Characterization (the way the characters can be presented)
Focus and voice (narrator, stream of consciousness, interior monologue)
Narrative frames (generic and compositional aspects of spatial motifs)
The Picture of Dorian Gray:
- At the opening of the novel, Dorian Gray exists as something of an ideal: he is the archetype of male youth and beauty.
- As such, he captures the imagination of Basil Hallward, a painter, and Lord Henry Wotton, a nobleman who imagines fashioning the impressionable Dorian into an unremitting pleasure-seeker.
- Lord Henry said that if he was beautiful than he must be stupid
- Dorian was the inspiration for the painter – Basil
- Dorian became Basil’s friend
- He was ideal only in Basil’s mind
- the way of introducing the character: modern way, glimpses of life, impressionistic dealing with the character
2. Narrator:
- we dip into the minds of other characters here and there, from Lord Henry to Mrs. Vane
- The narrator is anonymous.
- The point of view is third person, omniscient. The narrator chronicles both the objective or external world and the subjective or internal thoughts and feelings of the characters.
- The narrator makes occasional descriptive observations about scenery, costume, facial expression and movements within the room, but has no relationship to any of the interacting characters.
- The characters within the story speak the narrative to each other, as it is told entirely in dialogues.
- The narrator is able to enter the protagonists’ mind.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- Physical Appearances - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde look differently, so they must be different people. More specifically, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have markedly different physical characteristics. Dr. Jekyll is described as middle-aged, distinguished-looking, and a large man. Mr. Hyde is younger, more energetic, and described by just about everyone as seeming to have a deformity. No one can pinpoint exactly what this deformity is, but they unanimously agree that it’s there, and that it’s definitely evil.
We learn about Jekyll from Utterson: Jekyll leaves his will to Utterson and decides to hand everything to Mr Hyde and in the will Jekyll writes about his disappearance – this is not typical of Jekyll
Jekyll stopped visiting friends, and as Lanyon says: “He began to go wrong, wrong in mind, Jekyll spends his time in laboratory
Jekyll was concerned about Mr Hyde
Indirect characterization: how Jekyll treated his servants (employs contrast – what happens and what is said about the character)
Narration:
- The narrator is anonymous and speaks in the third person. Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll each narrate one chapter of the novel via a confessional letter.
- For most of the novel, the narrative follows Utterson’s point of view
- The third person limited point of view picks one character and follows him around – in this case, Mr. Utterson. However, Mr. Utterson’s point of view is supplemented by four other narratives: Mr. Enfield’s story of the door, the maid’s account of the Carew murder, Dr. Lanyon’s story, and Dr. Jekyll’s confession.
- Utterson: he’s not a terribly involved narrator. We watch him speculate about Dr. Jekyll and try to unravel the mystery, but he’s not overcome by strong emotions all the time. He’s an average fellow who cares about his friend’s well-being, and isn’t going to project many of his own opinions onto the story he unravels
The Door in the Wall
Characterization:
- The door is the way of characterization
- we learn about the character straight from the narrator and also from the characters
- reappearance of the door – important for the character
- we learn about Wallace from the story told by Redmond
- At first. Redmond does not know if he should or should not believe his friend's wild tale: "But whether he himself saw, or only thought he saw, whether he himself was the possessor of an inestimable privilege, or the victim of a fantastic dream, I cannot pretend to guess." This unwillingness to judge his friend displays his sense of sympathy. Redmond represents the voice of reason, making Wallace's story more believable because it is told by what readers assume is a reliable narrator. Furthermore, because Redmond is relating the tale, readers also learn of Wallace's strange death, which seems to verify the tale Wallace tells him at dinner. Redmond's account of the story also lends it a tragic tone because it is related after Wallace's death—a feat not possible if Wallace himself was the narrator.
- Lionel Wallace: Politician Lionel Wallace is the protagonist of "The Door in the Wall." As a child living in a joyless home, he discovers a door to a visionary garden of happiness. His cautious nature is shown by his trepidation upon encountering the door, because he knows his father will be angry if he opens it. A child of a strict, Victorian upbringing, Wallace has been conditioned to deny his imagination and put all his effort into becoming successful.
- traditional way of introducing the character – chronological
stream of consciousness, narrative technique in nondramatic fiction intended to render the flow of myriad impressions—visual, auditory, physical, associative, and subliminal—that impinge on the consciousness of an individual and form part of his awareness along with the trend of his rational thoughts. As the psychological novel developed in the 20th century, some writers attempted to capture the total flow of their characters’ consciousness, rather than limit themselves to rational thoughts. To represent the full richness, speed, and subtlety of the mind at work, the writer incorporates snatches of incoherent thought, ungrammatical constructions, and free association of ideas, images, and words at the pre-speech level.
Her First Ball
Mansfield reveals Leila's thoughts through narrator commentary, indirect speech, free indirect speech, and sensory and psychological reactions. She opens the narrative with narrator commentary in which she exposes Leila's thoughts as one who is privy to Leila's every thought: "Exactly when the ball began Leila would have found it hard to say."
Indirect speech is a technique in which a character’s words are stated by the narrator without benefit of direct quotation: "That was the great difference between dancing with girls and men, Leila decided."
Free indirect speech takes indirect speech one step further and gives the characters thoughts as though one were directly listening in to the character's thoughts:
Why didn't the men begin? What were they waiting for? There they stood, smoothing their gloves, patting their glossy hair and smiling among themselves.
Finally, Mansfield reveals Leila's thoughts through recounting her sensory and psychological reactions:
Leila ... felt that even the little quivering coloured flags strung across the ceiling were talking.
The azaleas were separate flowers no longer; they were pink and white flags streaming by.
She quite forgot to be shy ....
One modernist technique Mansfield does not use is stream of consciousness. While this term may be loosely used by some to cover other techniques that reveal a character's inner thoughts, like free indirect speech, for example, the definitive elements of fragmentation and randomness that mark stream of consciousness are missing from Mansfield's techniques in "Her First Ball."
Daisy Miller
In Daisy Miller there is an obvious dichotomy between the characters that are portrayed as typically "American" versus those who are typically "European."
The characters who exemplify Americanism as defined by the author are Daisy, Randolph, and Mrs. Miller along with Mr. Giavonelli. They all demonstrate disrespect, naïveté, flirtatiousness, lack of culture and manners, frivolousness, spoiled, rude and/or active (as opposed to passive) character traits. These traits are in opposition to those shown in the characters of Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Walker. These two women are examples of James' portrayal of European traits. They show themselves to be proper, experienced, clever, stiff, judgmental, reclusive and/or passive.
James is especially fond of telling us about characters through exacting physical descriptions that tell us more than just what people look like. Consider this introduction to Mrs. Miller:
[…] a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, decorated with a certain amount of thin, much frizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme elegance; she had enormous diamonds in her ears. (1.164)
Narrator:
First Person Peripheral (like in The Heart of Darkness) – first person revealed only five times in the book – like telling a story; peripheral – we don’t know anything about the narrator; the first person narrator entwines with the third person narrator; conversational – “two or three years ago”; limited perspective that of Winterbourne
Narator’s judgements recount Winterbourne’s impressions about others
We can see Daisy through the eyes of Winterbourne
Free indirect style
Mrs Dalloway
Characters:
Clarissa Dalloway
Septimus Warren Smith
Peter Walsh
Sally Seton
Richard Dalloway
Clarissa Dalloway - Constantly overlaying the past and the present, Clarissa strives to reconcile herself to life despite her potent memories. For most of the novel she considers aging and death with trepidation, even as she performs life-affirming actions, such as buying flowers. Though content, Clarissa never lets go of the doubt she feels about the decisions that have shaped her life, particularly her decision to marry Richard instead of Peter Walsh. She understands that life with Peter would have been difficult, but at the same time she is uneasily aware that she sacrificed passion for the security and tranquility of an upper-class life. At times she wishes for a chance to live life over again. She experiences a moment of clarity and peace when she watches her old neighbor through her window, and by the end of the day she has come to terms with the possibility of death. Like Septimus, Clarissa feels keenly the oppressive forces in life, and she accepts that the life she has is all she’ll get. Her will to endure, however, prevails.
Woolf intended for Clarissa to speak the sane truth and Septimus the insane truth, and indeed Septimus’s detachment enables him to judge other people more harshly than Clarissa is capable of.
Narration:
Stream of consciousness
Anonymous narrator, voice knowing everything about the characters,
The narration mainly focuses on Mrs. Dalloway's worldview, her inner workings, and her exploration and sensory experience of the world surrounding her.
Time: Apparently the time of action is only a single day in the lives of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. But in the course of a single day they live their whole lives and the reader gets to know everything about them
the past lives of the characters are not narrated in chronological order
(Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights: (chapters: 1, 2, 3) Charles Dickens Great Expectations (chapters: 1, 2, 59))
Wuthering Heights
Characters:
Heathcliff
Catherine
Edgar Linton
Nelly Dean - (known formally as Ellen Dean) serves as the chief narrator of Wuthering Heights
Lockwood - Lockwood’s narration forms a frame around Nelly’s; he serves as an intermediary between Nelly and the reader
Hareton Earnshaw
Linton Heathcliff
Hindley Earnshaw
Isabella Linton
Mr. Earnshaw
Mrs. Earnshaw
Joseph
Frances Earnshaw
Mr. Linton
Mrs. Linton
Zillah
Mr. Green
Heathcliff - Wuthering Heights centers around the story of Heathcliff. The first paragraph of the novel provides a vivid physical picture of him, as Lockwood describes how his “black eyes” withdraw suspiciously under his brows at Lockwood’s approach. Nelly’s story begins with his introduction into the Earnshaw family, his vengeful machinations drive the entire plot, and his death ends the book.
We learn about the characters from their language – differences between classes
Heathcliff appearance - Mr. Earnshaw introduces him to his new family by saying that he is "as dark almost as if it came from the devil", and he is called a "gipsy" by several different characters.
During a three-year absence, Heathcliff is physically transformed. No longer a beaten-down street kid, he has become, as Nelly puts it:
. . . a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master [Edgar] seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued […]
Narration:
two main narrators: Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean. The primary narrator is Lockwood, who begins and ends the narrative and is recording the story that he hears from Nelly.
Nelly and Lockwood have their own interests, biases, likes and dislikes, so what we read is a highly biased account of the story of the Linton, Earnshaw, and Heathcliff families.
Lockwood uses an educated literacy language marked by detailed factual description and perceptive observation and comment, both on situation and character.
Nelly Dean’s narrative, though copious and detailed, has an extraordinary, sometimes breathless energy as if she were describing events that she had witnessed an hour ago, every moment of which is vividly present to her.
Spatial motifs:
In Wuthering Heights, Brontë constantly plays nature and culture against each other. Nature is represented by the Earnshaw family, and by Catherine and Heathcliff in particular. These characters are governed by their passions, not by reflection or ideals of civility. Correspondingly, the house where they live—Wuthering Heights—comes to symbolize a similar wildness. On the other hand, Thrushcross Grange and the Linton family represent culture, refinement, convention, and cultivation.
The setting influences the mood
Mystery and tragedy related
Psychological realism, realism of emotions,
Mystery that can be solved
Great Expectations
Pip - As a bildungsroman, Great Expectations presents the growth and development of a single character, Philip Pirrip, better known to himself and to the world as Pip. As the focus of the bildungsroman, Pip is by far the most important character in Great Expectations: he is both the protagonist, whose actions make up the main plot of the novel, and the narrator, whose thoughts and attitudes shape the reader’s perception of the story. Because Pip is narrating his story many years after the events of the novel take place, there are really two Pips in Great Expectations: Pip the narrator and Pip the character—the voice telling the story and the person acting it out. Dickens takes great care to distinguish the two Pips, imbuing the voice of Pip the narrator with perspective and maturity while also imparting how Pip the character feels about what is happening to him as it actually happens. This skillfully executed distinction is perhaps best observed early in the book, when Pip the character is a child; here, Pip the narrator gently pokes fun at his younger self, but also enables us to see and feel the story through his eyes.
Estella
Miss Havisham
Narration:
Pip as narrator - He passes judgement on others for good (Joe, Biddy) or ill (Pumblechook, Orlick), but these judgements do not seem to the reader to be simple personal likes or dislikes; they are convincing, because they are borne out by the words and deeds of these characters.
Spatial motifs:
No emotional attachement to the places
Setting sets the ambience
Characters are most important – how they behave – setting is the background
Convention – realism – mimetism – realistic novels – referential – the use of real places
Tess of d’Ubervilles
Tess Durbeyfield - Intelligent, strikingly attractive, and distinguished by her deep moral sensitivity and passionate intensity, Tess is indisputably the central character of the novel that bears her name. But she is also more than a distinctive individual: Hardy makes her into somewhat of a mythic heroine. Her name, formally Theresa, recalls St. Teresa of Avila, another martyr whose vision of a higher reality cost her her life. In part, Tess represents the changing role of the agricultural workers in England in the late nineteenth century.
Beyond her social symbolism, Tess represents fallen humanity in a religious sense, as the frequent biblical allusions in the novel remind us.
Alec d’Urberville - An insouciant twenty-four-year-old man, heir to a fortune, and bearer of a name that his father purchased, Alec is the nemesis and downfall of Tess’s life. His first name, Alexander, suggests the conqueror—as in Alexander the Great—who seizes what he wants regardless of moral propriety. Yet he is more slippery than a grand conqueror. His full last name, Stoke-d’Urberville, symbolizes the split character of his family, whose origins are simpler than their pretensions to grandeur.
Angel Clare - A freethinking son born into the family of a provincial parson and determined to set himself up as a farmer instead of going to Cambridge like his conformist brothers, Angel represents a rebellious striving toward a personal vision of goodness.
Tess's physical appearance is likewise an important marker of her identity as a character, but not all characters are able to read her appearance correctly. The first physical description of Tess indicates the complexity of her character – different phases of her life are visible in different features: "phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then" (2.21).
Language - Tess of the D'Urbervilles uses a lot of regional dialect to differentiate between characters. The narrator explains early on that the difference between Tess's speech and her mothers is due to Tess's standardized education. She only uses the regional dialect of the town where she grew up when she's very emotional.
The dialect is a marker of her identity as a member of the peasant class that she can never wholly do away with, but it also indicates the layers of her personality – it's something that is under the surface, which can always bubble over.
Narration:
Third Person (Limited Omniscient)
The narrator of Tess of the D'Urbervilles gives us what critics call a "sympathetic inside view" of only two or three characters: Tess (of course), Angel, and, sometimes, Alec.
POINT OF VIEW · The narrator speaks in the third person, and looks deep into the characters’ minds. The narrator is objective but has an omniscient understanding of future implications of characters’ actions as they happen.
TONE · Realistic, pessimistic
Dialogue between characters allows Hardy to present his characters to his readers in a more direct way.
An omniscient narrator - Using such a narrative technique, Hardy allows himself to be somewhat detached from his characters, often appearing as though he himself does not sympathise with the tragedy that is Tess.
Spatial motifs:
Correlation between the setting and the character,
Landscape – important
We see the character through the landscape
Richness of description of the landscape focuses attention onto sth
The use of extensive description of setting by Hardy allows the reader to interpret the action, reactions, and moods of the characters in relation to the specific atmosphere in which they exist at the time and the influence which such a setting has on the character's feelings and emotions.
Irony
Complexity
Convention-realism-mimetism-referential-long descriptions
The particular setting in which a character exists reflects the character's moods, actions, reactions, and their rationale for these, whilst the setting also influences how a character behaves.
chapter two, Hardy describes the county of Marlott and the surrounding Vale of Blackmoor in terms of its rural beauty and cultural atmosphere whereby a May Day dance is being held. This description of setting reflects the peaceful atmosphere of the county at that time, much like that of Tess and her family, creating suspense for the events to come.
Two distinct setting placed in stark contrast to each other are Tess's journey to The Slopes where Alec lives and Tess's journey to Talbothay's dairy. Upon departing for The Slopes, Tess is reluctant and indisposed to her impending situation. She does not enjoy the journey in the least, feeling that her excursion will result in unwanted consequences. However travelling to Talbothays Tess's ride is swift and pleasant. Tess feels a sense of purpose in beginning a fresh new chapter of her life, and considers the journey more of a "pilgrimage" (chapter 16)
Hardy juxtaposes the residences of both Alec and Angel, contrasting Alec's estate on The Slopes and Angel's elevated dwelling. This contrast in setting reflects Tess's respective relationships between herself and both Alec and Angel.