Character Change and Complex Relationships: Study Guide (English Literature 7.1)

Why change matters in a short story

A short story has little room, so when a character changes, or stubbornly stays the same, the reader pays attention. The function of change is to turn a conflict into meaning: a story asks, in effect, “what would it take for this person to see or choose differently, and what does it cost?”

Four points from the course framework organise this topic.

• Change often emerges directly from a conflict of values represented in the story: duty against desire, loyalty against honesty, safety against freedom.
• Changes in a character’s circumstances may lead to changes in that character: a loss, a move, a new responsibility.
• Change can be gradual, over the course of a narrative, or sudden, as the result of an epiphany, a moment of realisation.
• A character who remains unchanged also has a function: the story shows what pressure could not move them, or what they refuse to see.

Tracking change: a before-and-after frame

Step	Question	Evidence to find
1. Before	What does the character believe, want or see at the start?	Early thoughts, speech, habits
2. Pressure	What conflict of values or change of circumstances pushes on them?	The event, the choice, the loss
3. Turn	Is the change gradual or sudden?	A moment marked by a shift in perception or tone
4. After	What do they now believe, want or see? Or what refuses to change?	Later thoughts, speech, action
5. Function	What does the change, or its absence, mean for the story?	Link to the central conflict and to the ending

Epiphany

An epiphany is a moment of realisation that allows a character to see things in a new light. In short fiction it is often directly related to a central conflict of the story, and it may affect the plot by leading the character to act on the new understanding.

Look for signs that a moment is an epiphany: the perception changes suddenly (“she saw”, “it came to her”), earlier details gain new meaning, the language of the narrator shifts in tone or rhythm, and the character’s next action follows from the new view. Sometimes the epiphany is ironic: the insight arrives too late, or leads somewhere the character did not expect.

Relationships: individuals, groups and forces

The course adds that a group or force can function as a character, and that when you consider a character you should look at how they interact with other characters, groups or forces, and what those interactions may indicate. The relationship between a character and a group, including the inclusion or exclusion of that character, reveals the collective attitude of the group towards that character and possibly the character’s attitude towards the group.

Ask three things about any such relationship: What does the group do? (speaks, falls silent, watches, excludes), How does the character respond? (defiance, acceptance, pretence), and what does the contrast show?

Public-domain examples to learn from

The Story of an Hour (Kate Chopin, 1894). Mrs Mallard has “a heart trouble”, so “great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death”. Alone in her room, she gradually perceives “something coming to her”, and then whispers “free, free, free!” This is a sudden epiphany that arises from the story’s central conflict between marriage and selfhood. It affects the plot: she leaves her room “like a goddess of Victory”. The ending is bitterly ironic: the doctors say she died “of the joy that kills”.

Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1835). After a night in the forest, Brown’s faith in the people of his village is shaken. The story ends with him as “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man”. The change in a character’s attitude towards a whole community drives the story’s meaning.

Worked example 1: an epiphany and its effects

Use Chopin’s story, quoted briefly above.

Before. Mrs Mallard is defined by her fragility. The narrator emphasises her “heart trouble”, and the household treats her with caution. When the news comes she weeps “with sudden, wild abandonment” and retreats to her room, as expected.

Pressure. The central conflict is between the marriage she has lived in and a self she has not been free to be. Circumstances change: the husband is reported dead.

Turn. In the quiet of the room, the reader is shown the slow approach of an understanding: “There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.” Then comes the sudden realisation, “free, free, free!”, and the narrator reflects that there would be no “powerful will bending hers”. The shift in tone, from grief to a joy that frightens her, marks the epiphany.

After. She prays “that life might be long”, reversing her earlier shudder at that idea, and she descends the stairs triumphantly. The epiphany affects the plot: she leaves her room and goes to meet the life she has glimpsed.

Function. The sudden change is made possible by the conflict of values, and the ending turns it ironic: her husband walks in alive, and she dies. The story therefore shows how little room the world allows for the new self she discovers.

A model sentence. “By building Mrs Mallard’s realisation out of a conflict between marriage and selfhood, and by sending her downstairs transformed only to meet the husband she believed dead, Chopin makes the epiphany both the most truthful moment of her life and the cause of its end.”

Worked example 2: a character and a group

Original passage written by Marlbridge for practice.

The women at the pump went quiet when Nell Archer passed, and began again when she was past, a little louder, like a tide that had been held behind a hand. At the chapel door the men found they had business with their hats. Nell did not look at them. She walked with her basket on her hip as though the lane were hers, and when the sexton held the door she thanked him with a graciousness that cost her something and was not returned.

Task. What do the group’s behaviour and Nell’s response reveal?

The group as character. The women and men act as a collective with a single attitude. They fall quiet, resume “a little louder” and find “business with their hats”. The simile “like a tide that had been held behind a hand” shows an urge to speak that is suppressed and then released, and it signals that Nell is the subject of gossip and that the community knows it is being rude.

Exclusion. The men’s avoidance and the sexton’s unreturned courtesy show that the group’s attitude is one of withdrawal and judgement. Only the sexton gestures towards inclusion, and even he receives no warmth in return.

Nell’s response. She “did not look at them”, which is a refusal to acknowledge their power, and she walks “as though the lane were hers”, a pose of ownership. Yet the graciousness “cost her something”. The narrator reveals the strain beneath her composure.

Function. The passage shows a character defined by a community’s judgement and by her own resistance to it. It suggests that her relationship to the group is one of defiance maintained at a price, and it prepares for a story in which change, or its refusal, is a response to exclusion.

A model sentence. “By presenting the villagers as a single hushing, resuming tide and Nell as a woman who walks as though the lane were hers at a visible cost, the narrator shows exclusion as something the community performs and the individual endures.”

Writing about change: sentence frames

Strong sentences about change name the before, the pressure and the meaning together. Useful frames are:

• “At the start, [character] …; by the end, …, because [conflict or circumstance].”
• “The moment when [detail of realisation] marks an epiphany: it ties directly to [central conflict] and leads [character] to [action].”
• “The [group] acts as a single character, [verb], and so reveals a collective attitude of [attitude] towards [individual].”

Check each sentence for evidence (a quoted word or detail) and for function (what the change or its absence means for the story).

Common misconceptions

• “Characters must change.” Some stories turn on a refusal or inability to change. Ask what pressure was applied and why it failed.
• “Change is always improvement.” Change can be loss, disillusion or tragic insight, as in Hawthorne’s story.
• “An epiphany is just a realisation.” It is a sudden new way of seeing, tied to the central conflict, that may lead to action.
• “Groups are background.” A group can be a character: it acts, judges, includes or excludes.
• “The ending proves the change.” Check the details across the story. An ironic ending may qualify what the change means.

Where this leads

Change in a character often depends on where they are, so Topic 7.2 looks at setting and its relationship to character. Test yourself with the Topic 7.1 practice questions, review with the revision notes and track your progress with the checklist.