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Characterisation is the techniques that are used to create, define and portray a character. Characterisation can be shown through a number of ways. When analysing characters in an extract you should be asking the following questions:
- The character’s dialogue: what do they say? Do they have any unique verbal tics/habitual words? For example, a young girl may use the word ‘like’ informally throughout her dialogue. This is a habitual word, as older characters, such as the girl’s mother, are unlikely to use such informal language.
- The description of the character: what do they look like? What kind of language is used by the writer to describe them?
- The character’s actions: what do they do?
- The character’s possessions: what do they own? For example, a character that owns a flash car, expensive watch and a large house may present the characteristic of being materialistic.
- The way the character interacts with other characters: do they act differently in the presence of certain characters?
- The way other characters see the character: how are they perceived by others? For example, if a character is intimidating then this can be shown through other characters appearing nervous or scared around them.
- The character’s journey throughout the story: do they change? Do they act the same as they did in the beginning? What happens to them at the end?
Below is an extract taken from Chapter 8 of Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist (1838). Here, Dicken’s introduces The Artful Dodger into his narrative; Oliver meets him whilst fleeing from the region of his birth and is on his way to London. Look at the description to see how Dicken’s approaches Dodger’s characterisation.
| “Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?”The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer was about his own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that Oliver had ever seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age: with rather bowlegs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment – and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man’s coat, which reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in his bluchers. |
Analysis
Dodger’s dialogue is the first thing we could mention here: “Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?” which implies that The Dodger is very broad and is a lower-class citizen in society. Dodger is around Oliver’s age but is described as wearing ‘a man’s coat, which reached nearly to his heels’. This implies that Dodger is perhaps too over-confident and trying to appear older than he is.
There is a lot more that you could say about how Dicken’s characterises Dodger just from that one extract, however, you should now have an idea of the development of characters, their individual traits, personalities and dialogue etc.
When writing about texts in the exam, it is common for students to refer to character’s as real people but you must remember that the characters are a creation made by the author. The table below shows a common example of the mistakes made by students; we will use the opening paragraph of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) to illustrate:
| Common Error | Corrected |
| Gulliver frequently uses advanced vocabulary which establishes him as being a part of the aristocratic English society. | In using the first person narration, Swift establishes Gulliver as part of the aristocratic English society through the inclusion of advanced vocabulary in his language. |
Gulliver is the character in the narrative, Jonathan Swift is the author, and so it is Swift who uses advanced vocabulary, not Gulliver as he is a fictional character.
