- "In fiction, a character is a person or other being in a narrative."
The creation and development of believable characters that drive the plot of the play.
Character traits: The characteristic qualities that define a character's personality, behavior, and perspective.
Motivation: The driving force behind a character's actions and decisions.
Physical appearance: The physical attributes that help to define a character's identity and personality.
Backstory: The events and circumstances that shape a character's history, personality, and motivations.
Character development: The process of a character evolving or changing over the course of a story.
Dialogue: The words spoken by a character that reveal their personality, relationships, and motivations.
Foil characters: Characters who are opposite in personality, behavior, or beliefs and contrast with another character.
Stereotypes: A broad generalization of a type of character that can be used to establish a character's identity or support a larger theme within a story.
Round characters: Characters with layered personalities and varied traits that are depicted as complex and multi-dimensional.
Flat characters: Characters that lack depth and are typically used to fill out the story or provide contrast to a more complex character.
Protagonist: The primary character who drives the story's action and narrative.
Antagonist: The character in conflict with the protagonist, who creates obstacles or challenges for them to overcome.
Supporting characters: Characters who exist primarily to provide context or support for the main character or narrative.
Direct characterization: The author describing outright what the character is like, or their personality, background, motivations or desires.
Indirect characterization: The author using the character's thoughts, actions or spoken words to reveal their personality, background, motivations or desires to the reader.
Interior Monologue: A technique where the author allows the reader to see into a character's thoughts or subconscious mind.
Ambiguity: When a character or their motivations are left open to interpretation.
Character arcs: The journey a character takes over the course of a story, from their starting point to their endpoint.
Irony: A situation where the opposite of what is expected happens or is revealed.
Character relationships: The dynamic and interaction between characters, and how it shapes the story.
Direct Characterization: This type of characterization involves the author or narrator directly telling the reader about the personality traits, physical appearance, or other characteristics of a character.
Indirect Characterization: In indirect characterization, the audience must infer the personality traits, motivations, and beliefs of a character from their actions, thoughts, and dialogue.
Dynamic Character: A dynamic character is one who undergoes significant changes throughout the course of a story, often through a significant event or personal growth.
Static Character: A static character, on the other hand, is one whose personality and worldview remain unchanged throughout the story.
Round Character: A round character is complex, multidimensional, and often contradictory, with a range of emotions and beliefs.
Flat Character: In contrast, a flat character is one-dimensional and lacks depth, often serving as a stock character or stereotype.
Foil Character: A foil character is one who contrasts with the protagonist or another character, often highlighting their differences and emphasizing important themes or ideas in the story.
Protagonist: The protagonist is the main character or hero of a story who often drives the action and undergoes significant development.
Antagonist: The antagonist is the character who opposes the protagonist and creates conflict and tension in the story.
Stock Character: A stock character is a familiar and predictable character type, usually serving a specific function in the story (e.g., the wise old mentor or the naive young lover).
Round-Flat Character: A round-flat character has some depth and complexity, but their personality and characteristics are not fully developed.
Multiple Character: Multiple characters are characters that occupy more than one role in the story, often having complex and ambiguous motivations and personalities.
Subjective Character: A subjective character is one whose actions and motivations are interpreted from the points of view of other characters, often creating uncertainty and tension in the story.
Objective Character: In contrast, an objective character has a clear and consistent set of actions and motivations that are independent of the perspectives of other characters.
- "Derived from the Ancient Greek word χαρακτήρ, the English word dates from the Restoration." - "The term dramatis personae, naturalized in English from Latin and meaning 'masks of the drama', encapsulated the notion of characters from the literal aspect of masks."
- "Characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes."
- "Since the end of the 18th century, the phrase 'in character' has been used to describe an effective impersonation by an actor."
- "Since the 19th century, the art of creating characters, as practiced by actors or writers, has been called characterization."
- "A character who stands as a representative of a particular class or group of people is known as a type." - "Types include both stock characters and those that are more fully individualized."
- "The characters in Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (1891) and August Strindberg's Miss Julie (1888), for example, are representative of specific positions in the social relations of class and gender, such that the conflicts between the characters reveal ideological conflicts."
- "The study of a character requires an analysis of its relations with all of the other characters in the work."
- "The individual status of a character is defined through the network of oppositions (proairetic, pragmatic, linguistic, proxemic) that it forms with the other characters."
- "The relation between characters and the action of the story shifts historically, often miming shifts in society and its ideas about human individuality, self-determination, and the social order." Note: These questions are selected based on the information provided and may not cover the entirety of the paragraph's content.