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How to Analyse Characters
Analysing characters involves examining how they are portrayed through their actions, words, thoughts, descriptions and what other characters say about them. In your analysis, you should use evidence from the text and apply appropriate adjectives to describe their traits. While adjectives may look simple, they are powerful tools used for summarising character traits.
Characters' Actions
Focus on the characters' actions. What characters do will help you to understand their traits. For example, in the story Shadows on the Wall, the child narrator deliberately chooses not to listen to his father. This action indicates defiance, making "defiant" an appropriate adjective for the narrator. In, The Crow, two boys pursue the crow with intent to kill it. This action shows cruelty and bloodthirstiness. Therefore, you should say the boys are "cruel" and "bloodthirsty." Do not just mention what a character does; use suitable adjectives to summarise their traits.
What Characters Say
You should also look at what the characters say because their words can reveal their hidden traits. For example, in The Hero, when Julius tells his classmates "there's nothing to tell," after being expelled from school, his words show insincerity and secrecy. He hides the truth, so adjectives like "insincere" and "secretive" appropriately describe his character.
What is Said by By Other Characters
Pay attention to what characters say about each other. This can help you to gain insight not only into the character being discussed but also into the one making the comments. In The Hero the administrators label Julius as "Julius The Little." This comment indicates that the administrators are "abusive" and "hostile."
Author's Description
The author can use descriptive language to create vivid impressions of characters. This includes their appearance, manner of dressing or speaking. For example in Tomorrow's People, Ndiweni's uses disparaging language such as inxaha and dog to refer to Nimrod. This semantic field indicates that he is disrespectful and rude. Texts rarely gives obvious statements about the character traits. Readers should do a thorough character analysis in order for them to arrive at the plausible conclusions and use appropriate adjectives to summarise the traits.
Characters' Thoughts
Sometimes characters don't perform any notable actions but express their thoughts. Authors are able to bring out the thoughts of characters through a variety of ways including the stream of consciousness, monologues or third-person omniscient narration. These techniques can give readers insight into the characters' thoughts. From these thoughts, readers can derive character traits and then apply the right adjectives to describe them.
Characterisation vs. Character Analysis
Characterisation, also known as character development, refers to the techniques employed by the author to create characters. These techniques include description, speech, actions, thoughts, feelings, e.t.c. Characterisation is closely tied to the themes because the way characters are created, reflects the issues the author intends to explore. On the other hand, character analysis is what the reader does in order to interpret the traits of the characters based on the evidence provided by the author. Always touch on the
themes when analysing characters. For instance, to conclude that a character is "bloodthirsty", you should connect this analysis to the theme of violence or death.
Tip:
Never analyse a single literary element in isolation. All literary elements are interwoven. If a question asks about a specific element, focus on it while acknowledging how other elements amplify it.
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