Character: Types and Characterization

Who is in the story, and what kind of thing are they?

AP English Literature does not ask you to like a character. It asks you to describe, precisely, what kind of construction the character is and how the text builds them.

• Protagonist — the figure whose want, choice or change organises the narrative. Not necessarily admirable, and not necessarily the narrator.
• Antagonist — whatever stands against that want. It may be a person, an institution, a code of manners, a climate, or a part of the protagonist herself.
• Foil — a secondary figure placed beside the protagonist so that a contrast becomes visible. A foil exists to make a quality legible, not to be interesting alone.
• Round — presented with contradictory impulses; capable of surprising us convincingly.
• Flat — built around a single dominant trait. Flatness is a technique, not a flaw; a flat character can carry satire, theme or plot economically.
• Static / dynamic — whether the character is altered by the events. This is a separate axis from round/flat: a round character may end exactly where she began, and that stasis may be the point.

Direct and indirect characterization

Direct characterization is the narrator telling you: she was proud. Indirect characterization makes you infer it from four kinds of evidence:

1. Action — especially small, unwitnessed action, which the text offers as unperformed and therefore trustworthy.
2. Speech — diction, syntax, what is said twice, and above all what is refused.
3. Others' reactions — how a room changes when the character enters. This is the evidence students most often walk past.
4. The narrator's own handling — the sentence rhythms, the details selected, the judgements withheld.

An essay that only cites direct characterization is describing the text. An essay that reads indirect characterization is interpreting it, and that is where the evidence-and-commentary points live.