Methods of Characterization

1
Methods of Characterization

• Narrators Direct Comments
• The Characters Speech and Thoughts
• The Characters Actions
• Other Characters Comments

2
The Narrators Direct Comments

• In many types of writing there is a narrator who
  directly describes the character for us
• Generally this is reliable information, but
  occasionally it can be cleverly misleading
• In Romeo and Juliet, the narrator comments are
  limited to the two prologues and the stage
  directions

3
The Characters Speech and Thoughts

• We can learn about a character from their own
  words and the things that they are thinking
• In Romeo and Juliet, this method is primarily
  used through dialogue among characters and
  soliloquys by single characters

4
The Characters Actions

• The things that characters do reveals a lot about
  what type of a person they are
• In Romeo and Juliet, we learn a lot about the
  characters by the way they act

5
Other Characters Speech, Thoughts and Actions

• What another character says or thinks about a
  character may tell us something about that
  character
• The way a character acts toward another may
  reveal something about that character.
• This information may or may not be reliable.