1. Presentation of the character through action.

A character in fiction is not just a static portrait, he acts. Since action, movement, change, development always occur in fiction, action serves as the main means of characterization. People are generally judged by their deeds. Actions are the most effective means of character presentation. They may reveal the character from different aspects.

For example, the actions of Matfield in Angel Pavement show that physically she is strong, healthy, energetic, active, spirited; emotionally she is bitter, dissatisfied, depressed; in spite of her more or less satisfac­tory education, mentally she is a mediocrity (though she fancies herself sophisticated and shrewd); morally she is honest, strong-willed; spiritually Matfield is shallow as she is doped by cheap literature and is given to illusions, all her ideals are affected by the adventure stories she is fond of.

Actions include small gestures. In Chapter 1 Matfield's resoluteness, decisiveness and dissatisfaction are suggested, by her gestures: "...she flung down a library book, ..' rummaged in her bag, ... said "Curse!", then closed the bag with a sharp snap, seized her gloves and marched them over to her coat".

Action includes a thought, a word, a decision, an impulse, and a whole event. For example, Matfield's decision to have a weekend with the brigandish Golspie is an action, her impulse to make a change in her life is also an action. Each of these actions characterizes a definite aspect of her personality.

2. Speech characteristics.

Speech characteristics reveal the social and intellectual standing of the character, his age, education and occupation, his state of mind and feelings, his attitude and relationship with his interlocutors"'.

When analysing speech characteristics, one should be alert for:

(l) style markers, such as

a) markers of official style ("I presu­me", "I beg your pardon", etc.);

b) markers of informal conversational style: contracted" forms, colloquialisms, elliptical sentences, tag constructions (as "you know"), initiating signals (as "Well", "Oh"), hesitation pauses, false starts — all of which normally occur in spontaneous colloquial speech and often remain unnoticed, but in "fictional conversation" they may acquire a certain function, as they create verisimilitude and may indicate some features of the speaker's character, his state of mind and his attitude to others:

2. markers of the emotional state of the character: emphatic inversion, the use of emotionally coloured words, the use of breaks-in-the-narrative that stand for silence (e. g. "and I asked her if she'd rather I ... didn't get married", "and there I stayed in the middle of the road ... staring" — the pause lays emphasis on the words that follow the pause), the tailing of)" into silence which reflects deep emotions or doubt, the use of italics, interjections; hesitation pauses and false starts if they are frequent may be a sign of nervousness, irresoluteness or great excitement;

3. attitudinal markers: words denoting attitudes (as "resent", "despise", "hate", "adore" etc.), intensifies (as "very", "absolutely" etc.);

4. markers of the character's educational level: bookish words, rough words, slang, vulgarisms, deviations from the standard;

5. markers of regional and dialectal speech, which define the speaker as to his origin, nationality and social standing: foreign words, local words, graphons;

6. markers of the character's occupation: terms, jargonisms;

7. markers of the speaker's idiolect (i. e. his individual speech peculiarities), which serve as a means of individualization and verisimilitude.

If we turn to Mistaken Identity, we can see how skillfully M. Twain used speech peculiarities as a means of characterization. The markers of informal conversational style ("Years ago 1 arrived one day ...". "asked ... if I could have some poor little corner somewhere", "a couple of armchairs” etc.), the markers of dialectal speech ("dey" for "there", "dat" for "that", "sah" for "sir" etc., which are typical of "Black English"), the numerous markers of the emotional state of the characters and their attitudes to one another contribute to creating verisimilitude. The reader gets the impression of hearing the characters and witnessing the scenes. Besides, the reader gets all the necessary information about the characters: their feelings, mood, relations with one another, their social and intellectual standing, and even their origin.

In one of his pamphlets M. Twain wrote that conversation in fiction should "sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and show a rele­vancy, and remain in the neighbourhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say." The story Mistaken Identity may well serve as an illustration of all the requirements that the writer sets. His characters are well-conceived not only due to their speech characteristics, but also due to the exactness in the choice and presentation of their actions. They are defined in full accordance with his principle: characters should be "so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.”