THE IMAGE THE CHARACTER POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

THE IMAGE THE CHARACTER

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION n The concept of character in fiction: definition and ontological status. n Dominant paradigms of character study in contemporary poetics. n Classification of fictional characters. n Basic methods of character presentation in literary text.

The Death of the Character? “What is obsolescent in today’s novel is not the novelistic, it is the character, what can no longer be written is the Proper Name” (R. Barthes)

KEY ISSUES ontological status of characters; n the relation between character and action; n the naming of characters; n characterization as process and result; n the relation of the reader to a character centering around the notions of identification and empathy. n

CHARACTERS any entity (individual or collective) – normally human or human-like – introduced in a work of narrative fiction. Characters are “storyworld participants”. n Characters can be human, supernatural, animal or personifications of abstractions (allegorical). Characters can be fictional or based on real people. n

CHARACTERS n Characters are introduced in the text by means of three kinds of referring expressions: proper names (including letters and numbers), such as Don Quixote; definite descriptions, such as the knight of mournful countenance; and personal pronouns (I, she).

Dominant paradigm of literary character study 1. Hermeneutic approach: characters are dominantly representations of human beings. It is necessary to take into consideration the specific historical background of the characters and their creators.

Dominant paradigm of literary character study Psychoanalytical – concentrates on the psyche of both characters and recipients. They aim at explaining the inner life of characters, as well as the reactions of viewers, users, readers with the help of psychodynamic models of personality (e. g. developed by Freud and Lacan).

Dominant paradigms of literary character study Structural and semiotic approaches highlight the very difference between characters and human beings, focusing on the construction of characters and the role of (linguistic, visual, audible or audio-visual) text. They regard characters as sets of signifiers and textual constructs.

Dominant paradigm of literary character study Cognitive theories view characters as text-based constructs of the human mind, whose analysis requires both models of understanding text and models of the human psyche.

1) PEOPLE OR WORDS? Realistic view (a character can be discussed apart from the text) ¨ Semiotic view (it is impossible to extract characters from the text and discuss them as real human beings) ¨ Mixed approaches (Rimmon-Kennan: “Characters are abstract constructs. These constructs are by no means human beings in the literal sense of the word, they are partly modelled on the reader's conception of people and in this they are person-like”) q

2)Subordination of characters to action n n Aristotle: agents/ performers Vladimir Propp: characters as functions Greimas: the actantial model, (based on Propp's theories): the six actants (subject, object, helper, opponent, sender, receiver) are divided into three oppositions, each of which forms an axis of the description: Chatman: characters as a set of features/properties

VLADIMIR PROPP (1895 -1970) Subordinates CRs to ‘spheres action’ within which their performance can be categorized according to 7 general roles: hero, villain, donor, helper, etc.

Algirdas Julien Greimas: the actantial model ¨The axis of desire: (1) subject / (2) object. The subject is what is directed toward an object. The relationship established between the subject and the object is called a junction, and can be further classified as a conjunction or a disjunction. ¨The axis of power: (3) helper / (4) opponent. The helper assists in achieving the desired junction between the subject and object; the opponent hinders the same. ¨The axis of transmission (the axis of knowledge, according to Greimas): (5) sender / (6) receiver. The sender is the element requesting the establishment of the junction between subject and object. The receiver is the element for which the quest is being undertaken.

How is character reconstructed from the text? Four Principles: q. Repetition of relevant characteristics q. Accumulation of relevant characteristics q. Relation to other characters q. Transformations

Major components in the structure of the image of the character n Portrait; n Speech; n Actions (conduct); n Inner (emotional and psychological) states

His son is inside him, a dead baby in an iron box in the frozen earth. He does not know how to resurrect the baby or – what comes to the same thing – lacks the will to do so. He is paralysed. Even while he is walking down the street, he thinks of himself as paralysed. Every gesture of his hands is made with the slowness of a frozen man. He has no will; or rather, his will has turned into a solid block, a stone that exerts all its dumb weight to draw him down into stillness and silence. He knows what grief is. This is not grief. This is death, death coming before its time, come not to overwhelm him and devour him but simply to be with him. It is like a dog that has taken up residence with him, a big grey dog, blind and deaf and stupid and immovable. When he sleeps, the dog sleeps; when he wakes, the dog wakes; when he leaves the house, the dog shambles behind him. His mind dwells sluggishly but insistently on Anna Sergeyevna. When he thinks of her, he thinks of nimble fingers counting coins. Coins, stitches – what do they stand for? (From “The Master of Petersburg” by J. M. Coetzee)

Major components in the structure of the image of the character Dick Strove was one of those persons whom, according to your character, you cannot think without derisive laughter or an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. Nature had made him a buffoon. He was a painter, but very bad one, whom I met in Rome, and I still remembered his pictures. He had a genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace. His soul palpitating with love of art […], ¨

His fellow-painters made no secrete of their contempt for his work, but he earned a fair amount of money, and they did not hesitate to make free use of his purse. He was very generous, and the needy, laughing at him because he belied so naively their stories of distress, borrowed from him with effrontery. He was very emotional, yet his feeling, so easily aroused, had in it something absurd, so that you accepted his kindness, but felt no gratitude. To take money form him was like robbing a child, and you despised him because he was so foolish. […] He was constantly wounded, and yet his good nature was such that could not bear malice: the viper might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and no sooner recovered from his pain that he tenderly placed it once more in his bosom. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knock-about farce. […] But though so bad a painter, he had very delicious felling for art. And go with him to picture galleries was a rare treat.

Defining Characters n their relation to the plot: do they play a major part in the events of the story or do they have a minor role? n the degree to which they are developed: are they complex characters or are they one-dimensional? n their growth in the course of story: do they remain the same throughout the story or di significant changes in their personalities take place?

Classification of Characters Axes of character analysis: ¨complexity ¨development ¨penetration into the 'inner life'.

Classification of Characters n Flat/round characters n Static/Dynamic characters n Driver/Passenger characters (character-driven novel/ plot-driven novel) n Main (central, major)/minor characters n Mimetic/didactic characters n Stock characters, foil characters

Driver / Passenger Characters n. Driver characters ь Protagonist – Antagonist ь Guardian – Contagonist q. Passenger ь sidekick ь reason ь emotion ь skeptic characters

Round character n "I am not a city painter. I don’t belong here. I’m a peasant painter. I want to go back to my fields. I want to find a sun so hot that it will burn everything out of me but the desire to paint" (Lust for Life, 365). "[…] Theo, I want the sun. I want it in its most terrific heart and power. Now I know there’s no such thing as painting without it. Perhaps that something I need to bring me to maturity is a hot sun (LL, 367).

n n When I say I am an artist, I only mean “I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart” (LL, 216). The last day of the month came. Vincent had worked himself into a frenzy. He had gone without sleep and largely without food. He was living on a nervous energy. The more he failed, the higher his excitement rose (LL, 291).

n […] for he didn’t have the strength to paint all the time. Nor did he have the desire. […] when he did begin work he felt strangely calm, almost indifferent. The feverish passion to paint in hot blood every minute of the day left him. […] And if he did not finish a canvas by nightfall […] it no longer seemed to matter (LL, 492).

Character Presentation n The process of conveying information about a character is called characterisation. n How to characterise? To show or to tell?

Methods for Conveying Characters n DIRECT (TELLING) ¨ Direct statements about a character's personality and telling what the character is like ¨ Person as a combination of qualities

DIRECT (TELLING) Dick Strove was one of those persons whom, according to your character, you cannot think without derisive laughter or an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. Nature had made him a buffoon. He was a painter, but very bad one, whom I met in Rome, and I still remembered his pictures. He had a genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace. His soul palpitating with love of art […] (W. S. Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence)

Methods for Conveying Characters n INDIRECT (SHOWING) ¨Through appearance/ environment ¨ Through actions ¨Through speech/thoughts ¨Through other characters

INDIRECT (SHOWING) A butterfly in her bedroom, fluttering against the glass, that she remembered, and how she caught it, holding it between thumb and forefinger, delicately so as not to brush the dust from its wings. It was a red admiral and she had released it out of the open window, seen it fly up into the sky and watched it until it was just a speck in the blue. Then she had come away from the window and lain on her bed, bored by this solitude, wondering how long it would be before her mother came up and opened the door and said, ’All right, Francine, you can come down now’ [Rendell, 26].

I saw him watching me in the gilded mirrors with the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh, or even of a housewife in the market, inspecting cuts on the slab. I'd never seen, or else had never acknowledged, that regard of his before, the sheer carnal avarice of it; and it was strangely magnified by the monocle lodged in his left eye. When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away. And surrounded by so many mirrors! Mirrors on the walls, in stately frames of contorted gold, that reflected more white lilies than I'd ever seen in my life before. He'd filled the room with them, to greet the bride, the young bride. The young bride, who had become that multitude of girls I saw in the mirrors, identical in their chic navy blue tailor-mades, for travelling, madame, or walking. "See, " he said, gesturing towards those elegant girls. "I have acquired a whole harem for myself!" I found that I was trembling. My breath came quickly. I could not meet his eye and turned my head away, out of pride, out of shyness, and watched a dozen husbands approach me in a dozen mirrors. ((From The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter)

Methods for Conveying Characters n REINFORCEMENT BY ANALOGY ¨Analogous names ¨Analogous characters ¨Analogous environment

Character as a Linguistic Personality n Character as a linguistic personality possesses his/her own idiolect (an individual way of speaking).

Character as a Linguistic Personality n n Three layers of idiolect: a general layer common for the language community (e. g. colloquial speech, clichés, ellipsis, simplification of the sentence structure). a group layer comprising the features typical of a social, professional, gender, or age group (e. g. stylistically coloured words, violation of grammar and spelling norms). an individual layer characterized by some unique features belonging to a particular character. (e. g. words with an individual associative meaning and graphons, i. e. intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation). (From O. V. Tikhomirova)

n Don't you be clever with me, boy! I want to know what you're really up to - and don't give me any more of this listening to the news tosh! You know perfectly well that your lot –

n ‘Yep, ’ said … sadly, ‘eighty left, an’ there was loads once, musta bin a hundred diff’rent tribes from all over the world. Bu’ they’ve bin dyin’ out fer ages. Wizards killed a few, o’ course, bu’ mostly they killed each other, an’ now they’re dyin’ out faster than ever. They’re not made ter live bunched up together like tha’. Dumbledore says it’s our fault, it was the wizards who forced ‘em to go an’ made ‘em live a good long way from us an’ they had no choice bu’ ter stick together fer their own protection.

n ‘I dunno if I even want to watch this match. If Zacharias Smith beats us I might have to kill myself. ’ ‘Kill him, more like, ’ said … firmly.

The personage's speech characteristics are represented by n n Dialogue where personages express their minds in the form of uttered speech; Interior monologue – a rather lengthy piece of the text dealing with one major topic of the character's thinking, offering causes for the past, present or the future actions. Stream-of-consciousness technique Represented (reported) speech (uttered and inner)

The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 Book Magazine, compiled a panel of 55 authors, literary agents, editors, and actors in 2002 to “rank the top one hundred characters in literature since 1900. ” 1. Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 2. Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger, 1951 3. Humbert, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955 4. Leopold Bloom, Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922 5. Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902 6. Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960 7. Molly Bloom, Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922 8. Stephen Dedalus, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916 9. Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne, 1926 10 Gregor Samsa, The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, 1915 11. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955 12. Aureliano Buendia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967 13. Clarissa Dalloway, Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, 1925