Dialogue-based inference: From the way your character speaks to others in the story, your reader may deduce that they are kind, cruel, gentle, etc.What types of indirect characterization are there?Īny writing that helps us infer or deduce things about a person’s psyche, emotions, values or mannerisms. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), p. He rubbed the butt to a pulp and put it out the window, letting the breeze suck it from his fingers. He dragged the last smoke from his raveling cigarette and then, with callused thumb and forefinger, crushed out the glowing end. Instead, the author creates indirect characterization through the items a worker in this context would perhaps have: whiskey, cigarettes, calloused hands: Steinbeck doesn’t say that hitchhiker Joad is a down-and-out, blue-collar worker. Here, John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath (1939) shows a character’s personality indirectly. Indirect characterization invites your reader to deduce things about your characters, without explicitly telling them who they are. She names inanimate objects and tells teenagers stories of make-believe that would probably be better-suited to younger children. In the second example of characterization above (the indirect kind), it is inferred that Jessica is goofy and eccentric. To give simpler examples of direct vs indirect characterization, for direct you might write, ‘Jessica was a goofy, eccentric teacher’.įor indirect revelation of Jessica’s character, you might write instead, ‘Jessica had named the stick with a hook on the end she used to open the classroom’s high windows Belinda and would regale her children with stories of Belinda’s adventures (even though they were fourteen, not four)’. ‘Indirect characterization’ shows readers your characters’ traits without explicitly describing them. Through Lily, we learn Ramsay is ‘absorbed in himself’ or self-absorbed, tyrannical – we read direct statements about Ramsay’s personality that help us picture him and how he comes across to others. It’s telling (direct characterization typically is), but because we read it as one character’s opinion of another, it also shows us how Lily feels, whether or not she agrees with the statement that Mr. This is direct characterization – through Lily, Woolf describes Mr. Oh no – the most sincere of men, the truest (here he was), the best but, looking down, she thought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical, he is unjust… Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse (1927), p. Ramsay – advancing towards them, swinging, careless, oblivious, remote. In the example, an artist staying with the Ramsay family, Lily Briscoe, thinks about Mr Ramsay whom a man Mr Bankes has just called a hypocrite: Woolf explicitly shows what characters think of one another. Here’s an example of direct characterization from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1925). To begin with a definition of direct characterization, this means the author explicitly tells the reader a character’s personality.įor example, explicitly telling the reader a character is kind, funny, eccentric, and so forth. Let’s delve into using both characterization devices: What is direct characterization? Eight tips for using direct vs indirect characterization.What are these character creation techniques? Read on for examples of characterization that illustrate both: Guide to direct and indirect characterization: Contents Two main ways to reveal your characters are direct characterization and indirect characterization. Characterization describes the way a writer or actor creates or implies a character’s personality, their inner life and psyche.
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