits, a writer
can do so using direct characterization or indirect characterization.
Direct Characterization is when a writer conveys information about a
character by telling the information directly to the reader. This is done through
narration when the author comes right out and tells the reader things about the
character. For example, the writer might tell us “Sarah was the smartest in the
family.” or that “Sarah was tall for her age and had an athletic build.” In this
instance readers have certain knowledge of Sarah’s intellect in relation to the rest
of the family and of her build/appearance. Direct characterization makes it easy
for readers to come to clear understandings bout the character. However, most
information about characters is not so easily ascertained. That is because most of
our understandings about characters must be arrived at as a result of indirect
characterization.
Indirect characterization occurs when the author shows the character in
action, and lets the reader interpret what these actions reveal about the character.
For example, the author may write, “At report card time Sarah was the one who
brought home all “A”s.” Readers must then rely on their own knowledge and
experience to interpret that Sarah must be smart—perhaps the smartest in the
family. There are a number of tools that a writer will use to impart personality
traits to their characters. It is up to readers to correctly interpret the information in
