Theory of Character and Characterization
8 Holman and Harmon 82 categorize character into two types, major
character and minor character. A major character is the character that plays the most important role in a story. He becomes the focus of the story and he
frequently appears in the story from the beginning until the end. By the end of the story, usually, this character changes, but not always. On the other hand, a minor
character is less important than a major character. He does not always appear in the story.
Furthermore, Holman and Harmon 83 explain that a character may be either static or dynamic. A static character is a character who changes his
characteristic a little or does not change at all. On the other hand, a dynamic character is a characteristic modified by actions and experiences. Hence, a
dynamic character may undergo permanent changes in some aspects of his personality or outlook as the consequences of the actions. There are also some
divisions of characters based on their function in the story as Woods and Rohrberger 20 - 21 explained; they are protagonist and antagonist.
Protagonist is the central character, the character whom all events in the novel have relevance. Usually a story or novel only has one single protagonist, but
it is also possible to find that some other stories or novels have more than one person come into action. On the other hand, antagonist is a character who is
involved in conflict with the protagonist character. Conflict here does not mean only struggle between people. Conflict can happen when a character contradicts
himself with his fate, a struggle of a character whereby he battles with a part of
9 himself or with conflicting value systems or desires, or the character inner conflict
can be in conflict with someone or something outside himself. In analyzing the characters, there are nine ways that Murphy 161 - 173
offered. They are personal description, character as seen by another, speech, past life, conversation with others, reactions, direct comment, thought, mannerism.
Through personal description, the author describes a person’s appearance and clothes, for example he gives the details of a person such as: the face, skin, eyes,
clothes, etc. Character as seen by another means a character is described by the author through the eyes on opinion of another. It means that the readers get a
reflected image of a character through the expression of other characters. While in Speech, the author gives the readers an insight into the characterization of one of
the persons in the book through what that person says. One of the ways in analyzing the character is by looking at the character’s
past life. The character’s past life can be analyzed since the author gives a clue to events that have helped to shape a person’s character by letting the readers learn
something about a person’s characters through the direct comment by the author, through the person’s thought, through his conversation or through the medium of
another person. By looking at how the character has conversation with others, the author gives the readers clues to a person’s characters through the conversation of
other people and the things they say about him. Through the character’s reactions, the author gives the readers a clue to a person’s character by letting the reader’s
know how that person reacts to various situations and events. By using direct comment, the author describes or comments on a person’s character directly.
10 Through Thoughts, the readers understand a character through the
character’s thought. In Mannerism, the author describes a character’s mannerism, or habits, which may also tell the readers something related to his character.
Murphy emphasizes that the author will not use exclusively any of these characterization, but the author will choose or combine them skillfully together.
Characterization according to Perrine is “a representation of character in a story” 68. It is of course different from character because characterization is the
way in which character is represented. Therefore, character is the result, while characterization is the process. Additionally, according to Holman Harmon
“characterization is the creation of imaginary person. It means that the character has to be so real in order to present more alive story through characters, which are
provided” 81.