Lecture 3. The system of images: types of characterization

1. The notion of image/ character in text interpretation.

2. A hierarchy of images.

3. Different classifications of characters.

4. Flat characters as opposed to round characters.

5. The notion of a character trait and types of characterization: direct definition and indirect presentation.

6. Ways of direct definition.

7. Ways of indirect presentation.

Image/ character in text interpretation is a subjective reflection of reality (people) as it is inspired by the writer's power of imagination.

• It is, on the one hand, generalization of the most typical features of a person described in a literary text.

• On the other hand, it is never a complete identity of a person, thing or phenomenon. There is always something left out by the writer, emphasized or exaggerated. That's why image is always concrete with its individual peculiarities.

A hierarchy of images

In a literary text images form a system, which comprises a hierarchy of images beginning with micro-images, formed by a word/word combination, and ending with synthetic images or "extended images", formed by the whole literary work.

According to the specific entity images represent we distinguish:

character-images, i.e. human characters (Sh. Bronte "Jane Eyre", by J. London "Martin Eden ");

landscape-images ("My Heart's in the Highlands " by R. Burns);

animal-images ("The Jungle Book" by R.Kipling, " The North Stories " by J. London)

Character-images are both real and unreal. They are real in the sense that they can be visualized, you can see them act, you can hear them talk. They are unreal in the sense that they are imaginary, even if they are drawn from life, even if they are images of historical people, as they are not identical with them, they are products of the writer's imagination.

Classifications of characters

A character that dominates the story from the beginning up to the very end is called major main, protagonist, central, or a hero/heroine.

Protagonist is a character in which positive features predominate. Antagonist is the personage opposing protagonist, in which negative features prevail. Villain is a character with marked negative features. Foil is a character with distinctly opposing features to the protagonist through which the protagonist's positive features are sharply accentuated. When a character expresses the author's viewpoint directly he is said to be the author's mouthpiece. If a character is developed round one or several typical social features he becomes a type characterized by qualities that are typical of a certain social group or class. Caricature is a character with so exaggerated features that he appears ridiculous, yet recognizable.

According to their importance in a literary text characters can be divided into: simple/complex; static/dynamic; flat/well-rounded. A static character, who does not change in the course of a narrative is simple, usually flat, while dynamic character who does change is complex, well-rounded (e.g. Hamlet is a complex character). Simple characters are constructed round a single trait.

The terms "flat" and "round" were proposed by E.M.Forster (1927):

"The test of round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. If it does not convince, it is flat pretending to be round".