Types of characters 2

here is much, naturally, that a man shares with others of his own type or class, and much that be-. longs to him individually. His character is com¬plex. He is, to a greater or less extent, the product of external forces, the resultant of his own will, and the expression of individual peculiarities. He is all of these variously combined. In so far as he is the product of external forces he may be called typical. The reason is clear: Etymologically, a type is some¬thing "struck out"; acted upon, therefore, by an external force. When a great number of things are acted upon by the same external force, they all bear the same stamp; they are typical. Likewise, when a great number of persons are acted upon similarly by the same external force, they are shaped accord¬ing to the same pattern; they, too, are typical. Every variation in external forces will cause a new type; and the variations may be many. These forces thus acting on a great number of people in the same way one may call environment. The nature of the soil, the contour of the land, the climate, the location beside forest, sea, lake, or river, a1,1/ affect the people who live continuously in a certa‘ region. Heredity and occupation, too, are forms of environment. Kentucky is an environment; so is prison; so are home training and inherited principles; so is the profession of law. Mr. Theobald
is typical of the artist dreamer; Adoniram Penn, of the stern New Englander. Miss Florence in They sings "as the blind sing — from the soul." The typical, though always present in character, is not always necessary to characterization; for the repre¬sentative may express itself in another way.
People may be grouped according to certain class characteristics which are the resultant not of com¬mon external forces, but of common habitual choices or acts of will. When a man makes a choice which will advance his own individual interests, even at the expense of other persons, he is said to be selfish; when he is possessed with a desire to rise above his present self and his present surroundings, to become ,,,,niore important than he is, he is called ambitious; when he does a thing that is hard, because he feels ,that it is a right thing, he is courageous. When he habitually makes such a choice, he becomes a selfish, an ambitious, a brave man, and is classed along with others who are actuated by a like habitual motive. The characteristic which he has thus in common with a class may be called generic. The generic differs from the typical in that it is produced not by one common external force acting on all persons alike, but by the workings of innumerable like forces within the characters themselves. Phillips Brooks and Senator Lodge may both be called typical of New England, but their likeness goes no farther. Their generic qualities are different. One might conceive an ambitious New Englander, an idealistic New ,Englander, a truthful New Englander, a cowardly
New Englander, a shiftless New Englander. Yet one knows that these attributes and a hundred others are not limited to any one environment. One must realize, therefore, the qualities that go to make a character typical, as separate from those which go to make him generic. In Mrs. Knollys there is little, if any, of the typical and much of the generic.
One may say, however, that one's environment is frequently a matter of individual choice. One Chooses law as a profession, or California as an environment. Yet a man is not brave because 4/ performs a single brave deed. A habit becomes fixed only after an act has been repeated again and again. Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan were ambitious, yet ambition was not necessarily with them a constant aim. They were habitually ad¬venturers, become such by repeated acts of choice. One may decide to be a bricklayer, yet one does not repeat the decision with every new job. Nor does a lawyer reiterate his intention of being a lawyer every time he gains a new client. Choice, in such a case, is final and decisive, and it establishes a perma¬nent environment or external mold of character. A farmer is still a farmer long after he has ceased from active toil. Thus the typical and generic, though closely related, are separate. Of course, there are at times blendings and overlappings. Mr. Oak¬hurst is in some ways typical of the professional gambler, yet his gambling is the result of many separate acts of will. The typical thus seems to
blend with the generic. Environment, however, may influence choice and to the extent that it does, the typical will assimilate the generic. A drunkard may be such partly because of environ¬ment, partly because many repeated choices have ikth him become a habit. It is home training and early environment that have much to do in developing the state of Markheim's conscience. The variations, the combinations, and the blendings of the typical and generic are almost unlimited.
Category:Character