Character (arts)  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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character, stock character, mythical figure

A fictional character is any person, persona, identity, or entity whose existence originates from a fictional work or performance. Such existence is presumed by those participating in the performance as audience, readers, or otherwise. In addition to people, characters can be aliens, animals, legendary creatures, gods, an artificial intelligence or, occasionally, inanimate objects.

Characters are widely considered an essential element of fictional works, especially novels and plays. Nevertheless, some works have attempted to portray a story without the use of characters (James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is one of the most famous examples). Even in works that do not expressly convey the existence of characters, such as in poetry, they are presumed in the form of a narrator or an imagined listener.

In various forms of theatre, performance arts and cinema, fictional characters are portrayed by actors, dancers and singers.

The process of creating and developing characters in a work of fiction is called characterization.

A non-fictional character is a character that actually exists or existed in history, though their exploits in the story may differ from their historical activities.

Talking animals

talking animals in fiction, fictional animal

Talking animals are a common theme in mythology and folk tales, as well as recent popular children's entertainment. Fictional talking animals often are anthropomorphic, possessing human-like qualities but appearing as another animal. The usage of talking animals enable storytellers to combine the basic characteristics of the animal with human behavior, to apply metaphor, and to entertain children.

Types of characters

Characters may be classified by various criteria:

• Antagonist
• Protagonist
• Hero
• Anti-hero
• Tragic hero
• villain
• Foil
• Main character
• Minor character

Round vs. Flat

In his book Aspects of the novel, E. M. Forster defined two basic types of characters, their qualities, functions, and importance for the development of the novel: flat characters and round characters. Flat characters are two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and often are have very little details or background information. By contrast, round characters are complex and often very detailed with lots of background information.

Dynamic vs. Static

Dynamic characters are ones that undergo a discernible and / or significant change throughout the narrative. Static characters are ones that have relatively little or no discernible change throughout the narrative.

It is possible to have Round Static Characters, Flat Static Characters, Round Dynamic Characters, and Flat Dynamic characters. Although the last example is most difficult to portray and achieve.

See also

• Advertising character
• Breaking character
• Character actor
• Character animation
• Character arc
• Character blogging
• Character comedy
• Character dance
• Character flaw
• Characterisation
• Character piece
• Character sketch
• Composite character
• Costumed character
• Fictional fictional character
• Focal character
• Gag character
• Generic character
• Ghost character
• Mary Sue
• Non-fictional character
• Non-player character
• Persona
• Player character
• Protagonist
• Recurring character
• Secret character
• Stock character
• Supporting character
• Sympathetic character
• Unseen character