Sunday, March 14, 2010
Character.
Characters can easily be described as people or figures in a story. They have a much bigger role than that. A character speaks to its audience, but better yet it speaks to the author that is writing the story. It is the coming alive of characters that keeps readers and writers intrigued on what is happening. On page 113 it states, " If we do not conceive of characters as people we can know, these characters will seem artificial, unconvincing and uninteresting." This becomes true. Think back to how many times you read a book and you either engage in it or not by whether or not you can relate to it. The more you can relate to something the more real and alive it will become for you. You can experience character through literature, and even film. A character can start out as someone little and tiny in the piece or work and then take a turn and become something more. When reading a piece or seeing a movie you often times gain feelings for the characters. It is simple intuition that people want to gain and gather more information about a character. On page 123, it states, "Artists build from more mundane materials; may artists work from subjects quite literally close to home: family, friends, jobs, and so on." This shows that a lot of what is done in writing and in films comes personally from an artists background which in return the people tuning in can relate to a lot more. We engage with characters just as we engage with people. Characters serve a variety of functions and it is not always the case that we will know the characters as well as we had hoped in a piece of literature. There are many types of characters: round, flat, and stock. Round characters possess a complex psychology. Those seem the most intriguing to me. Dig deep to see exactly what the character is feeling. It is always fun to picture a character outside of the movie or the piece of literature as if they really do exist. Characters are a big part of our world of literature and film and its no wonder we engage in films and literature because of characters of course.
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I believe we also have to be able to consume a character into our mind in order to become drawn into the story. As soon as a reader meets a character in a story, we tend to want to already know everything about them so we can catagorize them and label them in the story. Kind of like a "good guy/bad guy thing." And this is really what makes stories interesting... in fact when directors use it in movies I think we tend to like the guessing game of who the character is so we can see the answer in the end.
ReplyDeleteI agree that when you can relate to something, whatever it may be, that thing seems to be more alive and real to you. Whenever I hear a message at church and they use a personal story, that perhaps many people can relate to, I find myself more engaged and the message becomes real in my life. Its something I can actually feel and I think that is the greatest task of an author is to have their characters seem so real that we actually feel what they go through.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about how much the author of a story engages with the character of a story. I have begun to write out my short story and already I feel like the characters and I are in diolouge because I don't know where the story is going but rather the characters are coming to life and writing the story. It's an interesting process and you don't really think about it that way as you read. You just think ok this is the story I'm reading. But the short story had to come from somewhere and the author had to write it some how right?
ReplyDeleteI think a good piece of literature is one that does have indepth characters. When we read a book and look up, the time has passed and we've been sitting for an hour. Why? Because we felt as if we were in the story. And I think thats why characters are so vital. Anyone can have people, but there is a difference between that and an actual character.
ReplyDeleteWow, very good post. I enjoyed reading the different aspects you pointed out about character. I definitely got a different perspective on character; very insightful interpretation
ReplyDeleteYou are right, like it said in the book, we have to feel like we know the characters to get our interest; there has to be some kind of bond between reader and character, author and character, and sometimes author and reader through the story.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you wrote-I think so often we engage in these forms of entertainment based on the characters. I loved what you said in the beginning of the post. Characters really do speak to the audience more so than the actual story line.
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