Character in Longer Works: Study Guide (English Literature 3.1)

Characters in longer works are built over time

In a short story, a handful of details can define a character. In a novel or play the same character is shown over many pages, and the reader’s idea of them develops. Three habits help you keep track.

1. Notice the first description. It sets expectations about how the character will behave.
2. Track how the character meets or breaks those expectations. A reader’s interpretation depends on this gap.
3. Ask whose view you are getting. Descriptions come from a narrator, from other characters or from the character, and each has a perspective.

This topic is about using details of description, speech, action and inaction to say something defensible about a character’s perspective and motives, and about how the text shapes your view.

Description sets up expectations

The way a character is introduced creates a pattern of expectation. A character described as “a lady of excellent character” is expected to behave with propriety. A character introduced by a long list of rank and wealth is expected to behave with confidence. How the character then acts either meets the expectation (and confirms the reader’s picture) or breaks it (and invites the reader to look again).

Details connected with a character also contribute to interpretation. These include objects, habits, manner of speaking, a nickname, and the settings in which they appear. When you list such details, ask what each suggests and whether they point the same way.

Whose perspective shapes the description?

A reader’s understanding of a character often depends on the perspective of the narrator or speaker, and in a novel the narrator may report what a community thinks. When that happens, the description tells you about the community as well as about the character. A play usually has no narrator, so character emerges from:

• dialogue (what is said, and how others respond),
• soliloquy and asides (a character speaking their thoughts to the audience),
• action and stage directions, and
• what other characters say about someone.

Comparisons and what they reveal

When a narrator, character or speaker compares another character to something or someone, they reveal their own perspective on the compared character and may reveal something about the compared character too. A character who calls someone “a coward” or “an angel” is judging by a standard, and the standard says something about the person judging. Ask: What does this comparison treat as important? What does it leave out?

Motives from actions and inactions

A motive is the reason for what a character does. You cannot see it directly, so you infer it from:

• actions (what the character does and what it gains or protects),
• inactions (what they could do but do not, what they leave unsaid),
• their own explanations, which you test against their behaviour.

Perspective can also shift during a narrative: what a character sees and values early on may change. This topic establishes how to read a character at a given moment; Topic 3.2 considers change over time.

Worked example 1: description and expectation in a public-domain novel

In Chapter 3 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mr. Darcy arrives at a ball:

Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report, which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased …

Step 1: What is the description? First an impressive appearance (“fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien”) and a fortune (“ten thousand a year”); then a reversal: “his manners gave a disgust”. The final judgement is that he is “proud”, “above his company, and above being pleased”.

Step 2: Whose perspective? Not Darcy’s. The verbs are “pronounced”, “declared”, “was looked at”, “was discovered”: the room’s collective opinion. The fortune is a “report … in general circulation”, so even the first admiration depends on gossip. The narrator reports what the room thinks and keeps a slight distance from it.

Step 3: What expectation does it create? The pattern of the passage (rise, then fall) leaves the reader with the picture of a man admired for wealth and appearance and then disliked for manner. The expectation is that he will behave with pride.

Step 4: What does this show about the describers? The room’s admiration turns on rank and money, and its disapproval turns on a lack of civility towards them. The passage therefore describes the community’s values as well as Darcy.

Step 5: What can you say, and what should you not? You can say that the narrator builds a first impression of Darcy through the room’s shifting opinion. You should not say that the narrator thinks Darcy is proud: the judgement belongs to the room. A careful reader therefore treats the description as an expectation to be tested as the novel proceeds.

Model sentence: “By presenting Darcy through the room’s changing judgement (‘pronounced’, ‘declared’, ‘was discovered’), the narrator creates an expectation of pride while exposing a community that admires rank first and condemns manner second, so the reader is left to test the description against his later conduct.”

Worked example 2: motive and comparison in a public-domain play

In Act 1, Scene 7 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (written about 1606), Macbeth thinks aloud about killing Duncan, the king. Here he reviews reasons against the act, and then names what is driving him (spelling and punctuation vary between editions; this is the Project Gutenberg text):

He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
…
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other—

Step 1: Where does the evidence come from? From a soliloquy, a speech made while alone. In a play, a soliloquy gives the audience a character’s thinking without any narrator.

Step 2: What does Macbeth say about his own motives? He lists reasons not to act: the duty of a kinsman and a subject, and the duty of a host. Against them he has only one reason: “Vaulting ambition”. He calls it an image of a rider who jumps too far: “which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’ other”. So he understands his motive, and he also understands that it can ruin him.

Step 3: What does the organisation of his thought reveal? He starts with the moral case against the murder and ends with the single motive in its favour. The order shows a man in whom the reasons for the deed are weak and the reasons against it are strong, and who is still drawn to it.

Step 4: Now the comparison. Lady Macbeth enters. A few lines later she challenges him: “Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dress’d yourself?” and asks whether he will “live a coward in thine own esteem”. She compares his resolve to drunkenness and his hesitation to cowardice. Her comparison reveals her perspective: she treats courage as consistency between desire and action. It also tells the audience how she plans to move him, by attacking his sense of himself.

Step 5: Say what the evidence shows. Macbeth’s motive is ambition, which he admits to himself while seeing its danger, and Lady Macbeth’s perspective is one in which hesitation equals weakness.

Model paragraph opening: “In his soliloquy Macbeth lists the duties that forbid the murder (kinsman, subject, host) and then admits that he has only ‘vaulting ambition’ to urge him on, an image of overreaching. His own analysis shows a man who understands his motive and its danger, while Lady Macbeth’s comparison of his resolve to a ‘drunk’ hope shows that she measures him by whether his acts match his desires.”

Strong and weak statements about character in longer works

Weak	Why it is weak	Stronger
“Darcy is proud.”	Takes the room’s verdict as the narrator’s	“The room judges Darcy proud after first admiring his fortune, which shows a community that values rank first.”
“Macbeth is ambitious.”	Names a trait; no evidence	“Macbeth admits that only ‘vaulting ambition’ drives him, while the duties of ‘kinsman’, ‘subject’ and ‘host’ forbid the act.”
“Lady Macbeth is cruel.”	A label	“Lady Macbeth compares his hesitation to cowardice, which shows that she judges courage by consistency between desire and act.”

Checking your inference

1. Whose description is it? Narrator, community, another character or the character.
2. What expectation does it create? And has the character met or broken it?
3. Have you tested a motive against behaviour? A stated motive may differ from the real one.
4. Is your claim limited to what you have seen? In a longer work, say “at this point” where the character may change.

Common misconceptions

• “The first impression is always correct.” Often the text tests it. Treat it as an expectation, not a conclusion.
• “A community’s opinion is the narrator’s opinion.” A narrator may report it with distance or irony.
• “A soliloquy is always honest.” A character may deceive themselves, and the audience compares what they say with what they do.
• “A character has only one motive.” Several may compete, and the character may not admit them all.
• “Only actions count.” Inactions, silences and omissions can reveal motives.
• “A comparison tells you only about the compared character.” It also reveals the person making the comparison.

Where this leads

Try the practice questions, then use the checklist and revision notes. The next topic, Characters who change or remain unchanged, looks at how characters develop over a whole work. For the short-fiction basics, see Character: what details reveal about perspective and motive.