Great characters capture audiences. A fascinating personality, such as Hamlet, Nora, Willy Loman, or Amanda Wingfield, brings an audience to the assumption that this distinctive character is the driving force of the play. For instance, discussion centers on Hamlet's indecisiveness, or his presumed madness, as causes of events. Even though Shakespeare's plot shapes Hamlet's actions and gives rise to his thoughts and words, the character traits Shakespeare uses allow the action to unfold without calling to mind the play's structure. Instead, the traits captivate audience attention and focus awareness on the characaters in action.
An audience fears for a character's well-being and pities his/her tragic circumstances because the character is someone with whom they can readily identify. The tragic character must have a noble purpose, but can-not be saintly. If the tragedy is going to work emotionally, the play needs a person somewhat like ourselves: a good person, but one who is not entirely good. The tragic person has some undesirable trait, such as a bad temper or excessive pride. Arthur Miller created a tragedy of the common man in Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman is not a king or a prince, but he does have a noble purpose. He wants his sons to succeed. Unfortunately, Willy instills some poor values in his sons: cheating, womanizing, and a false idea of what constitutes success. Willy influences Biff's failure and Happy's frustrations, because they do not understand Willy's nobility of purpose. Willy's methods rather than his goal influence Biff and Happy. Ultimately, Willy's methods lead to his own tragic death, as a last futile attempt to provide life insurance money for Biff. By carefully selecting appropriate traits, Miller created a contemporary tragic personality.
Comic characters possess either a quality that varies from the norm or a highly unusual purpose. MoliÈre created comic characters by calling to attention contemptuous traits, such as avarice, quackery, hypochondria, or hypocrisy. Any character possessing one of these traits is ridiculed and the butt of derisive laughter. Comedy that uses this device normalizes behavior. People do not want to look ridiculous, so they change. Aristophanes gives Lysistrata, a normal enough woman, a serious purpose achieved by a comic method. Lysistrata wants to end the Peloponesian War. She concludes that the only way to get the men to stop fighting is for the women to go on a sex strike. Undergoing much personal frustration, the women withhold sex from the men long enough to get them to lay down their arms. Either through humorous purpose or as an absurd personality engaged in a ridiculous action, deviation from the norm is the cause of laughter.
Most plays are a mixture of serious events and comic moments. Playwrights have the difficult task of calling on on their own experience and observatons to select suitable traits. Characters for drama must be true to life and appropriate for the kinds of actions they perform.
See task #5 for the guidelines for characterization.
Back to Playwriting
Schedule of Tasks | Requirements for Play | Table of Contents
Back to Prof. Feighner's Home Page