Everyone who posted made great points regarding characterization and comparing and contrasting the choices made by the authors of two short stories in developing their characters. I hope you did get a chance to watch the short video on characterization I mentioned in the Characterization 2 post. If you didn’t please do so now.
Here are a few final points I want to be sure you are all clear on when thinking about and discussing characterization:
1. Characters are not round because they are the protagonist or flat because they are a minor character. Protagonists, to be well written, must inspire the reader to identify or relate to them; therefore, quality authors round out protagonists because if they didn’t the reader would not be able to connect. So we can’t say, “Bob is round because he is the protagonist.” That would mean that because a character is a main character he is round, which may not be true if a story is poorly written. Your job in analyzing literature is to note the choices the author made in creating the story.
2. Characters are not direct, or indirect. Characterization can be direct or indirect. We wouldn’t say, “Mary is a direct character because the text says, ‘Mary has dark spiralled curls, a clear, fresh complexion, and a sweet disposition.’” We might say, “The author has characterized Mary directly when he writes, ‘Mary has dark spiralled curls…’.” You need to be clear on the difference between characters and characterization. If you aren’t clear on this, please ask your questions by posting here — then we can discuss and everybody can come to full understanding.
3. Whenever you are writing to analyze literature, please use text to support your analysis. Also please respond to the question from your own thinking and understanding. Writing about literature should be a higher-order thinking process — most often synthesis or evaluation. So when you are asked to write about something that you have read, ask yourself…have I taken what I have read and thought about it and told what I think and why? Have I told whether or not I thought the writing showed quality and why? In other words, be sure you use in-depth thinking to analyze what you read.
4. In your blog posts, please go back and re-read them before posting and revise and edit. Remember that your post is PUBLISHED. Therefore, you should have gone through the entire writing process prior to publishing it. Maybe you don’t pre-write on paper, but you definitely need to in your head (it’s called THINKING), then draft, revise, and edit. Because we are writing in an electronic format does not mean that we disregard conventions. Please spell words correctly and use proper capitalization and punctuation. Do not use text spelling or conventions (i, u, r, 2, etc.) for this audience and purpose. Remember that to be a literate human being, you need to understand that there are different registers of language. The language I use with my pals is not going to be identical to the language I use in a formal academic setting. Please take time to present yourself appropriately for the audience and purpose.
Love and learning,
Dr. Lennon
