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Characterization
Indir
Indirec
ectt Char
Charac
actteriz
erizaation
DEFINITION In indirect characterization, rather than explicitly describe a
What is characterization? Here’s a quick and simple definition: character's qualities, an author shows the character as he or she
moves through the world, allowing the reader to infer the character's
Characterization is the representation of the traits, motives, qualities from his or her behavior. Details that might contribute to the
and psychology of a character in a narrative. indirect characterization of a character are:
Characterization may occur through direct description, in • The character's thoughts.
which the character's qualities are described by a narrator,
another character, or by the character him or herself. It may • The character's actions.
also occur indirectly, in which the character's qualities are • What a character says (their choice of words)
revealed by his or her actions, thoughts, or dialogue. • How a character talks (their tone, dialect, and manner of
speaking)
Some additional key details about characterization:
• The character's appearance
• Early studies of literature, such as those by the ancient Greek • The character's movements and mannerisms
philosopher Aristotle, saw plot as more important than character.
It wasn't until the 15th century that characters, and therefore • How the character interacts with others (and how others react to
characterization, became more crucial parts of narratives. the character)

• Characterization became particularly important in the 19th

Indirect characterization is sometimes called "implicit
century, with the rise of realist novels that sought to accurately
characterization."
portray people.
Indir
Indirec
ectt Char
Charac
actteriz
erizaation in Dr
Drama
ama
Char
Charac
actteriz
erizaation Pr
Pronuncia
onunciation
tion It's worth noting that indirect characterization has an additional layer
Here's how to pronounce characterization: kar-ack-ter-ih-zzey-shun in any art form that involves actors, including film, theater, and
television. Actors don't just say the words on the script. They make
Dir
Direc
ectt and Indir
Indirec
ectt Char
Charac
actteriz
erizaation choices about how to say those words, how to move their own bodies
and in relation to other character. In other words, actors make
Authors can develop characterization in two ways: directly and
choices about how to communicate all sorts of indirect details. As a
indirectly. It's important to note that these two methods are not
result, different actors can portray the same characters in vastly
mutually exclusive. Most authors can and do use both direct and
different ways.
indirect methods of characterization to develop their characters.
For instance, compare the way that the the actor Alan Bates plays
King Claudius in this play-within-a-play scene from the 1990 movie of
Dir
Direc
ectt Char
Charac
actteriz
erizaation
Hamlet, versus how Patrick Stewart plays the role in the same scene
In direct characterization, the author directly describes a character's from a 2010 version. While Bates plays the scene with growing alarm
qualities. Such direct description may come from a narrator, from and an outburst of terror that reveals his guilt, Stewart plays his
another character, or through self-description by the character in Claudius as ice cold and offended, but by no means tricked by
question. For instance, imagine the following dialogue between two Hamlet's little play-within-a-play into revealing anything.
characters:

"That guy Sam seems nice." Round and Fla

Flatt Char
Charac
actter
erss
"Oh, no. Sam's the worst. He acts nice when you first meet Characters are often described as being either round or flat.
him, but then he'll ask you for money and never return it, • Round char
charac
actter
erss: Are complex, realistic, unique characters.
and eat all your food without any offering anything in return,
and I once saw him throw a rock at a puppy. Thank God he • Fla
Flatt char
charac
actter
erss: Are one-dimensional characters, with a single
missed." overarching trait and otherwise limited personality or
individuality.
Here the second speaker is directly characterizing Sam as being
selfish and cruel. Direct characterization is also sometimes called Whether a character is round or flat depends on their
"explicit characterization." characterization. In some cases, an author may purposely create flat

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characters, particularly if those characters will appear only briefly and or more generally create characters whose characterization makes
only for a specific purpose. A bully who appears in a single scene of a them feel so unique and individual that their archetype feels more
television show, for instance, might never get or need more like a framework or background rather than the entirety of who that
characterization than the fact that they act like a bully. character is.
But other times authors may create flat characters unintentionally
when round characters were necessary, and such characters can
render a narrative dull, tensionless, and unrealistic. EX
EXAMPLES
AMPLES
The characters of nearly every story—whether in literature, film, or
Char
Charac
actter Ar
Arche
chetypes
types any other narrative—have some characterization. Here are some
Some types of characters appear so often in narratives that they examples of different types of characterization.
come to seen as archetypes—an original, universal model of which
each particular instance is a kind of copy. The idea of the archetype Char
Charac erizaation in Hamle
actteriz Hamlett
was first proposed by the psychologist Carl Jung, who proposed that
The famous literary critic Harold Bloom has argued in his book The
there were twelve fundamental "patterns" that define the human
Invention of the Human that "Personality, in our sense, is a
psyche. He defined these twelve archetypes as the:
Shakespearean invention." Whether or not you agree with that,
• Caregiver there's no doubting that Shakespeare was a master of
characterization. One way he achieved such characterization was
• Creator
through his characters delivering soliloquies. The excerpt of a
• Explorer soliloquy below is from Hamlet, in which Hamlet considers suicide:
• Hero
To be, or not to be? That is the question—
• Jester
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
• Lover The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
• Magician Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
• Orphan And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
• Rebel The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
• Ruler That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
• Sage Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
While many have disagreed with the idea that any such twelve For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
patterns actually psychologically define people, the idea of When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
archetypes does hold a lot of sway among both those who develop Must give us pause.
and analyze fictional characters. In fact, another way to define round
Hamlet's soliloquy is not simply him saying what he thinks. As he
and flat character is to think about them as they relate to archetypes:
delivers the soliloquy, he discovers what he thinks. When he says "To
• Fla
Flatt char
charac
actter
erss are easy to define by a single archetype, and they die, to sleep. To sleep," he is all-in on the idea that suicide is the right
do not have unique personal backgrounds, traits, or psychology course. His words "perchance to dream" flow directly out of his
that differentiates them from that archetype in a meaningful way. thoughts about death as being like "sleep." And with his positive
• Round char
charac
actter
erss may have primary aspects that fit with a certain thoughts of death as sleep, when he first says "perchance to dream"
archetype, but they also may be the combination of several he's thinking about having good dreams. But as he says the words he
archetypes and also have unique personal backgrounds, realizes they are deeper than he originally thought, because in that
behaviors, and psychologies that make them seem like moment he realizes that he doesn't actually know what sort of
individuals even as they may be identifiable as belonging to dreams he might experience in death—they might be terrible, never-
certain archetypes. ending nightmares. And suddenly the flow of his logic leaves him
stuck.
Good characterization often doesn't involve an effort to avoid In showing a character experiencing his own thoughts the way that
archetype altogether—archetypes are archetypes, after all, because real people experience their thoughts, not as a smooth flow but as
over human history they've proved to be excellent subjects for stories. ideas that spark new and different and unexpected ideas,
But successful authors will find ways to make their characters not just Shakespeare gives Hamlet a powerful humanity as a character. By
archetypes. They might do so by playing with or subverting giving Hamlet a soliloquy on the possible joy of suicide he further
archetypes in order to create characters who are unexpected or new, captures Hamlet's current misery and melancholy. And in showing

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how much attention Hamlet pays to the detail of his logic, he reaching out with trembling arms toward a distant and mysterious
captures Hamlet's rather obsessive nature. In other words, in just green light—communicates fundamental aspects of Gatsby's
these 13 lines Shakespeare achieves a great deal of characterization. character: his overwhelming yearning and desire, and perhaps also
the fragility inherent such yearning.
Char
Charac erizaation in The Duchess of Malfi
actteriz
In his play the The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster includes an
excellent example of direct characterization. In this speech, the
WHY WRITER
WRITERSSU
USE
SE IT
character Antonio tells his friend about Duke Ferdinand: Characterization is a crucial aspect of any narrative literature, for the
simple reason that complex, interesting characters are vital to
The Duke there? A most perverse and turbulent nature; narrative literature. Writers therefore use the techniques of
What appears in him mirth is merely outside. characterization to develop and describe characters':
If he laugh heartily, it is to laugh
All honesty out of fashion. • Motivations
… • History and background
He speaks with others' tongues, and hears men's suits
• Psychology
With others' ears; will seem to sleep o’th' bench
Only to entrap offenders in their answers; • Interests and desires
Dooms men to death by information, • Skills and talents
Rewards by hearsay. • Self-conception, quirks, and neuroses
Ferdinand directly describes the Duke as deceitful, perverse, and wild,
Such characteristics in turn make characters seem realistic and also
and as a kind of hollow person who only ever laughs for show. It is a
help to drive the action of the plot, as a plot is often defined by the
devastating description, and one that turns out to be largely accurate.
clash of actions and desires of its various characters.

Char
Charac erizaation in The Gr
actteriz Greeat Ga
Gattsb
sbyy
Here's another example of direct characterization, this time from The OTHER RESOURCES
Great Gatsby. Here, Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel,
describes Tom and Daisy Buchanan near the end of the novel. • Wikipedia entr
entryy on char
charac
actteriz
erizaation: A brief but thorough entry.
• Ar
Arche
chetyp
typal
al char
charac
actter
ers:
s: The website TV tropes has built a vast
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed compendium of different archetypal characters that appear in
up things and creatures and then retreated back into their film and television (and by extension to books).
money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that
• Enc
Encyyclopedia Brit
Britannic
annicaa on char
charac
actter
ers:
s: A short entry on flat and
kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess
round characters.
they had made.

But The Great Gatsby, like essentially all other literature, doesn't
solely rely on direct characterization. Here is Nick, earlier in the novel,
HO
HOWWT
TO
O CITE
describing Gatsby:
ML
MLAA
He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious
Florman, Ben. "Characterization." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 5 May 2017.
way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was
Web. 31 Aug 2017.
trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and
distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute
and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. Chic
Chicag
ago
o Manual
Florman, Ben. "Characterization." LitCharts LLC, May 5, 2017.
This is an example of indirect characterization. Nick isn't describing Retrieved August 31, 2017. http://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-
Gatsby character directly, instead he's describing how Gatsby is and-terms/characterization.
behaving, what Gatsby is doing. But that physical description—Gatsby

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