Significances of the Study Time and Place

CHAPTER 11 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

As the writer has explained in chapter one, there are several elements in a novel, which the readers need to know well, such as character. Character is the most arguably important single component of the novel. In this chapter two, the writer tries to explain all about the elements of novel and when someone talk about character they should know about characteristic and also character because those words are definitely related.

A. Characteristic

Characteristic is a way to identify a character. The characteristic of character is the identification of a character, which is described physically or seen from attitudes and how the characters behave. It is also the main point to really know how a characteristic is. Characteristic is also a method which is used by the author to illustrate character. Characteristic is the method an author uses to reveal or describe character and their various personalities. 2 A character has some different Qualities or values Moral, emotional, and intellectual. 3 2 http:www.wilmette.nttc.orgwjhsstaffbarbariccharacterization.htm accessed on June 6, 2009 3 Edward W and JR Rosenhaim, What Happens in Literature Chicago: The University Chicago Press, 1960, P. 79 Such as the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, 4 Mohsin Hamid describes about the main male character Princeton, he was an attractive and smart man in his novel. Characteristic is the way in which writer develops characters and reveals those characters’ trait to readers. The names of characters are often quite important for story because the author may develop characters through their actions, their physical appearances, their speech and gestures and expressions, and their names. Character my also be classified as round or dynamic and flat or static character. It means that round character tends to be dynamic, while flat character tends to be static. The developing of the major character may be round; sometime the point of story may depend on the characters’ abilities to change. Minor characters are often static, and their growth is not usually relevant to the development of the story. The readers may be able to develop a character through the character’s dialogue; responses to conflict that arise in the plot, revelatory and thought. A dynamic or round character is mayor character in a work of fiction that encounters conflict and is changed by it. Dynamic characters tend to be more fully developed and described that flat, or static, character. 5 Round character is character that is complex and realistic; they represent a depth of personality which is imitative of life. They frequently possess both good and bad traits, and they may react unexpectedly or become entangled in their own interior conflicts. 6 4 Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist Florida: Harcourt, 2007, P.8 5 http:fictionwriting.about.comodglossarygdynamic.htm accessed on June 6, 2009 6 http:en.wikipedia.orgwikifictional_characterNames_of_characters accessed on June 6, 2009 So, these characters have been fully developed by an author, physically, mentally, and emotionally. A round character is usually a main character that develops over the course of the story. A flat character is a character that has hardly any development. Example of round characters from various genres include Frodo Baggins of the Lord of the Rings, Arthur Dent of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Professor Snape from Harry Potter and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Flat character is character that is not very complex and do not change in surprising ways, but they must be careful not to late terms like flat and round or mayor and minor turn into value judgment. Because flat characters are less complex than round ones. 7 Supporting characters are generally flat, as most minor roles do not require a great deal of complexity. In addition, experimental literature and postmodern fiction often intentionally use flat characters, even as protagonist. The readers will also learn about the characteristic of characters. A character may be humankind, an alien, an animal, a god, an artificial intelligence or an occasionally inanimate object.

B. Character

The term character applies to any individual in a literary work. The characters in fiction are customarily described by their relationships to the plot of a story; by the degree of development that are given by the author. The story and plays a part in the action within the story-teller, but also a story for any narrator to tell In addition to 7 Jerome Beaty, et al., The Norton Introduction To Literature New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1973, P.103 being the narrator, he is character; someone who acts, appears, or is referred to as playing a part in a literary work. 8 In literary work story, there is a representation of humankind who has a role in the story. He or she is called actor or character. A character or actor usually refers to somebody who has a duty to carry out as role in the story. The relationship between plot and character is a vital and necessary one. Without character there would be no plot and, hence, no story. 9 The character is an actor appears in fiction work. 10 For most readers of fiction the primary attraction lays in the characters, in the endlessly fascinating collection of men and women whose experiences and adventures in life form the basis of the plots of the novels and stories in which they appear. A character is divided into two: Main and minor character. 1. Main Character The major or main character of the plot is the protagonist; his opponent, the character against whom protagonist struggle or contends is the antagonist. The protagonist usually easy enough to identify; he or she is the essential character without whom there would be no plot in the first place. It is the protagonist’s fate the conflict or problem being wrestled with on which the attention of the reader is focused. 11 2. Minor Character The character which appears only few times and takes the short portion is called minor character as he or she usually is flat character often are 8 Ibid. P.102 9 James H.Pickering and Jeffrey D.Hoeper, Concise Companion to literature New York: Macmillan,1981, P.23 10 http:en.wikipedia.orgWIKIFictional_characterNames_of_characters accessed on October 25, 2008 11 Jerome Beaty, et al., The Norton Introduction To Literature New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1973, P. 24