A certain number of typologies have been proposed to classify and distinguish analytically the kinds of character most often found in fiction.
Two of these typologies are still used extensively by critics and writers, even though their psychological assumptions only make them applicable to realist fiction, that is, to storyworlds that attempt to imitate or replicate our own lifeworld.5
The first one of these typologies6 distinguishes characters based on their degree of individuation:
1. Flat characters: These characters, which are sometimes equated to what we have called types in the previous section, are constructed around a limited number of traits or characteristics.
Of course, there are varying degrees of flatness. At one extreme, we would find characters with a single characteristic or trait, such as a messenger whose only purpose in the story is to deliver a message at a certain point of the plot. Flat characters can be a bit more individuated than that, but their identity, personality, and purpose can often be expressed by a single sentence. They tend to lack depth or complexity and are easily recognisable and remembered by the reader. Because of their limited qualities, however, they also tend to seem quite artificial and most readers have a hard time identifying with them or taking them for real human beings. Minor or secondary characters in fiction tend to be flat, even when the main characters in the same story are not.
In genres like comedy or adventure, flat characters are quite common. And some writers, like Charles Dickens or H. G. Wells,
5 See Seymour Benjamin Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).
6 E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985).
4. Characterisation seemed quite inclined to populate their novels and short stories
with flat secondary characters. An example of a flat character from the Harry Potter series is Argus Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts, characterised almost exclusively by his love for cats and obsession with catching students who break the rules of the school (Fig. 4.5).
Fig. 4.5
Warner Bros. Studio Tour, London:
The Making of Harry Potter. Source:
Karen Roe, CC BY 2.0, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_
Making_of_Harry_Potter_29-05-2012_
(7358054268).jpg
2. Round characters: These characters are endowed with many different traits or characteristics, some of which might even be contradictory and cause them internal or psychological conflicts.
With well-crafted characterisation, round characters can appear to be as complex and multifaceted as any human being we might encounter in our world. Major characters in realist prose fiction, such as Emma Bovary, Rodion Raskolnikov, or Anna Karenina, are often round. And there are writers, like Gustave Flaubert or Jane Austen, who tend to characterise even minor characters with such nuance and complexity that they appear to be round, even though they might not have a prominent role in the story. An example of a round character in the Harry Potter novels is Hermione Granger, one of Harry’s closest friends at Hogwarts. While roundness of character is the aim of many realist and popular stories, in modernist and postmodernist fiction the notion of character has often been questioned. In Robert Musil’s novel The Man Without Qualities, for example, the main character is presented as devoid of any of those stable
Prose Fiction
characteristics, individual or typical, which would allow him to fit comfortably into the preconceived patterns of modern bourgeois society (Fig. 4.6).
Fig. 4.6
‘Man without Qualities n°2’
(2005), oil and metal on canvas.
By Erik Pevernagie, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Man_without_
Qualities_n%C2%B02.jpg
Another typology, also based on a psychological-realist conception of character and often confused with the previous one, distinguishes characters in terms of their ability to change or evolve throughout the plot:
1. Static characters: These characters do not experience any profound change or personal evolution from the moment they appear in the plot until they disappear. Most flat characters are also static, although these classifications are based on different variables. It is possible, although relatively unusual, to have a flat character whose limited characteristics undergo a radical transformation in the story. More common is to have round characters that are static, retaining the same personality, identity, or characteristics throughout the whole narrative. In the Harry Potter novels, for example, most major characters, including Harry, Ron, and Hermione, are fairly static, evolving only superficially from their initial appearance until the end of the series, even if the author has tried to add dynamism into their characterisation in order to take account of their growing up into adulthood.
2. Dynamic characters: These characters undergo profound and significant changes as the story develops, showing some degree of personal evolution or growth which transforms them into somewhat different characters at the end of the
4. Characterisation plot. This evolution is not always positive or constructive,
and the changes experienced by the character may involve different forms of crisis, physical or psychological degradation, depression, and other negative or destructive changes. Given their complexity and depth, round characters are generally more able to experience this kind of dynamism, although there are many cases where round characters remain static. In short stories, dynamic characters are far less common than in novels, where the length of the narrative provides more opportunities to show character development and evolution. To continue with examples from the Harry Potter novels, Neville Longbottom is one of the few characters who undergoes a significant evolution throughout the series, as he grows up and develops a more confident and bold personality.