Characters/characterization


1. General characterization:

(What do you look for in a text when you are asked to write a characterization of a particular protagonist? Here are some hints which may help you to find relevant information and a basic structure for your text. )

➢ Appearance/physical features

➢ Profession/job

➢ Family background/class/ethnicity

➢ Relations with other people (family, friends, colleagues, strangers)

➢ Code of values /lack of values (honesty or lying etc.)

➢ Discrepancy (between “seeming” and “being”, for example between claims of values and reality)

➢ Other traits of character (intelligent, dumb, (in)sensitive etc.)


2. Type of characterization(= means of characterization):

a. Direct/explicit characterization:

➢ Direct remarks by the character on himself

➢ Direct remarks by another character

➢ Direct remarks by the narrator


b. Indirect/implicit characterization:

➢ Conclusions which the reader can draw from the character’s appearance, behaviour, way of speaking (what he says and how he says it; choice of words (educated/uneducated/vulgar), his opinions/thoughts (in an interior monologue/stream of consciousness)