 DEFINITION
 Characters are people who appear in fiction - stories, plays, comics, and film.
They
are created by authors with words - and sometimes
with pictures.
They
are not 'real' in the same sense as human beings
- but they can appear 'life like'.
In
fact some of them might appear 'larger than life'.
EXAMPLES
- Superman is a comic-book character
- Hamlet is a character in Shakespeare's
play
- Elizabeth Bennett is the heoine of Pride
and Prejudice
USE
Characters
bring life to an author's story.
They
act out the events of the plot as if they were
'real' people.
Because
they seem real, they become interesting to us
as readers.
Authors
make their characters seem real and interesting
in a variety of ways:
- their names
- their actions
- what they say or think
- what they look like
- what other characters say about them
 NAMES
Character
smight have unusual names, or names which are easy
to remember.
For
instance, Superman is a super man, and
in fact he has two names.
The
other, his 'real' name, is Clark Kent.
Postman
Pat has a simple name which includes his job.
Pippi
Longstocking includes a friendly first name and
a second name which is a bit funny.
Notice
that the letter 'p' is repeated in her first
names, and the letter 'g' is repeated in her
second name. This makes them easy to remember.
ACTIONS
Superman
can fly through the air, climb up skyscrapers,
and see through walls. That's fairly unusual!
Some
characters have amazing adventures - such as
Sinbad the Sailor and Robinson Crusoe who was
shipwrecked on a desert island for twenty-seven
years.
Alice
(in Wonderland) falls down a rabbit hole, then
meets characters such as the March Hare, the
Queen of Spades, and the Mad Hatter.
Even
fairly normal characters such as Billy in Barry Hines'
novel Kes trains
a pet kestrel.
SAY/THINK
Some
characters are interesting because of they say
funny or clever things:
Some
characters are interesting because we get to know
their secret thoughts.
In
Shakespeare's play Hamlet,
we get to know Hamlet's
private opinions about other characters - and
all his secret doubts and fears about himself.
He
becomes what is called a 'fully rounded' character.
That
is, we get to know his good and bad points, just
as we might a real person.
Characters
who do and say the same things all the time are
called 'two-dimensional'.
They
are like characters in comics - like Dennis the Menace
- who always does the same things.
LOOK LIKE
 When
Batman comes out to fight
crime in Gotham City, he is wearing:
- a mask and a hood with ears
- blue tights
- a huge cape
That's
a pretty weird form of dress!
SAID OF
We
sometimes learn about a character from what others
says about them.
Those
'others' can be the author or the person who is telling
the story.
It
can also be other characters in the story. "He
was the noblest Roman of them all"
|
