Indiualization of character

in order to be interesting, a character must be shown to possess individual as well as representative qualities. Every person has characteristics which differentiate him from every other person of the same type or class.' His individual eccentricities are his, irrespective of any external shaping force or of any habit of will. By means of them a character is made to seem interesting, lifelike, and convincing. Individual characteristics are different in every person: generic characteristics, though resulting from individual choice, are common to a class. It is generic for a man to be ambitious; it is individual for Sohn Flemming in Marjorie Daw to throw books at his servant Watkins. Lack of individuality of
"haracterization results in flatness. Love stories seem especially liable to this defect. Their characters are sure to be "popular" and "handsome"; they do the customary things and make the cus¬tomary remarks, — at least, the remarks commonly supposed to be customary. They are simply lovers, and on that account are supposed to be interesting. In fiction, the proverb that "all the world loves a lover" is not necessarily true. Unless the lover is individual or is involved in unique circumstances, he is simply one of a large class and inspires little more interest than- does a toy soldier moved by cleverly arranged springs. Marks of individuality should always be definite, yet not exaggerated. An individual is not necessarily abnormal or1.cmes. It is not necessary continually to call attention to peculiarities. No one quality will make a character individual. Individuality is rather the breath of personality. It may be as definite as the fragrance of a rose and as subtly manifested as the variation in the light-tones of successive days.
Individuality, as expressive of a whole personality, is many-sided, and unites many contrasting elements of character. Adequately to depict it, is not to emphasize it in one particular alone, but to appreciate its varying lights. and shades and to blend these in one harmonious whole. To show individuality by some external mark, perhaps a manner of laughing, or a nervous winking of the eyes, is to make a charac¬ter of wrong proportions; not a true character, but an oddity. Character may be at once fully rounded and individual. Sarah Penn is a woman capable of making her husband listen when he does not wish.
to hear her, capable of drawing information from her son when he would rather profess ignorance of this knowledge. She is undaunted and somewhat an¬gered by the attempted interference of the minister. Yet at the last of her talk with her husband she assumes almost a beseeching attitude. She is a careful housekeeper, a faithful wife, and a mother solicitous for her children. At the last, she speaks to her husband almost tenderly. Commanding, capable, faithful, tender, she is withal a resolute woman. Markheim appears with "pity, horror, resolve, terror, fascination, and physical repulsion" written on his face and manifest in his actions. Confronted by his sin, he says of himself, "Evil and good run strong in me, haling me both ways. I do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows their trials better than myself? I pity and help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the mind? Not so;• good, also, is a spring of acts."
". . . but what may be called the incompleteness of imagi¬native vision does unquestionably add to its charm. We have dropped out of our picture all irrelevant or unpleasing details; our attention is concentrated upon those few features that gave us the powerful and characteristic impression, and all the rest are lost in a dim and hazy background. The whole picture is thus toned into harmony with its prevailing sentiment." C. T. Winchester, The Principles of Literary Criticism,
Category:Character