AP English Literature and Composition

A character is any figure a text asks the reader to treat as a person, and the first job in analyzing one is to decide what kind of figure it is. The label is not the point of the analysis, but it tells you what the text is likely to do with the character and what the character is there to make visible. Characters are the means by which a text shows readers values, beliefs, assumptions, biases and cultural norms, so a sorting of characters is really a sorting of what each one carries.

Protagonist and antagonist

The protagonist is the main character, the figure whose situation drives the narrative and whose fortunes rise or fall. The antagonist is whatever opposes the protagonist, and that need not be a person. It can be another character, the protagonist's own internal conflicts, a collective such as a town, a family or a whole society, or nature itself.

This matters because it changes how you describe a conflict. In a story about a fisherman caught by a storm, the antagonist is the sea; in a story about a clerk who cannot bring himself to resign from a job he hates, the antagonist may be the clerk's own fear. Naming the antagonist accurately stops an interpretation from collapsing into "good against bad" when the opposition is something stranger.

Protagonists and antagonists often stand for contrasting values. A protagonist who values loyalty and an antagonist who values advancement are not only two people in conflict; they are two answers to the question of what a person owes others. When you can state what each one values, you are already close to a claim about the text.

Major and minor characters

Major characters are developed at length: the reader learns their history, thoughts and contradictions. Minor characters are drawn more thinly. They often appear to move the plot along, or to interact with major characters so that those characters have someone to speak to, argue with or be measured against.

Because the narrative does not focus on them, minor characters are usually unchanged by the events of the plot. A neighbor who appears twice to deliver news is the same neighbor at the end. That is a feature of how the text is built and not a flaw. It is still worth asking what a minor character is for: a minor character who says very little may expose, by comparison, how much the protagonist talks.

Foils

A foil is a character whose traits, attributes or values illuminate those of another character through contrast. Two sisters, one who plans every detail and one who improvises, throw each other's habits into relief; the careful sister looks more rigid beside the improviser, and the improviser looks more reckless beside the planner. Each trait becomes easier to see because its opposite is standing next to it.

A foil is not simply an opposite. The comparison works only on the particular qualities that the text sets side by side, so describe what is being contrasted ("one is patient, the other is not") and then what the contrast makes the reader notice. A foil may be a major character, and a minor character can serve as a foil for the briefest of scenes.

Groups and forces as characters

A group or a force can function as a character. A chorus of townspeople who comment on events, a jury, a family treated as a single voice, a regime or a crowd can all act, hold attitudes and respond to the protagonist. When this happens, examine how the individual character interacts with the group and what the interactions indicate. A group that welcomes someone in, or shuts them out, shows its collective attitude toward that person, and the way the person responds may show their attitude toward the group.

An impersonal force can be handled the same way. A story might give a drought nearly as much agency as a person, with its own moods, advances and retreats. If the text treats a force as something that acts and is acted against, it is functioning as a character and should be analyzed as one.

Symbolic characters

When a character comes to represent an idea or concept, the character becomes symbolic. A figure who appears at moments of choice and is never given a history might stand for conscience or for fate. Some symbolic figures are so familiar that many readers recognize them before they read the text, and these are sometimes called archetypal. You do not need to put a label on a figure to analyze it; what matters is saying what idea the character is made to stand for and how the text uses that to develop its meaning.

A symbolic reading should not erase the character as a person. The strongest readings keep both in view: what the character is like in the scene, and what the text is doing by turning the character into a carrier of an idea.

Dynamic and unchanged characters

A dynamic character develops over the course of the narrative, often by making choices that affect the climax or the resolution. Some characters remain unchanged or are largely unaffected by events. Which kind a character is tells you something about the text, because a protagonist who does not change might be a sign of stubbornness, or of a world that refuses to let anyone learn.

A worked example

Here is a short original passage, followed by an analysis that sorts its characters.

Marguerite kept the shop ledger in her own hand and checked it twice a day. Her brother Tomas, who had been given the shop's name and none of its books, spent the mornings talking with customers about everything except what they came in to buy. When the bank's letter arrived, the whole street seemed to lean in at once, waiting to see which of the two would open it.

Marguerite is the likelier protagonist, since the sentence structure places her actions first and gives her the ledger, the visible sign of responsibility. Tomas works as a foil: the contrast between the one who tracks the books and the one who talks with customers makes her exactness and his sociability stand out. The street, which "seems to lean in," is acting as a group character, with an attitude of expectation toward the pair. The bank's letter hints at an antagonist that is not a person but an institution and the threat it represents.

Each of those readings begins with a detail in the text, and each says what the detail does. That is the pattern to hold to whatever kind of character you are describing.