Characterisation in Dougy by Ja

Characterisation in Literature

How do characters become real ?

The 8 Methods of Characterisation

8 different ways of looking at a character in a story

Characterisation

• is the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character.

1. Physical Description

• The most common way of describing a character.

• Identifies anything physical about the character.

• Includes height, skin, hair and eye colour, short/tall, skinny/fat, wear glasses? How he/she walks/stands, anything physical about the character.

Example of physical description:

I am the tallest kid in the whole school but I don’t like that much. I’ve always been skinny, specially my arms and legs. A teacher once called me a bag of bones when he was mad at me. (p.10)

What is it about this physical description of character that makes it so effective?

Example of physical description:

But not Gracey. When she runs, she ties her long black hair in a pony tail that streams out behind her and bobs up and down with each step. Like a pony; that’s it. She’s like a beautiful young horse, a black horse, trotting and galloping, enjoying how fast she can go. (p.10)

What is it about this physical description of character that makes it so effective?

2. Attitude/Appearance

• This method of characterisation is the readers description of the character’s attitude.

• The character’s attitude is how the character appears to feel about what is happening to him/her in the story.

• Similar to how you may describe your attitude if you were in a similar situation.

Example of attitude/appearance:

My name’s Dougy. I’m nobody much. p.8

In this quote from the novel story we learn that the main character’s attitude is one of insignificance and inferiority.

Example of attitude/appearance:

“Don’t we have to see the bloke in charge?” Raymond asked his as he put the bags on the floor in our room.

“I’m in charge,” said Steve. “Well, for the moment anyway. My father’s the manager, but I work here too and I'm sort of the manager along with him,” Steve said with a grin on his face. He liked telling people that, I bet. I didn’t believe him for a second. No blacks in our town were the boss of anything, always white blokes. That’s just the way it was. The white people own everything just about. p.28

What is the character’s attitude here?

3. Dialogue

• Dialogue is the way in which a character talks.• Dialogue includes the characters choice of

words and syntax.• It also includes the tone and diction of the

character when he/she speaks.• Is the character serious? Sarcastic? Shy?

Obnoxious? Ignorant? Etc…all these qualities can be conveyed through the characters dialogue.

Example of dialogue:“I think it’s great, your scholarship, Gracey,” she said. “Anything would be better that staying in this place.”

Normally when Melissa started to big note herself and bad mouth our town, the other kids argued with her, but they stayed quiet this time.

One of the girls who had held Craig back broke in then and I was worried the girls would start a fight as well. “My mum’s pretty mad about it,” said this girl. “Thinks it’s just like a few weeks ago. Gracey gets extra money to go to the State Championships and now she gets this scholarship so she can do better at school than us. Blacks get everything, whites get nothing. She and Dad are getting fed up.”

Gracey had had enough of this. She was mad herself.

“I earned that scholarship. You saw how much training I did. You could of done it too,” p. 67

Example of dialogue cont:

In this quotation from the novel we hear from the adolescent girls in the novel and their racism is very evident in the opinions they voice.

We know here though that, while Dougy is timid and concerned about the outcome of this confrontation, Gracey is determined to prove a point.

4. Thoughts

• The thoughts of a character can only be analysed if we are inside the head of the character.

• This means that you can only include an analysis of a character’s thoughts if you are told what the character is thinking.

Example of thoughts:

I never thought about Gracey being scared. I was the one who got frightened; of being knocked about, shouted at, left on my own. Frightened of the Moodagudda, too. Gracey wasn’t frightened of those things. I didn’t understand that she could be scared of anything. p. 73

What insight do Dougy’s thoughts give us about his character here?

5. Reactions of Others

• When analysing the reactions of others you are looking closely at how other characters in the story react to or treat the character that you are characterising.

• Reactions include verbal responses and physical or emotional treatment.

• Character reactions can tell you if the character you are analyzing is liked or disliked, popular, honest, trust-worthy etc…

Example of Reactions of others:

It hurt to watch her cry, specially ‘cause I knew what would make her feel better, but I didn’t want to say it. It would take Gracey away from me. I wanted to hold her here in town with me. That was the idea I’d been keeping in my head but, there in the dust, I let it go and I heard my voice say, “Maybe you got to give it a go. Try this school for a while. I’d like to see you beat all those white girls again Gracey.”

What do we learn about Dougy from his reaction to Gracey’s reaction to going to school in Brisbane?

6. Action or Incident

• A character can be analysed by looking at an action or incident and how it affected them or how they reacted to it.

• What action did the character take when confronted with a certain situation.

• Is there and incident in the characters past that has shaped them as a character and affected the way they look at their life.

• The action or incident determines the way the character develops as the story goes on.

Example of Action or Incident:

It was no use. The white men had forgotten why they had come now and the black man had forgotten why he was pointing the gun. They didn’t care about Johnny Warren anymore. What they wanted was to force the other man to give in to the fright he must be feeling and lower the gun. Then, forever after that, one side would say they had beaten the other. p.93

What can we tell about these two characters from their reactions to this incident and to each other?

7. Background information:

• The setting of a story affects the characters’ development as well as the plot.

• The physical setting of a story is where the story is actually taking place and can effect the way a character develops.

• The emotional setting of a story is the series of emotions that the character deals with throughout the story.

Example of background information:

Johnny Warren says there’s lots of things aren’t fair in our town. Like blacks aren’t supposed to drink in the pub, not many of them anyway; and not him. Mr. Brodie, the owner, lets a few Abos in to drink on their own, the ones he knows won’t get drunk real fast and start a fight…The rest of the blacks in the town buy their grog from the bottle shop and go home or down the river bank to drink it. No one seems to mind it that way……Just about all the blacks [live near us]. Years ago, before I was born, the Gov’ment bought a whole lot of houses in the one street, ‘cause people were leaving to go and live somewhere else. (p.8/9)

• How does this tell us about the physical setting of the novel?• How does this explain for us the emotional setting?

8. Objects and Possessions

• The things to which characters are attached tell us a lot about who they are and what they value.

• It is important to understand why the character values these items.

Examples of Objects and Possessions

[Mr. Jenkins] gave Gracey a pair of running shoes with long spikes sticking out of the bottom so she wouldn’t slip on the grass. Gracey loves them, never has them more than a few feet away from her. She doesn’t like other people touching them, but one day when she saw me staring at them, she said would I like to clean the dirt away from around the spikes. She could have done it herself – maybe it didn’t need to be done at all – but Gracey knew I wanted to handled those shoes, to see how light they were, to test how sharp the spikes were. (p.11)

• What does this passage tell us about what Gracey valued?• Why were the shoes so important to her?• What does this passage tell us about Gracey’s relationship with

Dougy…about how important he is to her?

Using the 8 methods to describe a character

• Use the these 8 methods of characterisation when writing a description of a character in the stories you read. By looking at all 8 methods you can give an in-depth description of the character instead of a flat description that includes only basic information.