Character

A being involved in the action of a story.
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Characters may be of several types:*Point-of-view character: the character by whom the story is viewed. The point-of-view character may or may not also be the main character in the story.*Protagonist: the main character of a story*Antagonist: the character who stands in opposition to the protagonist*Minor character: a character that interacts with the protagonist. They help the story move along.*Foil character: a (minor) character who has traits in aversion to the main character
The narrator is the teller of the story, the orator, doing the mouthwork, or its in-print equivalent.
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A fictional character is any person, persona, identity, or entity whose existence originates from a fictional work or performance. Such existence is presumed by those participating in the performance as wikipedia: audience, readers, or otherwise. In addition to humans, characters can be aliens, animals, (see anthropomorphism)gods, an artificial intelligence or, occasionally, inanimate objects.
The process of creating and developing characters in a work of fiction is called characterization.
Archetype
==Some ways of classifying characters==
The following are some ways in which readers sometimes classify characters.
===Round vs. flat===
Round characters Round characters are those that are very detailed. They are so detailed that they seem as if they were real.
Protagonists are normally round characters, though notable exceptions (such as Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron exist. Antagonists are often round as well, though comedic villains may be almost farcically flat. Examples of round characters from various genres include Humbert Humbert of Nabokov’s Lolita, Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler of Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Vladimir Taltos of Brust’s series of novels, Frodo Baggins of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Magneto of the X-Men comics and films, Syaoran of Clamp's Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Harry Potter of the series of the same name, Arthur Dent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ,V of V for Vendetta and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's wikipedia:Sherlock Holmes.
A flat character is distinguished by its lack of detail. Though the description of a flat character may be detailed, the character itself barely has detail and usually just follows one characteristic. {C}A number of stereotypical, or "stock" characters, have developed throughout the history of drama. Some of these characters include the country bumpkin, the con artist, and the city slicker. These characters are often the basis of flat characters, though elements of stock characters can be found in round characters as well. The commedia dell'arte, a form of improvisational theatre which originated in Italy, consists of performers acting as well-known stock characters in conventional situations.
Supporting characters are generally flat, as most minor roles do not require a great deal of complexity. In addition, experimental literature and postmodern fiction often intentionally make use of flat characters, even as protagonists.
===Dynamic vs. static===
A dynamic character is one who changes significantly during the course of the story. Changes considered to qualify a character as dynamic include changes in insight or understanding, changes in commitment, and changes in values. Changes in circumstance, even physical circumstance, do not apply unless they result in some change within the character's self.
By definition, the protagonist is nearly always a dynamic character. In coming-of-age stories in particular, the protagonist often undergoes dramatic change, transforming from innocence to experience. Examples of dynamic characters include John the Savage of Huxley’s Brave New World, Jay Gatsby of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Luke Skywalker from the original Star Wars Trilogy Elizabeth Bennet of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Denver of Morrison’s Beloved.
Antagonists, such as Salieri of Shaffer’s Amadeus, are frequently dynamic as well.
In contrast, a static character does not undergo significant change. Whether round or flat, their personalities remain essentially stable throughout the course of the story. This is commonly done with secondary characters in order to let them serve as thematic or plot elements.
Supporting characters and major characters other than the protagonist are generally static, though exceptions do occur.
==Some ways of reading characters==
Readers vary enormously in how they understand fictional characters. The most extreme ways of reading fictional characters would be to think of them exactly as real people or to think of them as purely artistic creations that have everything to do with craft and nothing to do with real life. Most styles of reading fall somewhere in between.
===Character as symbol===
In some readings, certain characters are understood to represent a given quality or abstraction. Rather than simply being people, these characters stand for something larger. Many characters in Western literature have been read as Christ symbols, for example. Other characters have been read as symbolizing capitalist greed (as in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby), the futility of fulfilling the American Dream, or quixotic romanticism (Don Quixote), or even feminism (Lara Croft). Three of the principle characters in Lord of the Flies can be said to symbolize elements of civilization: Ralph represents the civilizing instinct; Jack represents the savage instinct; Piggy represents the rational side of human nature.
===Character as representative===
Another way of reading characters symbolically is to understand each character as a representative of a certain group of people. For example, Bigger Thomas of Native Son by Richard Wright is often seen as representative of young black men in the 1930s, doomed to a life of poverty and exploitation.
Many practitioners of cultural criticism and feminist criticism focus their analysis of characters on cultural stereotypes. In particular, they consider the ways in which authors rely on and/or work against stereotypes when they create their characters. Such critics, for example, would read Native Son in relation to racist stereotypes of African American men as sexually violent (especially against white women). In reading Bigger Thomas' character, one could ask in what ways Richard Wright relied on these stereotypes to create a violent African-American male character and in what ways he fought against them by making that character the protagonist of the novel rather than an anonymous villain.
Often, readings that focus on stereotypes focus on minor characters or stock characters, such as the ubiquitous sambo characters in early cinema, since those are the characters that tend to rely most heavily on stereotypes.
===Characters as historical or biographical references===
Sometimes characters obviously represent important historical figures. For example, Nazi-hunter Yakov Liebermann in The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin is often compared to real life Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and corrupted populist politician Willie Stark from All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren is often compared to Louisiana governor Huey P. Long.
Other times, authors base characters on people from their own personal lives. Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb chronicles her love affair with Lord Byron, who is thinly disguised as the title character. Nicole, a destructive, mentally ill woman in Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is often seen as a fictionalized version of Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda.
Perhaps because so many people enjoy imagining characters as real people, many critics devote their time to seeking out real people on whom literary figures were likely based. Frequently authors base stories on themselves or their loved ones. Sometimes writers create composite characters based on two or more individuals.
===Character as patient: psychoanalytic readings===
Psychoanalytic criticism usually treats characters as real people possessing complex psyches. Psychoanalytic critics approach literary characters as an analyst would treat a patient, searching their dreams, past, and behavior for explanations of their fictional situations.
Alternatively, some psychoanalytic critics read characters as mirrors for the audience's psychological fears and desires. Rather than representing realistic psyches then, fictional characters offer readers a way to act out psychological dramas of their own in symbolic and often hyperbolic form. The classic example of this would be Freud's reading of Oedipus (and Hamlet, for that matter) as emblematic of the Oedipus complex (a child's fantasy of killing his father to possess his mother).
This form of reading persists today in much film criticism. The feminist critic Laura Mulvey is considered a pioneer in the field. Her groundbreaking 1975 article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", analyzed the role of the male viewer of conventional narrative cinema as fetishist, using psychoanalysis "as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form."
==Unusual uses==
Postmodern fiction frequently incorporates real characters into fictional and even realistic surroundings. In film, the appearance of a real person as himself inside of a fictional story is a type of cameo. For instance, Woody Allen's Annie Hall has Allen's character call in Marshall McLuhan to resolve a disagreement. A prominent example of this approach is Being John Malkovich, in which the actor John Malkovich plays the character John Malkovich (though the real actor and the character have different middle names).
In some experimental fiction, the author acts as a character within his own text. One early example is Niebla ("Fog") by Miguel de Unamuno (1907), in which the main character visits Unamuno in his office to discuss his fate in the novel. Paul Auster also employs this device in his novel City of Glass (1985), which opens with the main character getting a phone call for Paul Auster. At first the main character explains that the caller has reached a wrong number, but eventually he decides to pretend to be Auster and see where it leads him. In Immortality by Milan Kundera, the author references himself in a storyline seemingly separate from that of his fictional characters, but at the end of the novel, Kundera meets his own characters. Other authors who have manifested themselves within the text include Kurt Vonnegut (notably in Breakfast of Champions), Dave Sim, in his comic book series Cerebus, and Stephen King in his Dark Tower series.
With the rise of the "star" system in Hollywood, many famous actors are so familiar that it can be hard to limit our reading of their character to a single film. In some sense, Bruce Lee is always Bruce Lee, Woody Allen is always Woody Allen, Tom Cruise is always Tom Cruise, and Harrison Ford is always Harrison Ford; all often portray characters that are very alike, so audiences fuse the star persona with the characters they tend to play, a principle explored in the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Last Action Hero.
Some fiction and drama make constant reference to a character who is never seen. This often becomes a sort of joke with the audience. This device is the centrepoint of one of the most unusual and original plays of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which Godot of the title never arrives.
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Category:Character