Lesson 1.2 · Unit 1 · RL.9-10.3
What a writer shows and what a reader infers
A writer can tell you that a character is cruel, or can show you the character being cruel and let you work it out. The second is almost always better, and knowing why explains most of what good fiction does with people.
- Direct characterization states a trait outright: the narrator tells you the man was generous.
- Indirect characterization supplies evidence and leaves the conclusion to you, through speech, thought, effect on others, action and appearance.
- Indirect is stronger because a conclusion the reader reaches is held more firmly than one they are handed.
- A round character has several traits, including contradictory ones; a flat character has one or two and does not need more.
- A dynamic character changes as a result of the story's events; a static character does not, and neither is a fault by itself.
- The protagonist is whoever the story is about, and the antagonist is whatever opposes them, which need not be a person.
- A foil is a character who contrasts with another in order to make the second visible, which is why they often appear in pairs.
- Motivation is why a character does what they do, and a character whose motivation you cannot state is one you have not yet understood.
Where students lose marks: listing traits. A strong answer names a trait, quotes the sentence that shows it, and says which method of characterization the writer used.
The text. Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado", 1846. Public domain.
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled, but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk.
It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
Step one: collect the direct characterization. There is almost none. The narrator does not say he is vengeful, patient or deceitful. He describes his situation and his plans and leaves every judgment to us.
Step two: work the speech and thought. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could." A thousand is not a count; it is a man who has been keeping score and has stopped counting. The number is doing characterization work.
Step three: notice what he does not tell us. He never says what the insult was. A narrator who devotes a whole story to revenge and cannot specify the offense is telling us something about himself that he does not intend to tell.
Step four: work the address to the reader. "You, who so well know the nature of my soul." He is speaking to somebody specific who knows him well. That single clause converts the story from a confession to the world into a confession to a particular person, and asking why he is telling them becomes a live question.
Step five: work the action. "I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face." He is describing months of deliberate friendliness toward a man he intends to murder. Nobody calls him a hypocrite; he supplies the behavior and we supply the word.
Step six: state the motivation, and its problem. His stated motivation is revenge for an insult. Because he will not say what the insult was, we cannot confirm it, and the possibility opens that there was no insult worth the name. A narrator's stated motivation is evidence about him, not a fact about the world.
Step seven: classify him. Round: he is proud, patient, meticulous, self-justifying and intermittently anxious, and several of those pull against each other. Static: he does not change at all, and the flatness of his self-understanding at the end is part of the story's effect.
Step eight: state the general principle. Everything we know about this man we inferred. Poe supplies speech, thought and action and states no trait, and the result is that a reader who has read two paragraphs already distrusts the person telling the story. That distrust could not have been produced by telling us he was untrustworthy.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- Distinguish direct from indirect characterization.
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Direct states a trait outright; indirect supplies evidence and leaves the conclusion to the reader
- Name the five methods of indirect characterization.
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Speech, thought, effect on others, action, and appearance
- Distinguish a round character from a flat one.
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A round character has several traits including contradictory ones; a flat character has one or two
- Distinguish dynamic from static.
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A dynamic character changes as a result of events; a static character does not
- What is a foil?
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A character who contrasts with another in order to make the second visible
- Explain what "the thousand injuries" tells us, and how.
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A thousand is not a real count; it is the figure used by a man who has been keeping score for years and has stopped being able to total it. The phrase characterizes him as someone who catalogs grievances rather than settling or forgetting them, and it does so without any narrator saying he is obsessive. The number itself is the evidence, which is indirect characterization through the narrator's own speech. It shows a man who has kept score for years, through his own choice of figure
- What is significant about his never naming the insult?
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A narrator who devotes an entire story to avenging an insult and never specifies what it was is telling us something he does not intend to tell. Either it is too trivial to survive being stated, or he cannot now remember it, or he knows we would not accept it as justification. All three possibilities damage his account, and the omission is therefore evidence about him rather than a gap in the story. The omission suggests the offense could not survive being stated plainly
- What does the address to "you" change about the story?
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It converts the story from a confession to the world into a confession to one particular person who knows him well. That makes a new question live: why is he telling this person, after fifty years, and what does he want from them? A general confession asks for judgment from anyone; a confession to a specific listener asks that listener for something, and the story never says what. It makes the story a confession to a specific person, raising the question of why
- Why is a narrator's stated motivation not a fact about the world?
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Because everything reaches the reader through him, so his account of his own reasons is a claim rather than a report. Montresor says he acted for revenge over an insult, and since he will not say what the insult was we cannot check it. His stated motivation is therefore evidence about how he wishes to be understood, which is itself informative, and not evidence that the insult occurred or was serious. It passes through the narrator, so it is a claim about him rather than a fact
- Why could Poe not have produced this effect by telling us the narrator was untrustworthy?
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Because a reader told that a narrator is untrustworthy holds the idea as information received, while a reader who works it out from a smile held for months and an unnamed offense holds it as something they detected. The second is stronger and it is also more uncomfortable, since the reader has been put in the position of judging a man who believes he is explaining himself reasonably. Telling would have removed both effects. A conclusion the reader reaches is held more firmly than one they are handed