Character: Fotis Jannidis

Character
Fotis Jannidis 1 Definition Character is a text- or media-based figure in a storyworld, usually hu man or human-like. 2 Ex lication !he term "character# is used to refer to artici ants in storyworlds cre ated by $arious media %& narration in $arious media' in contrast to " ersons# as indi$iduals in the real world. !he status of characters is a matter of long-standing debate( can characters be treated solely as an effect created by recurrent elements in the discourse %)einsheimer 1*+*', or are they to be seen as entities created by words but distin guishable from them and calling for knowledge about human beings %cf. ,.1'- .nswering the latter /uestion in$ol$es determining what kinds of knowledge are re/uired, but also to what extent such knowledge is em loyed in understanding characters. !hree forms of knowledge in articular are rele$ant for the narratological analysis of charac ter( %a' the basic ty e, which ro$ides a $ery fundamental structure for those entities which are seen as sentient beings0 %b' character models or ty es such as the femme fatale or the hard-boiled detective0 %c' encyclo edic knowledge of human beings underlying inferences which con tribute to the rocess of characteri1ation, i.e. a store of information ranging from e$eryday knowledge to genre-s ecific com etence. 2ost theoretical a roaches to character seek to circumscribe reliance on real-world knowledge in some way and treat characters as entities in a storyworld sub3ect to s ecific rules %cf. ,.2'. 4ne im ortant line of thought in the anti-realistic treatment of character is the functional $iew. 5n this ers ec-ti$e, first established by .ristotle, characters are subordinate to or determined by the narrati$e action0 in the 26th cen tury, there ha$e been attem ts to describe characters in terms of a dee structure based on their roles in the lot common to all narrati$es %cf. ,.,'.
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Character
.t the discourse le$el, the resentation of characters shares many features with the resentation of other kinds of fictional entities. 7ow e$er, because of the im ortance of character in telling stories, these features ha$e been discussed mainly in terms of character resentation. .mong these features are the naming of characters, studied from the ers ecti$e of the function and meaning of names, and other ways of referring to characters, which contribute to the o$erall structural coher ence of the text %cf. ,.8'. E/ually if not more im ortant, howe$er, is the rocess of ascribing ro erties to names which results in agents ha$ing these ro erties in the storyworld, a rocess known as characteri1ation. Characteri1ation may be direct, as when a trait is ascribed ex licitly to a character, or indirect, when it is the result of inferences drawn from the text based artly on world knowledge and es ecially the different forms of character knowledge mentioned abo$e. !he term "characteri1ation# can be used to refer to the ascri tion of a ro erty to a charac ter, but also for the o$erall rocess and result of attributing traits to a gi$en character. !he rocess of characteri1ation can ha$e different forms( e.g. a character is attributed s ecific traits at the beginning of a narrati$e, but other traits are subse/uently added that may not conform to the original characteri1ation, such sub$erting the first conce tion of this character %cf. ,.9'. :iewing characters as entities of a storyworld does not im ly that they are self-contained. 4n the contrary, the storyworld is constructed during the rocess of narrati$e communication, and characters thus form a art of the signifying structures which moti$ate and determine the narrati$e communication. Characters also lay a role in thematic, symbolic or other constellations of the text and of the storyworld %cf. ,.;'. <or most readers, characters are one of the most im ortant as ects of a narrati$e. 7ow readers relate to a character is a matter of em irical analysis, but it is im ortant to bear in mind that the way the text resents a character is highly influential on the relation between character and reader. !hree factors in articular are rele$ant in this regard( %a' the transfer of ers ecti$e0 %b' the reader=s affecti$e redis osition to ward the character>itself influenced by( %i' the character=s emotions, whether ex licitly described or im licitly con$eyed0 %ii' the reader=s re action to her mental simulation of the character=s osition0 %iii' the ex ression of emotions in the resentation>and %c' e$aluation of charac ters in the text %cf. ,.+'. !here has always been a need to categori1e characters in order to fa cilitate descri tion and analysis. 7owe$er, most ro osals seem to be either too com lex or theoretically unsatisfying, so that <orster=s clas
Character
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sification into flat $s. round characters continues to be widely used %,.?'. , 7istory of the Conce t and its @tudy Antil recently, there was nothing like a coherent field of research for the conce t of character, but only a loose set of notions related to it touching on such issues as the ontological status of characters, the kind of knowledge necessary to understand characters, the relation between character and action, the naming of characters, characteri1ation as ro cess and result, the relation of the reader to a character centering around the notions of identification and em athy, etc. !he situation has changed o$er the ast ten or fifteen years thanks to a series of mono gra hs on character by Cul e er %2661', Eder %266?', Bannidis %2668', Coch %1**2', Dalmer %2668', and @chneider %2661', all of which are in debted to the ground-breaking work done by 2argolin in the 1*?6s and 1**6s. 2ost of these studies draw on the cogniti$e sciences and their models of text rocessing and erce tion of ersons %& cogniti$e nar ratology'. 7owe$er, e$en though there is now a consensus on some as ects of character in narrati$e, many other as ects continue to be treated dis arately. ,.1 Deo le or )ords Characters ha$e long been regarded as ficti$e eo le. !o understand characters, readers tend to resort to their knowledge about real eo le. 5n this framework, an anthro ological, biological or sychological the ory of ersons can also be used in character analysis, as in <reud=s analysis of 7amlet where he claims "5 ha$e here translated into con sciousness what had to remain unconscious in the mind of the hero# %<reud E1*66F 1*96( 1;8'. .nother school of thought ictured character as mere words or a aradigm of traits described by words. . well-known exam le of this a roach is Garthes=s S/Z %1*+6' in which one of the codes, "$oices,# substitutes for erson, understood as the web of semes attached to a ro er name. 5n this $iew, a character is not to be taken for anything like a erson, yet on closer examination these semes corres ond to tra ditional character traits. .lthough he differs from Garthes in many re gards, Hotman %1*+6', in a similar $ein, describes character as a sum of all binary o ositions to the other characters in a text which, together, constitute a aradigm. . character thus forms art of a constellation of
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Character
characters who either share a set of common traits % arallels' or re resent o osing traits %contrasts'. !his was not the first attack against a mimetic understanding of character during the last century, a com arable a roach to character ha$ing already been ad$ocated by the Iew Criticism. )ellek J )ar ren %1*8*' claimed that a character consists only of the words by which it is described or into whose mouth they are ut by the author. Cnights %1*,,' had earlier ridiculed the tendency in Gritish criticism to treat character resentations like the re resentations of eo le with the /ues tion "7ow many Children had Hady 2acbeth-# Des ite this criticism, the reduction of characters to words was not con$incing, for it osed many ractical roblems in literary criticism and also seemed to some critics unsatisfactory for theoretical reasons. 7ochman %1*?9', for ex am le, defended the idea of character as human-like against structural ist and ost-structuralist conce tions with moral and aesthetic argu ments. Ki$en this situation, the series of essays by 2argolin, by combining elements of structuralism, rece tion theory and the theory of fictional worlds, ro$ed to be a breakthrough. <or 2argolin %1**,', characters are first and foremost elements of the constructed narrati$e world( "character,# he claims, "is a general semiotic element, inde endent of any articular $erbal ex ression and ontologically different from it# %+'. 7e further oints out that characters can ha$e $arious modes of ex istence in storyworlds( they can be factual, counterfactual, hy othetical, conditional, or urely sub3ecti$e %1**9( ,+9'. .lso taken u are /uestions such as how characters come into existence and what consti tutes their identity %& identity and narration', es ecially in storyworlds as a transtextual conce t. Dhiloso hers, es ecially those with roots in analytical hiloso hy, ha$e discussed the s ecial ontological status of character under the la bel of incom leteness of characters. Anlike ersons who exist in the real world and are com lete, we can s eak meaningfully only about those as ects of characters which ha$e been described in the text or which are im lied by it. Conse/uently, descri tions of characters ha$e ga s, and often the missing information cannot be inferred from the gi$en information. 5n contrast to the descri tion of real ersons in which a ga may a ear e$en though it is assumed that the erson is com lete, characters ha$e ga s if the descri tion does not su ly the necessary information %Eaton 1*+;0 Crittenden 1*?20 Hamar/ue 266,'. E$en though there is currently a broad consensus that character can best be described as an entity forming art of the storyworld, the onto logical status of this world and its entities remains unclear. Iarrato
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logical theory resently offers three a roaches to addressing this rob lem( %a' drawing on the theory of ossible worlds, the storyworld is seen as an inde endent realm created by the text %2argolin 1**6'0 %b' from the ers ecti$e of cogniti$e theories of the reading rocess, char acter is seen as a mental model created by an em irical reader %@chneider 2661'0 %c' from the ers ecti$e of the neo-hermeneutical theory of literary communication, the text is an intentional ob3ect and character is a mental model created by an hy othetical historical model reader. !his a roach incor orates a number of insights into text ro cessing, but focuses on the text %Bannidis 2668'. !he main differences between these a roaches lie in how the resentation of character is described and in the use of rinci les borrowed from the cogniti$e sci ences. ,.2 Character Cnowledge E$en some of those who ha$e claimed that character is a aradigm of traits assume that there exists a cultural code making it ossible to er cei$e these traits as a meaningful whole %Hotman 1*+6', or Gestalt. !his code is also resorted to in the erce tion of eo le in e$eryday life such that there is an interaction between the formation of %narrati$e' characters and the erce tion of eo le not only because the er ce tion of eo le determines how lausible a character is, but also be cause the way characters are resented in narrati$es can may change the way eo le are ercei$ed. .t the same time, this cultural code con tains information that is not a lied to eo le but only to characters, es ecially stock characters and genre-based character ty es. E$en so, the notion of a cultural code is robably too $ague, since it encom asses different as ects or le$els which should be distinguished( the basis ty e0 character models0 character schemas. !he conce t of basis ty e ado ts recent insights from de$elo mental sychology. <rom early on, humans distinguish between ob3ects and sentient beings. !hey a ly to the erce tion of the latter a theory of mind which ascribes to them mental states such as intentions, wishes, and beliefs. 4nce an entity in the storyworld is identified as a charac ter, this framework is a lied to that entity, the basis ty e thus ro$id ing the basic outline of a character( there is an in$isible "inside# which is the source of all intentions, wishes, etc., and a $isible "outside# which can be ercei$ed. .ll as ects of a basis ty e can be negated for a s ecific character, but either this is done ex licitly or it results from genre con$entions %Bannidis 2668( 1?9L*90 Munshine 266;( 22L+'. 4n another, more concrete le$el, knowledge about time- and culture-s e
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Character
cific ty es contributes to the erce tion of characters. @ome are "stock characters# such as the rich miser, the femme fatale, or the mad scientist, while others draw u on general habitus knowledge in a society like the formal and laborious accountant, the old-maid teacher or the 1*th-century laborer %<re$ert J 7au t ed. 2668'. @uch figures ser$e as character models. Character models are often associated with standard i1ed "character constellations# such as cuckold, wife, and lo$er. 5n o ular culture, characteri1ation fre/uently de ends on character mod els, and the creati$e $ariation of these models is highly a reciated, while in high culture there is a strong tendency to a$oid character mod els %cf. ,.?0 Hotman E1*+6F 1*++( 2,*L;6'. 5t is im ortant to note that basis ty e and character models do not exhaust the rele$ant knowledge forms for characters. 5n many instances of character descri tion, encyclo edic knowledgeNfrom both the real world and fictional worldsNcomes into lay, combining two or more items of character- %or erson-'related information %e.g. "too much al cohol makes eo le drunk# or "$am ires can be killed by a wooden stake dri$en into their heart#'. 5n many cases, texts offer the reader only a fragment of information, rom ting the reader to fill in the miss ing arts based on the a ro riate knowledge. 5n text analysis, this kind of character encyclo edia is rele$ant more often than the other two, and differences in the inter retation of characters are fre/uently based on the fact that different entries from the character encyclo edia are re sorted to. ,., Character and .ction 4ne of the oldest theoretical statements on character reflects on the re lation of character and action( "for tragedy is not a re resentation of men but of a iece of action EOF. 2oreo$er, you could not ha$e a tragedy without action, but you can ha$e one without character-study# %.ristotle E1*2+F 1*,2( 1896a'. )hat .ristotle said in relation to tragedy became the origin of a school of thought which claims that in order to understand a character in a fictional text, one need only to analy1e its role in the action. !his a roach was ut on a new foundation by Dro %1*2?' in a ground-breaking cor us study of the Pussian folk tale. 5n analy1ing a hundred Pussian fairy tales, he constructed a se /uence of ,1 functions which he attributed to se$en areas of action or ty es of character( o onent0 donor0 hel er0 rincess and her father0 dis atcher0 hero0 false hero. Kreimas %1*;;' generali1ed this a roach with his actant model in which all narrati$e characters are regarded as ex ressions of an underlying narrati$e grammar com osed of six act
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ants ordered into airs( the hero %also sujet' and his search for an ob 3ect0 the sender and the recei$er0 the hero=s hel er and the o onent. Each actant is not necessarily reali1ed in one single character, since one character may erform more than one role, and one role may be distributed among se$eral characters. @chank=s conce t of story skeletons also starts from the idea that stories ha$e an underlying structure, but in his model there are many such structures and therefore many dif ferent roles for actors, e.g. the story of a di$orce using the story skeleton "betrayal# with the two actors( the betrayer and the betrayed %@chank 1**9( cha . ;'. Cam bell %1*8*' described in an influential work what he called, using a term coined by Bames Boyce, the "monomyth,# which is an ab straction of numerous mythological and religious stories marking the stages of the hero=s way( se arationQde arture0 the trials and $ictories of initiation0 return and reintegration into society %Cam bell E1*8*F 1**6( ,;'. .ccording to Cam bell, who bases his argument on <reud=s and es ecially on Bung=s form of sychoanalysis, the monomyth is uni $ersal and can be found in stories, myths, and legends all o$er the world. 5n contrast to these generali1ed model-oriented a roaches, tra ditional a roaches tend to em loy a genre- and eriod-s ecific $ocab ulary for action roles such as confidant and intriguer in traditional drama, or $illain, sidekick, and henchman in the o ular media of the 26th century. 2ost of the common labels for character in use refer to the role a character has in action. "Drotagonist,# in use since Kreek anti/uity, refers to the main character of a narrati$e or a lay, and "antagonist# to its main o onent. 5n contrast to these neutral labels, the term "hero# refers to a ositi$e figure, usually in some kind of re resentati$e story. 5n modern high-culture narrati$es, there is more often an anti-hero or no single rotagonist at all, but a constellation of characters %!rRhler 266+'. ,.8 Peferring to Characters Peferring to characters in texts occurs with the use of ro er names, definite descri tions and ersonal ronouns %2argolin 1**9( ,+8'. 5n addition to these direct references, indirect e$ocations can be found( the untagged rendering of direct s eech, the descri tion of actions %e.g. "a hand grabbed#' or use of the assi$e $oice %"the window was o ened#'. !he role of names in inter reting characters has been treated re eatedly, resulting in different ways of classifying name usage %e.g. Ham ing 1*?,0 Girus 1*?+'.
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Character
Iarrati$es can be $iewed as a succession of scenes or situati$e frames, only one of which is acti$e at any gi$en moment. .n acti$e situati$e frame may contain numerous characters, but only some of them will be focused on by being ex licitly referred to in the corres onding stretch of text. !he first acti$e frame in which a character oc curs and is ex licitly referred to constitutes its "introduction.# .fter be ing introduced, a character may dro out of sight, not be referred to for se$eral succeeding acti$e frames, and then rea ear. 5n general, whene$er a character is encountered in an acti$e frame, it is to be de termined whether this is its first occurrence or whether it has already been introduced in an earlier acti$e frame and is rea earing at a ar ticular oint. Determining that a character in the current acti$e scene has already a eared in an earlier one is termed "identification.# . dis tinction is to be made between normal, false, im eded, and deferred identifications. . "false identification# occurs when a re$iously men tioned character is identified but it then becomes clear later that some other character was in fact being referred to. .n "im eded identifica tion# does not refer une/ui$ocally to any s ecific character, and a clear reference to the character or characters is ne$er gi$en in the text, while in the case of "deferred identification# the reader is ultimately able to establish the identity of an e/ui$ocally resented character. Deferred identification can further be broken down into an o$ert form in which the reader knows that he is ke t in the dark and a co$ert form %Bannidis 2668( cha . 8 J ;, based on Emmott 1**+'. ,.9 Characteri1ation Characteri1ation can be described as ascribing information to an agent in the text so as to ro$ide a character in the storyworld with a certain ro erty or ro erties, a rocess often referred to as ascribing a ro erty to a character. 5n the 1*th century, critics s oke of the difference between direct and indirect characteri1ation and of the reference of contem orary writers and readers for the latter %@cherer E1???F 1*++( 19;L9+'. Antil recently, characteri1ation was understood as the text ascribing sychological or social traits to a character %e.g. Chatman 1*+?', but in fact texts ascribe all manner of ro erties to characters, including hysiological and locati$e %s ace-time location' ro erties. Set some textually ex licit ascri tions of ro erties to a character may turn out to be in$alid, as when this information is attributable to an un reliable & narrator or to a fellow-character. 2oreo$er, a textual ascri tion may turn out to be hy othetical or urely sub3ecti$e. !here are also texts and styles of writing %e.g. the sychological no$el' which
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tend to a$oid any ex licit statements of characteri1ation. !he crucial is sue in the rocess of characteri1ation is thus what information, es e cially of a sychological nature, a reader is able to associate with any character as a member of the storyworld and where this information comes from. !here are at least three sources of such information( %a' textually ex licit ascri tion of ro erties to a character0 %b' inferences that can be drawn from textual cues %e.g. "she smiled ner$ously#'0 %c' inferences based on information which is not associated with the char acter by the text itself but through reference to historically and cultur ally $ariable real-world con$entions %e.g. the a earance of a room re $eals something about the erson li$ing there or the weather ex resses the feelings of the rotagonist'. . systematic descri tion of such infer ences em loyed in characteri1ation is gi$en by 2argolin %1*?,'. 5nfer ences can be understood in terms of abductions %Celler 1**?( cha . *, based on Deirce', so that the fundamental role of character models and of the character encyclo edia becomes ob$ious( the information de ri$ed from them is not included in the text, but is resu osed to a greater or lesser degree by it. .nother key roblem concerns the limits and underlying rules of such inferences when they are a lied to fictional beings. Pyan %1*?6', noting that readers tend to assume that a storyworld resembles the real world unless ex licitly stated otherwise, ado ts the hiloso her Da$id Hewis=s " rinci le of minimal de arture.# 5n a thorough criticism of this and similar hy otheses, )alton oints out that this would make an infinite number of inferences ossible, and he comes to the conclusion( "!here is no articular reason why anyone=s beliefs about the real world should come into lay. .s far as im lications are concerned, sim le con$entions to the effect that whene$er such and such is fiction al, so and so is as well, ser$e nicely EOF# %)alton 1**6( 1;;'. !his a roach, in turn, increases the number of con$entions without necessity and without ro$iding any con$incing argument as to how readers go about accessing these con$entions, aside from drawing on their realworld knowledge, des ite the fact that many con$entions a ly only to fictional worlds. E$en so, this does not in$alidate )alton=s criticism, which can robably be refuted only by including another element( the fact that characters are art of storyworlds which are not self-con tained, but communicated. Peaders= assum tions about what is rele$ant in the rocess of communication determine the sco e and $alidity of inferences %@ erber J )ilson 1*?;'. !he resentation of characters is a dynamic rocess, 3ust as is the construction of characters in the reader=s mind. . owerful model for describing the sychological or cogniti$e dynamics coming into lay
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Character
here, based on the "to -down# and "bottom-u # rocesses obser$ed during em irical studies on reading com rehension, has been ro osed by @chneider %2661' building on conce ts de$elo ed by Kerrig J .llbritton %1**6'. . to -down rocess occurs in the a lication of a category to a character, integrating the information gi$en by the text into this category, while a bottom-u rocess results from the text in formation integrating a character into a ty e or building u an indi$iduali1ed re resentation. .t the beginning of a character resentation, textual cues may trigger $arious ty es of categori1ation( social ty es %"the teacher,# "the widow#'0 literary ty es %the hero in a Bildungsro man'0 text-s ecific ty es %characters that do not change throughout the story'. 5n contrast to the to -down rocessing that takes lace in these forms of categori1ation is bottom-u rocessing. !his occurs when the & reader is unable to integrate the gi$en information into an existing category, resulting in ersonali1ation of the character. Dersonali1ed characters can also be members of a category, but this is not the focus of their descri tion. Peading a text in$ol$es building u either categor i1ed or ersonali1ed characters, but information subse/uently en countered in the text may change their status and ossibly decategori1e or de ersonali1e those characters. ,.; Character and 2eaning Characters can be seen as entities in a storyworld. 7owe$er, this should not be understood to mean that characters are self-contained. 4n the contrary( they are at the same time de$ices in the communication of meaning and ser$e ur oses other than the communication of the facts of the storyworld as well. !his matter was discussed abo$e in the rela tion between character and action. 5n many forms of narrati$e, how e$er, action is not the organi1ing rinci le, but a theme or an idea, and the characters in these texts are determined by that theme or idea. .n extreme exam le is ersonification, i.e. the re resentation of an ab stract rinci le such as freedom or 3ustice as a character, as found in al legorical literature. .nother exam le is certain dialogue no$els, where the characters= role is to ro ound hiloso hical ideas. 4n the other hand, e$en the most life-like characters in a realistic no$el can often also be described in light of their lace in a thematic rogression. !hus, Dhelan %1*?+' has ro osed to describe character as artici ation in a mimetic s here %due to the character=s traits', a thematic s here %as a re resentati$e of an idea or of a class of eo le', and a synthetic s here %the material out of which the character is made'. 5n his heuristic of film characters, Eder %266?' ado ts a similar breakdown, but adds a
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fourth dimension relating to communication between the film and the audience( %a' the character as an artifact %how is it made-'0 %b' the char acter as a fictional being %what features describe the character-'0 %c' the character as a symbol %what meaning is communicated through the character-'0 and %d' the character as a sym tom %why is the character as it is and what is the effect-'. !he difference between characters as art of storyworlds and the meaning of character cannot be aligned with the difference between %narratological' descri tion and inter retation be cause elements of a character or the descri tion of a character are often moti$ated by their role in thematic, symbolic, aesthetic and other net works. ,.+ Pelation of the Peader to the Character Characters may induce strong feelings in readers, a fact often discussed under the label "identification.# 5dentification is a sychological ro cess and as such lies outside of the sco e of narrati$e analysis. 4n the other hand, it is widely recogni1ed that to some extent identification results from and is controlled by $arious textual cues and de$ices. . first roblem is the conce t of identification itself, since it in$ol$es a $ariety of as ects( sym athy with a character who is similar to the reader0 em athy for a character who is in a articular situation0 attrac tion to a character who is a role model for the reader. !o date, there is no means of integrating all of these factors into a satisfactory theory of identification. !here are older, mostly outdated models of identifica tion, based on <reud or Hacan, and newer models, some of which are based on em irical studies %e.g. 4atley J Kholamain 1**+', while oth ers seek to integrate em irical findings and media analysis %e.g. Eder 266?, art :55'. .nother roblem is historical $ariation( much literature before 1?66 aims more at creating an attitude of admiration for the rotagonist than it does at immersing the reader in the situation of the character %Bauss 1*+80 @chRn 1***'. Dro$isionally, the roblem of identification with the character in narrati$e can be broken down into the following three as ects( %a' "transfer of ers ecti$e# works on different le$els( erce tion %the reader "ex eriences# the sensory in ut of a character'0 intention %the reader is made aware of a character=s goals'0 beliefs %the reader is in troduced into the character=s world$iew'. 5n narrati$e texts, such trans fer occurs in art through the de$ices of & focali1ation and & s eech re resentation0 %b' the "affecti$e relation# to the character is a com lex henomenon resulting from $arious factors. <irst is the information gleaned from the text bearing on the character=s emotions ro3ected
29
Character
against the backdro of general, historical, and cultural schemas a lic able to articular situations and the emotions "a ro riate# for these situations. @econd is mental simulation of the de icted e$ents, which creates an em athetic reaction in$ol$ing the reader=s dis osition to re s ond to the emotion ex erienced by the character %a dis lay of sadness creates ity', but may also acti$ate similar emotions %a dis lay of sad ness generates a similar feeling in the reader'. !o what extent such sim ulations actually occur has been discussed extensi$ely( ro onents see su ort for their osition in the disco$ery of mirror neurons %Hauer 266+', while o onents oint out that this as ect lays a limited role if any at all %e.g. 2ellmann E266;F, who models the reader=s res onse on the basis of e$olutionary sychology'. @uch res onsi$e dis ositions may be socially induced, but they may also exist in other forms, such as sadistic or $oyeuristic arousal. 5n any case, reaction to simulated e$ents is not constrained to characters, but includes e$ents of all ty es. !hese reactions to e$ents not directly related to characters can be used to "ex ternali1e# the character=s affects %e.g. a descri tion of a storm which reflects the agitated state of mind of the rotagonist watching the storm'. !he third factor in the affecti$e relation is the ex ressi$e use of language or the resentation of emotions in texts using honetic, rhythmic, metrical, syntactical, lexical, figurati$e, rhetorical, and nar rati$e de$ices including free indirect discourse and similar strategies %)inko 266,'0 %c' "e$aluation of characters# is based on historically and culturally $ariable measures of $alue. E$aluation can be ex licit thanks to the use of e$aluati$e $ocabulary, or im licit due to beha$ior that im lies e$aluation according common social standards. !his in cludes im licit com arison between the reader or s ectator and the rotagonist, already described by .ristotle. .n e$aluati$e stance to ward a character creates such emotional res onses as admiration, sym athy or re ulsion, at the same time coloring the reader=s affecti$e rela tion to the character. ,.? Categories of Character !he most widely known ro osal on how to categori1e character is still <orster=s o osition between flat and round characters( "<lat characters E...F are constructed round a single idea or /uality# %E1*2+F 1*?9( ;+' while round characters are "more highly organi1ed# %+9' and "are ca able of sur rising in a con$incing way# %+?'. Critics ha$e long acce ted this categori1ation as lausible, relating it to the way real eo le are ercei$ed. 7owe$er, the criteria <orster based it on are $ague, es e cially the notion of de$elo ment to ex lain the im ression of a round
Character
2;
character %e.g. @choles et al. E1*;;F 266;( cha . 9'. . significant rob lem in this discussion results from the fact that all we know about a s ecific character is based on what can be learned from a text or another medium. !herefore, it is often not easy to distinguish between the character and the way it is resented, as can be seen, for exam le, with Pimmon-Cenan, who ro oses three dimensions to categori1e charac ters( "com lexity, de$elo ment, enetration into the Tinner life=# %E1*?,F 2662( 81', thus mixing as ects of the character as an entity of the storyworld with those of its resentation. @imilarly, 7ochman %1*?9' ro oses eight dimensions as a basis of categori1ation without distinguishing between these two as ects. !o name but three of them( styli1ation>naturalism0 com lexityNsim licity0 dynamismNstat icism. 4ne of the earliest attem ts to distinguish clearly between these as ects in categori1ing characters comes from <ishelo$ %1**6', who combines the o osition between resentation and storyworld with the distinction between flat and round characters. .nother roblematic as ect of this a roach is the fact that it is almost always combined with an e$aluati$e stance $alori1ing the com lex and de$aluating the sim le regardless of the re/uirements of different genres %as <orster already de lored', or de recating those genres. @tereoty es are often regarded as the rototy ical flat character. )ith Dyer %1**,', howe$er, a distinction can be drawn between the so cial ty e and the stereoty e. @ocial ty es are known because they be long to a society with which the reader is familiar, while stereoty es are ready-made images of the unknown. 5n fiction they differ, accord ing to Dyer, to the extent that social ty es can a ear in almost any kind of lot, while stereoty es carry with them an im licit narrati$e. 8 !o ics for <urther 5n$estigation .ll of the as ects outlined abo$e deser$e further in$estigation, but three roblems are of articular interest in the current state of research. %a' Pecent decades ha$e seen a growing interest in the social construc tion of identitiesNnational identities, gender identities, etc. .nalysis of character resentation and formation lays an im ortant art in any in ter retation interested in identity construction in literature, but u to now those engaged in identity analysis ha$e neglected narratological research on character0 at the same time, narrati$e analysis has mostly ignored the historical case studies carried out on identity construction by s ecialists of cultural studies. %b' E$aluation in literary texts has been and is still a neglected field of research. !here are many ways a text can influence or redetermine the e$aluati$e stance of the reader,
2+
Character
and much systematic and historical work in this area remains to be done. %c' !he /uestion of how a reader relates to a character can only be answered by an interdisci linary research bringing together textual analysis and the cogniti$e sciences. 9 Gibliogra hy 9.1 )orks Cited
.ristotle %E1*2+F 1*,2'. Aristotle in ! "olumes. :ol. 2,( #he $oetics. !r. ). 7. <yfe. Hondon( 7einemann. Garthes, Poland %E1*+6F 1*+8'. S/Z. Iew Sork( 7ill J )ang. Girus, 7endrik %1*?+'. ":orschlag 1u einer !y ologie literarischer Iamen.# Zeitschrift f%r &iteratur'issenschaft und &inguisti( 1+, Io ;+, ,?L91. Cam bell, Bose h %E1*8*F 1**6'. #he )ero 'ith a #housand Faces. Iew Sork( 7ar er J Pow. Chatman, @eymour %1*+?'. "Existents.# @. Ch. Stor* and +iscourse, -arrative Struc ture in Fiction and Film. 5thaca( Cornell AD, *;L189. Crittenden, Charles %1*?2'. "<ictional Characters and Hogical Com leteness.# $oetics 11, ,,1L88. Cul e er, Bonathan %2661'. &anguage and .haracterisation. $eo/le in $la*s and other #e0ts. 7arlow( Hongman. Dyer, Pichard %1**,'. "!he Pole of @tereoty es.# P. D. #he 1atter of 2mages, 3ssa*s on 4e/resentations. Iew Sork( Poutledge, 11L?. Eaton, 2arcia 2. %1*+;'. "4n Geing a Character.# British Journal of Aesthetics 1;, 28L,1. Eder, Bens %266+'. "<ilmfiguren( Pe1e tion und .nalyse.# !. @chick J !. Ebbrecht %eds'. 3motion53m/athie5Figur, S/iel-Formen der Film'ahrnehmung . Gerlin( :istas, 1,1L96. L %266?'. +ie Figur im Film. Grundlage der Figurenanal*se. 2arburg( @chUren. Emmott, Catherine %1**+'. -arrative .om/rehension, A +iscourse $ers/ective. 4x ford( Clarendon D. <ishelo$, Da$id %1**6'. "!y es of Character, Characteristics of !y es.# St*le 28, 822L ,*. <orster, Edward 2. %E1*2+F 1*?9'. As/ects of the -ovel. @an Diego( 7arcourt. <reud, @igmund %E1*66F 1*96'. #he 2nter/retation of +reams. Iew Sork( !he 2odern Hibrary. <re$ert, Ate J 7ein1-Kerhard 7au t, ed. %2668'. +er 1ensch des 67. Jahrhunderts. Essen( 2agnus. Kerrig, Pichard B. J Da$id ). .llbritton %1**6'. "!he Construction of Hiterary Char acter( . :iew from Cogniti$e Dsychology.# St*le 28, ,?6L*1.
Character
2?
Kreimas, .lgirdas Bulien %E1*;;F 1*?,'. Structural Semantics, An Attem/t at a 1ethod. Hincoln( A of Iebraska D. 7ochman, Garuch %1*?9'. .haracter in &iterature. 5thaca( Cornell AD. Bannidis, <otis %2668'. Figur und $erson. Beitrag 8u einer historischen -arratologie. Gerlin( de Kruyter. Bauss, 7ans Pobert %1*+8'. "He$els of 5dentification of 7ero and .udience.# -e' &iterar* )istor* 9, 2?,L,1+. Celler, Pudi %1**?'. A #heor* of &inguistic Signs. 4xford( 4xford AD. Cnights, Hionel C. %E1*,,F 1*+,'. )o' man* .hildren had &ad* 1acbeth9 An 3ssa* in the #heor* and $ractice of Sha(es/eare .riticism. Iew Sork( 7askell 7ouse. Coch, !homas %1**2'. &iterarische 1enschendarstellung, Studien 8u ihrer #heorie und $ra0is. !Ubingen( @tauffenberg. Hamar/ue, Deter %266,'. "7ow to Create a <ictional Character.# G. Kaut J D. Hin$ing ston %eds'. #he .reation of Art. -e' 3ssa*s in $hiloso/hical Aesthetics. Cam bridge( Cambridge AD, ,,L91. Ham ing, Dieter %1*?,'. +er -ame in der 3r8:hlung. Zur $oeti( des $ersonennamens. Gonn( Gou$ier. Hauer, Kerhard %266+'. "@ iegelneuronen( Vber den Krund des )ohlgefallens an der Iachahmung.# C. Eibl et al. %eds'. 2m 4%c(en der ;ulturen. Daderborn( 2entis, 1,+L;,. Hotman, Buri3 2. %E1*+6F 1*++'. "!he Com osition of the :erbal )ork of .rt.# Bu. H. #he Structure of the Artistic #e0t. .nn .rbor( A of 2ichigan D, 2,*L96. 2argolin, Ari %1*?,'. "Characterisation in Iarrati$e( @ome !heoretical Drolegomena.# -eo/hilologus ;+, 1L18. L %1**6'. "5ndi$iduals in Iarrati$e )orlds( .n 4ntological Ders ecti$e.# $oetics #oda* 11, ?8,L+1. L %1**2'. "<ictional 5ndi$iduals and their Counter arts.# B. .ndrew %ed'. $oetics of the #e0t, 3ssa*s to celebrate < =ears of the -eo-Formalist .ircle. .msterdam( Podo i, 8,L9;. L %1**9'. "Characters in Hiterary Iarrati$e( Pe resentation and @ignification.# Semi otica 16;, ,+,L*2. 2ellmann, Cat3a %266;'. 3motionalisierung. "on der -ebenstunden/oesie 8um Buch als Freund, 3ine emotions/s*chologische Anal*se der &iteratur der Auf(l:rungs e/oche. Daderborn( 2entis. 4atley, Ceith J 2itra Kholamain %1**+'. "Emotions and 5dentification( Connections between Peaders and <iction.# 2. 73ort J @. Ha$er %eds'. 3motion and the Arts. Iew Sork( 4xford AD, 2;,L?1. Dalmer, .lan %2668'. Fictional 1inds. Hincoln( A of Iebraska D. Dhelan, Bames %1*?+'. "Character, Drogression, and the 2imetic-Didactic Distinction.# 1odern $hilolog* ?8, 2?2L**. Dro , :ladimir %E1*2?F 1*?8'. #heor* and )istor* of Fol(lore. 2innea olis( A of 2innesota D.
2*
Character
Pimmon-Cenan, @hlomith %E1*?,F 2662'. -arrative Fiction, .ontem/orar* $oetics. Hondon( Poutledge. Pyan, 2arie-Haure %1*?6'. "<iction, Ion-<actuals, and 2inimal De arture.# $oetics ?, 86,L22. @chank, Poger C. %1**9'. #ell me a Stor*. -arrative and 2ntelligence. E$anston( Iorth western AD. @cherer, )ilhelm %E1???F 1*++'. $oeti(. !Ubingen( Iiemeyer, dt$. @chneider, Palf %2661'. "!oward a Cogniti$e !heory of Hiterary Character( !he Dy namics of 2ental-2odel Construction.# St*le ,9, ;6+L,*. @chRn, Erich %1***'. "Keschichte des Hesens.# G. <ran1mann et al. %eds'. )andbuch &esen. 2Unchen( @aur, 1L?9. @choles, Pobert, et al. %E1*;;F 266;'. #he -ature of -arrative. Pe$ised and Ex anded Edition. Iew Sork( 4xford AD. @ erber, Dan J Deirdre )ilson %E1*?;F 1**9'. 4elevance, .ommunication and .ogni tion. 4xford( Glackwell. !rRhler, 2argrit %266+'. >ffene ?elten ohne )elden. $lurale Figuren(onstellationen im Film. 2arburg( @chUren. )alton, Cendall %1**6'. 1imesis as 1a(e-Believe, >n the Foundations of 4e/resenta tional Arts. Cambridge( 7ar$ard AD. )einsheimer, Boel %1*+*'. "!heory of Character( Emma.# $oetics #oda* 1, 1?9L211. )ellek, PenW J .ustin )arren %1*8*'. #heor* of &iterature. Hondon( B. Ca e. )inko, @imone %266,'. ;odierte Gef%hlte, Zu einer $oeti( der 3motionen in l*rischen und /oetologischen #e0ten um 67<<. Gerlin( @chmidt. Munshine, Hisa %266;'( ?h* ?e 4ead Fiction. #heor* of 1ind and the -ovel. Colum bus( 4hio @tate AD.
9.2 <urther Peading

Bou$e, :incent %1**2'. &@effet-/ersonnage dans le roman. Daris( Dresses Ani$ersitaires de <rance. Cna , Bohn :., ed. %1**6'. "5nterdisci linary . roaches to Hiterary Character.# @ e cial 5ssue of St*le 28.,. 2argolin, Ari %266+'. "Character.# D. 7ermann %ed'. #he .ambridge .om/anion to -arrative. Cambridge( Cambridge AD, ;;L+*.

Character: Fotis Jannidis

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