Plot and Characterization

THE MYSTERY OF THE CREATIVE PROCESSES.

The processes of creation are confessedly as mysterious to those who possess such creative power as they are to other people. Thackeray spoke of this power as “occult” – as a power which seemed at times to take the pen from his fingers and move it in spite of himself. “I don’t control my characters” he once protested; “I am in their hands and they take me where they please.” Such testimony is exceedingly instructive, for it touches upon an experience which is the experience of every writer of creative genius from the delineator of shylock and Hamlet downward. Here, indeed, lies the ultimate distinction between creative genius and mere talent, however brilliant and well-trained. The latter simply manufactures, and its effects are always within the field of conscious and deliberate effort. The former really creates, and for this reason, its outworkings are often as strange and inexplicable to the author himself at the time as to those who afterward take his characters to pieces in the hope of plucking the heart out of their mystery.

THE POWER OF GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.

A writer’s success in characterization necessarily depends in part upon his faculty for graphic description. In the representation of a play, the makeup of the actor, his interpretation of his part, his dress and bearing, and the looks and gestures of the character portrayed by him do us an immense service in the definition of his character’s personality. In the reading of a novel, all these things are of the imagination only; and thus it is an important part of the business of the novelist to help us by description to a vivid realization of the appearance and behavior of his people. Whatever is individual and characteristic in their physical aspect in general, whatever is of importance in their expression or demeanor at any critical moment must be so indicated as to stand out clearly in the reader’s mind.

THE ANALYTICAL AND DRAMATIC METHODS OF CHARACTERISATION.

With regard to characterization, the principal thing to remember is that the conditions of a novel commonly permit the use of two opposed methods – the direct or analytical and the indirect or dramatic. In one case the novelist portrays his characters from the outside, dissects their passions, motives, thoughts, and feelings, explains, comments and often pronounces authoritative judgment upon them. In the other case, he stands apart, allows his characters to reveal themselves through speech and action, and reinforces their self-delineation by the comments and judgments of other characters in the story. However, in fiction, in which the autobiographical or documentary plan is strictly adhered to, the presentation of character is confined within the limits of dramatic objectivity. Speaking generally, however, the very form of the novel and the compound of narrative and dialogue practically involves a combination of the non-dramatic and the dramatic in the handling of characters.

THE QUESTION OF RANGE IN CHARACTERIZATION.

In the general estimation of any novelist’s characterization, the question of his range and limitations must not be left out of consideration. Although, we admire authors like Jane Austen who are content to do a few things and to do them well, however, we naturally assign a higher place to those whose accomplishment is broader and more varied. But every novelist who writes much and covers a considerable field is certain to have his points of special strength and special weakness, and these throw much light upon the essential qualities of his genius and art.

CHARACTERIZATION AND KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE.

The principle of fidelity to personal observation and experience in the plot and manners of a novel is also applicable to its characterization. Henry Fielding urged that “a true knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation, and the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known”. This may be accepted as thoroughly sound doctrine, disregard of which has been responsible from time to time for some conspicuous failures on the part of even the greatest novelists. Special information concerning the manners and speech of particular classes and callings is indeed a pre-requisite of their correct portraiture. However, a broad and intimate knowledge of human nature at large, a keen insight into the workings of its common motives and passions, creative power and dramatic sympathy will together often suffice to give substantial reality and the unmistakable touch of truth to characters.

RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF PLOT AND CHARACTER.

We distinguish roughly between two classes of the novel – those in which the interest of character is uppermost, while the action is used simply are mainly with reference to this; and those in which the interest of plot is uppermost and characters are used simply are mainly to carry on the action. Quite inadequate as the distinction is, it is nonetheless useful because, as indicating differences of emphasis, it suggests the question of the relative value of incident and character in fiction. Here, it may be said that of the two elements, characterization is more important. It has been seen that novels that have the principal stress on characters rank higher as a class than those which depend mainly on incidents. The interest aroused by a story merely as a story may be very keen at the time of reading, but it is in itself a comparatively childish and transitory interest, while the interest aroused by characterization is deep and lasting. The greatest novelists indeed have habitually shown a disregard for mere plot sometimes amounting to positive carelessness. Therefore, it may be argued that a great novel is likely as a rule to approximate rather to the loss than to the organic type of plot structure.

Combination of plot and Character.

In a novel plot and character must be combined. There is a right way and a wrong way of treating their relationship. The wrong way is to bring them together arbitrarily and without making them depend logically upon each other; the right way is to conceive them throughout as forces vitally interacting in the movement of the story. In merely a sensational novel where the writer’s main concern is with his plot, the machinery of the action will commonly be found to have little to do save in the most general sense with the personal qualities of the actors. The plot itself having been put together with little or no reference to them, they are simply puppets pulled this way or that, as the intrigue demands, by the showman’s string. Simple or complex, the plot evolves as a natural consequence of the fact that several given people, of such and such dispositions and impelled by such and such motives and passions, are brought together in circumstances that give rise to an interplay of influence or clash of interests among them. The circumstances themselves may indeed count greatly as cooperating factors, and an impersonal element made thus combines with the personal in the development of the action.

Motivation.

“It is a part of the author’s duty,” as Scott properly remarks, “to afford satisfactory details upon the causes of the separate events he has recorded.” This means that in the evolution of the plot out of character, the motives that prompt the persons of the story to act as they do must impress us as both in keeping with their natures and adequate to the resulting incidents. If for the sake of the plot, a character is made to take a line of action in contradiction to his disposition, or on motives that seem insufficient or fantastic, then the true relation of plot and character is ignored, and the is faulty.

Dialogues.

Dialogues, well managed, is one of the most delightful elements of a novel; it is that part of it in which we seem to get most intimately into touch with people, and in which the written narrative most nearly approaches the vividness and actuality of the acted drama. The expansion of this element in modern fiction is, therefore, a fact of great significance. Good dialogue greatly brightens a narrative, and its judicious and timely use is to be regarded as evidence of a writer’s technical skill. Investigation shows that while dialogue may frequently be employed in the evolution of the plot – the action moving beneath the conversation, its principal function is in direct connection with the character. It has immense value in the exhibition of passions, motives, and feelings; of the reaction of the speakers to the events in which they are taking part; and of their influence upon one another. In the hands of a novelist who leans strongly towards the dramatic method, it may thus often be made to fill the place and perform the work of analysis and commentary.

TESTS TO BE APPLIED TO DIALOGUE.

In the first place, it should always constitute an organic element in the story; that is, it should really contribute, directly or indirectly, either to the movement of the plot or to the elucidation of the tractors in their relation with it. Extraneous conversation, however clever or amusing in itself, should be e condemned. conversation extended beyond the actual needs of the plot is to be justified only when it has a distant significance in the exposition of character. Beyond having this organic connection with the action, dialogue should be natural, appropriate, and dramatic; which means that it should be in keeping with the personality of the speakers; suitable to the situation in which it occurs; and easy, fresh, vivid, and interesting. It is evident that these are elementary conditions of good dialogue.

HUMOUR, PATHOS AND TRAGEDY.

While speaking of plot characterization and dialogue in prose fiction, the question of the novelist’s powers of humor, pathos, and tragic effect also arises. These special attributes are conspicuous by their presence or absence as the case may be, and they are inevitably recognized or missed by even the most careless reader.  In our estimate of any novelist’s work as a whole, there are two points which in particular will here come up for examination. There is first the question of the extent and limitations of his powers. In the comparative study of fiction, this question has some interest since one writer is weak in humor and is stronger in pathos; with another, the conditions are reversed; a third is most at home among the fiercer passions, while here and there we may find one who has something of Shakespeare’s assured mastery of many moods and can touch us with equal certainty to mirth, to pity, to terror. Secondly, there is the more important question of the quality of his accomplishment in any of these directions; for humor may vary from broad farce to the subtlest innuendos of high comedy; pathos from weak sentimentalism to the most delicate playoff tender feelings; tragedy from a crude reveling in merely material horrors to the most soul-moving calamities of the moral and spiritual life.

THE QUALITY OF THE EMOTIONAL ELEMENT IN FICTION.

The question of quality involves the large and in some respects difficult problem of the use and abuse of the emotional elements in fiction.

HUMOUR.

Humor is one of the greatest endowments of genius and the one which beyond all others should help to keep a novelist’s work sane and wholesome, may yet be misemployed in various ways, will readily be perceived. It is misemployed when it is enlisted in the service of indecency are used to turn to ridicule what should arouse sympathy for the sense of revulsion rather than mirth. To lay down an abstract rule is impossible, for many things that are intrinsically pitiable or disgusting, like drunkenness, have still their comic aspect and may therefore rightly be handled in a comic way. Often too much comic handling is morally most effective, and for this reason, humor has always been a potent instrument for the correction of manners and the castigation of voice. Much depends upon spirit and treatment. But we are at least safe in saying that when our laughter is stirred, it shall be by no unworthy subjects, that it shall not partake of cruelty, and that it shall leave no bad taste in the mouth.

THE PAINFUL EMOTIONS.

A similar problem confronts us in connection with painful emotions. Why we enjoy them at all when we experience them in the mimic world of art, is a question concerning which much has been written and countless theories propounded. That we do enjoy them is at any rate a patent fact, while the place that they occupy in much of the world’s greatest imaginative literature testifies eloquently to the depth and prominence of their appeal. Yet these painful emotions may easily be abused, and often have been abused. Sentiment may degenerate into sentimentalism and an unhealthy indulgence in the luxury of grief, and no one will deny the danger of this tendency who remembers how much fiction is written with the express purpose of satisfying a widespread craving for this particular kind of morbid excitement in weak or over-sensitive natures. Once again, it is impossible to formulate general principles for the guidance of taste, for healthy sentiment passes by insensible degrees into sickly sentimentalism, while the borderline between the tragic horror that is justifiable and that which is unjustifiable is equally shifting and vague. After reading a novel when we look back and become conscious that we have been tricked into strong feelings without sufficient or upon the unworthy cause, that our emotion has been nearly factitious and will not stand the impartial judgment of the next day, or that the interest aroused has been of that gross and morbid kind which leaves a taint upon the mind, then, no matter what may be its artistic merit the book must stand condemned.