SENIOR 5 LITERATURE IN ENGLISH NOTES

P 310/2 PLAYS.

CHARACTER AND CHARACTERISATION.

Characters are the people who take part in the action of the play. Each character has a distinct
personality, age, appearance, beliefs, socio-economic background and language.
The playwright creates these characters and uses them to communicate his message as well as to
teach the audience valuable lessons from what they do and what happens to them. Sometimes
however, a playwright focuses his play on the basis of a famous person who existed once in real
life to write a historical play like Richard 111. Other times, he bases his play on characters from
oral literature like Greek mythology from which we get our hero, Oedipus in Oedipus the King.
In a typical play, the audience meets characters who are good and those who are evil/bad. The
good characters who exhibit admirable qualities are the heroes while the bad ones are called
villains. We love the heroes and hate the villains but both are equally important in
communicating the playwright’s message.
At A level, we usually examine the following about characters:
a. Characterization/traits
b. Character roles
c. Character relationships
d. Character comparison/ appeal.

a. Characterisation/traits
Here, we look at what kind of a person a character is by examining/analyzing what a
character says, what he does, what others say about him or what he thinks (exposed
through soliloquies). It is from this analysis that we conclude whether a character is good
or bad.
In this analysis though, we do not focus on one event to determine the character but on
the consistent reoccurrence of a certain behaviour throughout the play.
Since we mentioned earlier that characters are either good or bad, we use both positive
and negative adjectives to describe these characters as illustrated below.
 POSITIVE TRAITS
ACTION ADJECTIVES
If a character;- We say he/she is;-
-loves others -loving and caring, affectionate
- tells the truth -honest, truthful, candid
- gives to others -giving, generous
- feels sorry for others - compassionate, sympathetic, empathetic
-regrets and apologises for his wrongs -remorseful, apologetic, rueful, penitent
- speaks boldly - outspoken, assertive, blunt, eloquent
- prays or loves religion -religious, prayerful, God fearing, pious
- does what others fear to do -courageous, bold, audacious
-mentally active and knows a lot - intelligent, knowledgeable, shrewd
- Etc…

NEGATIVE TRAITS
ACTION ADJECTIVES
If a character;- We say that he/ she is ;-
-Lies(tells an untruth) -a liar, deceptive/deceitful, dishonest
-behaves contrary to what he says -a hypocrite/hypocritical, dissembler
- physically assaults others -violent
-unfairly treats others -unjust, unfair
- resists change -conservative
- thinks only of self - selfish, self-centered, egotistic
- looks down on others - snobbish
-loves easy money and wealth - greedy, materialistic
-takes advantage of others -exploitative
- abuses office/ power - corrupt
-seeks revenge - vengeful, vindictive
-Plots evil for others - cunning, calculating
- misuses religion - impious, blasphemous
-fakes illness -hypochondriac
- stays away from others - recluse, loner, aloof
- one sex is more important -chauvinistic, sexist, discriminative
- one race is more important - racist, segregative

QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the character of King Richard in Richard 111.
2. What is revealed about the character of Richard in the play Richard 111?
3. Examine the portrayal of Richard in Richard 111.
NB; Desist from looking at physical attributes, and achievements or failures to describe a
character e.g. poor, educated, short, ugly, brown, dark, good, bad etc. since they are not part of a
character’s behaviour.
Also, desist from using emotions to describe character e.g. a character is sad, angry etc. except
when these emotions appear consistently to become a part of that character for instance a person
who consistently angry/ snappy becomes short tempered or temperamental in the long run etc.

b. Character roles.
A playwright uses each of his characters to perform a certain duty/task in order for the
audience to understand the message he intends to send to them through his play. In drama, a
character plays the following roles
1. Plot development: Every character takes part in the action of a play through interacting
with other characters. This interaction leads to the conflict of the play which is later
resolved after the climax. Each character therefore helps in linking these events and if
you took out one character, the story would change completely. It is therefore the task of
the student to identify which character does what, to explain the cause effect relationship
between these events.
In Richard111 for instance, Richard decides to take power from the rest of his brothers
and nephews. He plots to murder his brother Clarence who is next in line for the throne
an inadvertently kills his other brother King Edward from a broken heart. He eliminates
everyone who threatens his ascension to the throne till he is crowned the King of England
but in the end, he is also killed in retribution for those he had killed earlier. It is because
he kills that he also gets killed, calling to mind the old adage that ‘those who live by the
sword, will die by the sword.’
2. Thematic development. A playwright uses his characters to communicate the themes
and ideas through what they think say and do. A character can be used to pass on the
writer’s views/ ideas on topics/ themes like marriage, love, racism, male chauvinism,
women emancipation, culture, poverty, corruption, religion, war, global warming, neo
colonialism etc.
These views/ ideas may be mentioned by the characters directly or may be inferred from
or implied by what they say or do.
3. Character development. Writers use characters to help us understand more of the other
characters in the play. Through the dialogue (conversations) between these characters, a
lot is revealed about those they talk to or about. If a character abuses another, we can say
he is abusive. If the character who is abused answers back with an abuse we can also say
that he is abusive. If however, the character who is abused at first chooses to ignore the
abuser and reconcile with him, then the abuser in that case is used to reveal that the
abused character is forgiving, reconciliatory, calm and tolerant.
4. Lessons. One of the major intentions of studying drama is for the improvement of the
morals of the audience. A writer therefore uses his characters to teach moral lessons to
the audience. These lessons are derived from what the characters say, do and what
happens to them. There is always a lesson from not only the good things that happen to
 the characters but also from their misfortunes. Nora in A Doll’s House for instance
teaches us to be hardworking, sacrificial and honest while Mrs. Linde teaches us to be
persevering, forgiving, bold and courageous. These lessons are drawn from what they do
and what happens to them. Always remember that lessons should be positive.

5. Mood and atmosphere. Characters contribute a lot to the general feeling and mood of
the play. Through what they do and say they arouse feelings in each other, changing the
mood/state of mind to create a given atmosphere in various scenes. This mood and
atmosphere which is created by a character can be tense, full of fear, uncertainty,
anticipation, confusion, festive, expectant, angry etc. epending on the events that happen
in the scene.
QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the role played by Buckingham in Richard111.
2. What important role is played by the female characters in A Doll’s House?
3. Examine the contribution/ relevance/ importance/ significance of Krogstad in A Doll’s
House.

c. Character relationships.
Characters in a play do not live in a vacuum but relate and connect with each other to create
the action of the play. Parents relate with their children and relatives, wives with their
husbands, the young relate with the old, literate with illiterate, leaders with their subjects,
employers with employees, man with nature and God, males with females, whites with
blacks etc. We therefore critically examine and analyse the nature of the interactions of these
characters to see what kind of relationship they have with each other.
Some characters like each other while others hate each other. The relationships, therefore,
are either positive or negative. We use adjectives to describe these relationships as illustrated
below;
 POSITIVE NEGATIVE
A relationship can be;
- Loving - Secretive
- Intimate - Hateful
- Cordial - Strained
- Strong - Parasitic
- Compatible - Incompatible/star crossed
- Romantic - Fragile
- Friendly - sexual
- Symbiotic - exploitative
- Respectful - antagonistic
- Platonic - abusive
- Close - master-servant
- Etc… - Etc.

QUESTIONS.
1. Examine the relationship between the Richard and Buckingham. What important lessons
do you learn from it?
2. What is revealed about the relationship between the men and women in A Doll’s House?

d. Character comparison/ appeal

Under this, we examine the similarities and differences between given characters. What do
they have in common and how different are they from each other. Usually, a good character
is compared against a bad character meaning that the similarities are likely to be less than the
differences.
For the similarities, use adjectives to describe what the two characters have in common while
for the differences, use opposites to describe how the characters differ from each other.
When comparing characters, you are usually required to choose the one you admire/ or who
appeals to you the most and why? This is called character appeal. A character is more
appealing if they do more good things than the other and so we love him or her more than the
other character. For such cases, choose the good character over the villain since we admire
heroes and condemn villains.
At times, you may be asked for who is more dramatically appealing. In this case you are
required to choose the character who does more work for the playwright in terms of
developing the dramatic aspects of the play, like who develops more events, themes,
characters and teaches more lessons.
QUESTIONS.
1. Compare the character of Krogstad and Helmer in A Doll’s House. Which character do
you admire more and why?
2. Compare the character of King Richard and Richmond in Richard111. Which character
has more dramatic appeal? Give reasons for your answers.