Character Character and Characterization Theory

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B. Character and Characterization Theory

1. Character

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defining character as personage in a narrative or dramatic work; also a kind of prose sketches briefly describing some recognizable type of person. 7 Character is a person created for a work fiction. 8 In fiction, the author usually has many characters in their story. Character created from the imagination of the author. Character is the most important element of the story because in reading a fiction, the reader concerned in one character to know what happened with that character in the story. Jane Bachman Gordon and Karen Kuehner in their book, Fiction: The Elements of the Short Story classified character into three types, there are: First, round and flat character. Round character is a three- dimensional character complex enough to be able to surprise the reader without losing credibility. Flat character is one whom Forster deems incapable of surprising the reader two dimensional characters. Second, major and minor characters. The major character is sometimes called a protagonist. Protagonist is the main or the central character. The opposite of protagonist is antagonist, antagonist is the 7 Chris Baldick, “Character”, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2011, p. 48. 8 Jane Bachman Gordon and Karen Kuehner, Fiction The Elements of The Short Story USA: McGraw-Hill, 1999, p. 95. 10 character whose conflict with protagonist. The minor characters are confident, the person in whom the protagonist confides. Foil is the character whose contrast physically and personality with the main character. Third, active and static characters. Active character is one who changes because of what happens in the plot. Static character, however, remain unchanged; their character is the same at the end as at the beginning 9 . In analyzing character, we need observe their actions. We should listen to what they say and the way they say that. We should notice they relation to other characters and how other characters respond to them, especially to what they say about each other. 10

2. Characterization