Characterizations: Authorial, By Others and Self

1.     Authorial Characterization
2.     Characterization by the Others
3.     Self Characterization

A character can be characterized by three people (or groups). First, it must be acknowledged that all characterization in a literature is the work of an author(s). Therefore, in one sense, all characterization could be considered as the characterization of the author. However, this category is kept separately so that it could be distinguished from the other two. The other two categories are Characterization by the Others and Self characterization.

A character could be characterized by other characters. For example, in Mark 8:27-30, when Jesus asks his disciples “who do you say that I am?” Peter answers and says “You are the Christ.” Peter then characterizes Jesus as Christ. Though the characterization is primarily done by the author, he/she places these words in the mouth of Peter which makes Peter as the one characterizing Jesus as the Messiah. This could be called as characterization by the others.

The third way of characterization is self characterization. In self characterization, a character with speech and actions may characterizes himself/herself. In the book of John, Jesus with the I am sayings he characterizes himself in seven ways: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35); “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12); “I am the gate” (John 10:9); “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11); “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25); “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6); “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). Further, the divinity of Jesus Christ is further characterized in self characterization in John 8:58 beautifully. In John 8:58, Jesus says  “Truly, Truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Jesus characterizes himself as the one who existed even before Abraham through which he characterizes himself as the one who is divine. This is called self characterization. 

Descriptive Characterization

Descriptive Characterization

Adjectival Descriptive Characterization
Attributive Descriptive Characterization
Predicative Descriptive Characterization
Appositive Descriptive Characterization

Two generally recognized narrative techniques of characterization are showing and telling. In showing characterization, characterization is done by showing what a character does rather than describing who he/she is with adjectives or nouns as attributes. But in Telling characterization is done by direct presentation.

When Antonius asked Noemon whether he gave the boats to Telemachus willingly, Noemon says in III. 874-7: “I agreed to give it to him. Would anyone have acted otherwise, when a man like him, with a grief-stricken heart, makes a request?” Interestingly, the phrase “with a grief-stricken heart” functions as a great characterizer of Telemachus. Telemachus is seen in the whole book as the one who was “grief-stricken” without knowing the whereabouts of his father. But this phrase with an adjective characterizes Telemachus beautifully. This is what I call descriptive characterization. Telemachus was characterized as a grief-stricken son waiting for his father from book. Even in his conversation with Athena he tells how grief-stricken he is. They are showing way of characterization. But here he is described with an adjective clearly describing him as grief-stricken, which shows the classic example of descriptive characterization.

A narrator could describe a character with adjectives, nouns, etc. This I call as descriptive characterization. All characterizations are descriptive in nature where the author describes a character with words, attributes, etc. Berlin says that in descriptive characterization “descriptive terms may be based on status (king, widow, wise man, wealthy, old, etc.), profession (prophet, prostitute, shepherd, etc), gentilic features (Hittite, Amalekite, etc.) or distinctive physical features (beautiful, strong, lame, etc)” may be used (Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation, 35-36). However, direct description is very rare in the stories of the bible. Further I would like to classify this into several parts. When adjectives are used to describe a character I would like to call these as Adjectival Descriptive Characterization. And when the adjectives (even other parts of speech, such as nouns, participles, etc) function as attributive adjective, further characterizing the character, I call this as Attributive Descriptive Characterization. Homer’s Odyssey has good examples in this manner. Interestingly, Homer characterizes each character with a few key, repeated phrases descriptive to the character. He described Zeus as Aegis carrying Zeus, Nestor as Geranian horseman
 Nestor, Athena as clear-eyed Athena, Telemachus as god-like Telemachus.

In Homer, these descriptions are kept quite frequently that these phrases function more than a descriptive characterization and function more like title of the person described. Further descriptive words are also added such as for Nestor it was said “Geranian horseman
 Nestor, protector of Achaeans”
 (Odyssey III. 554) indicating further characterization. While ‘Geranian horseman’ functions like a title the phrase, “protector of Achaeans” functions as further descriptive characterization. This I call as Appositive Descriptive Characterization.

Further, these descriptions could also be kept in Predicate position. A predicate is nothing but a word or a phrase added to a noun with an equative (also copulative) verb (is, was, etc). For example, in a sentence “The fair boy is good,” the word “fair” is attributive in function while “good” is in predicative place. Neomen when he describes the men who went with Telemachus he says in __ “The young men— the ones who went with him—are excellent, except for us, the best this land affords.” The words: “excellent” and “the best this land affords” are descriptions of the young men who went along with Telemachus in search of his father. And these words “excellent” and “best” are kept in the predicate position (after the equative verb describing the subject). Therefore, this is a good example for Predicative Descriptive Characterization.