More on characterization

Given Chad Helder's interest in fairy tales, it's no wonder the remarks in this review concerning "two dimensional" characters intrigued him, because classic fairy tale characters clearly exhibit the kind of "dream characterization" articulated by Tem. Max Lüthi, in his monograph The European Folktale: Form and Nature, actually gives the title of "Depthlessness" to the chapter in which he analyzes characterization in fairy tales; like Tem, he sees the depthlessness of the characters as resulting from the way conflicting and complicating psychological forces are externalized and projected into other elements of the tale:

Only rarely does the folktale mention sentiments and attributes for their own sake or to create a certain atmosphere. It mentions them when they influence the plot. Even there it does not like to mention them by name. It does not speak of the hero's compassion, credulity, or magnanimity, but rather shows him as he pays ransom for a mistreated corpse, as he trusts his brothers instead of regarding them with suspicion, or as he helps instead of punishing them. Attributes and sentiments are expressed in actions: that is, they are projected onto the same plane on which everything else takes place. The whole realm of sentiment is absent from folktale characters, and as a result they lack all psychological depth. . . .

In legends [a different form, contrasted by Lüthi with the folktale] the most disparate feelings battle with one another within a person's breast--utter fearlessness and faintheartedness, anxiety and hope, greed and disgust. But the folktale, which knows nothing of such exaggerated feelings as these, evenly distributes the various possible courses of action among various figures that can be placed side by side on a single plane. It shows correct conduct in the hero and unsuccessful conduct in his brothers. . . .

Folktales break down the rich complexity of human beings. Instead of different possible modes of behavior being combined in a single person, we see them sharply separated from one another and divided among persons who stand side by side. One cannot even speak of the characters of folktales as being intelligent. . . . Not internal emotions but external impulses propel the characters of the folktale onward. They are impelled and guided by gifts, discoveries, tasks, suggestions, prohibitions, miraculous aids, challenges, difficulties, and lucky happenstance, not by the promptings of their hearts. When it is important to stay awake the antiheroes can be counted upon to fall asleep as mechanically as puppets. No mention is made of their having struggled to stay awake. If the hero wishes to stay awake, however, he sits down on an ant heap or in a thicket of thorns. Here again he relies not on the strength and persistence of his own will but on a form of external "help." Wherever possible, the folktale expresses internal feelings through external events, psychological motivations through external impulses.

Bruno Bettelheim makes essentially the same point in Uses of Enchantment:

This is also how the fairy tale depicts the world: figures are ferocity incarnate or unselfish benevolence. An animal is either all-devouring or all-helpful. Every figure is essentially one-dimensional, enabling the child to comprehend its actions and reactions easily. Through simple and direct images the fairy story helps the child sort out his complex and ambivalent feelings, so that these begin to fall each one into a separate place, rather than being all one big muddle.

As he listens to the fairy tale, the child gets ideas about how he may create order out of the chaos which is his inner life. The fairy tale suggests not only isolating and separating the disparate and confusing aspects of the child's experience into opposites, but projecting these onto different figures.

Now, I originally raised this issue in my review of Pilo Family Circus because CRwM observes (in his own review) that the relatively flat characterization, normally considered a literary flaw or fault, actually serves the novel quite well. I agreed, and wanted to dig a little deeper into why seemingly underdeveloped characters sometimes work and sometimes don't.

But on further reflection, there's a more basic reason I neglected to discuss, which is closer (I think) to what CRwM has in mind when he notes that the "fairly vacuous characterization" of the protagonist "makes him a pretty decent avatar for the reader, who can experience the oddness of the circus without the distraction of seeing it 'through' Jamie."

Orson Scott Card relates the following anecdote in Characters and Viewpoint, one of his books on writing:

When I turned in the manuscript of my novel Saints, both my agent and my editor complained that I never described Dinah Kirkham, the main character.

"You never tell us her hair color," they said, "or the color of her eyes, or even how tall she is."

True enough, said I, but didn't you have a mental picture of her anyway? They both agreed that they had. Then, when I asked each of them what her image of Dinah was, you won't be surprised to learn that each described herself.

The general idea here is that a less detailed, less developed character presents less resistance to the audience's projections and identifications, and thus offers a more immediate and immersive experience of the story.

Bettelheim mentions this, too, as another virtue of the depthless characterization in fairy tales:

The fairy tale . . . makes clear that it tells about everyman, people very much like us. Typical titles are "Beauty and the Beast," "The Fairy Tale of One Who Went Forth to Learn Fear." Even recently invented stories follow the pattern--for example, "The Little Prince," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." The protagonists of fairy tales are referred to as "a girl," for instance, or "the youngest brother." If names appear, it is quite clear that these are not proper names, but general or descriptive ones. We are told that "Because she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella," or: "A little red cap suited her so well that she was always called 'Little Red Cap.'" Even when the hero is given a name, as in the Jack stories, or in "Hansel and Gretel," the use of very common names makes them generic terms, standing for any boy or girl.

This is further stressed by the fact that in fairy stories nobody else has a name; the parents of the main figures in fairy tales remain nameless. They are referred to as "father," "mother," "stepmother," though they may be described as "a poor fisherman" or "a poor woodcutter." If they are "a king" and "a queen," these are thin disguises for father and mother, as are "prince" and "princess" for boy and girl. Fairies and witches, giants and godmothers remain equally unnamed, thus facilitating projections and identifications.

This brings us back to the original dilemma, of asking why this effect works in some cases but not others, because although some less developed characters draw us in just as described here, plenty more strike us as objectionably flat and lifeless. It also raises the question of why creators ever bother to craft rich, deep, sharply individuated characters--why don't they strive for this effect every time, and what tradeoff do they get from eschewing it that's more attractive or satisfying?

It may seem odd, but I believe we can come at some answers to these questions most clearly and easily via a detour. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud describes an effect strikingly analogous to the one outlined above, only in visual rather than textual/narrative terms. His discussion is quite extensive, but here are what I consider the most salient points for our purposes:

This is like asking why we might sometimes respond more powerfully to a simple fairy tale character or the stereotyped stock character of a genre than the more highly developed sort that tends to populate modern realistic literary fiction.

Amplification by stripping characters down to embodiments of essential meanings seems to me a central component of the "dream characterization" described by Tem, and I suspect it also enhances the appeal of certain character types in less fantastic genres like hardboiled crime, romance, and the Western.

This echoes the notion that less information (in this case, visual rather than textual) makes it easier for more people to project themselves into a character . . .

. . . and perhaps even impels them to do so.

I think the analogy here between vision and narrative/characterization is a solid one, and that insights about the former can yield corresponding insights about the latter. I've argued before that such analogies are legitimate, rooted in the fact that our experiences of vision and narrative exhibit strong formal similarities that are in turn rooted in evolution's conservative necessity to work with what's there (visual systems were already firmly established long before any brains could begin to entertain any notions of narrative) and its tendency to recycle and retool adaptations and exaptations in new, more complex ways. There's an isomorphism here, in the sense articulated by Ariel Glucklich:

Subsystems within a larger organization can also possess the characteristic of isomorphism: Each subsystem structurally or formally resembles the others in important ways. At its most basic level isomorphism means, for Gestalt theorists, that the organization of perception in space corresponds to the organization in time. For instance, sequential knocks on a door will be heard in patterns--they will be organized into temporal groups. This organization corresponds to the way random dots on the ceiling will be organized visually into some pattern. In turn, the spatiotemporal organization of perception corresponds isomorphically to the way the nervous system receives and transmits data. The world we experience consists of patterns that are established by such perceptual correspondences. I gave examples of isomorphism in the second chapter--for instance, in the similarity between the form of notes on a musical score and the music's emotional effects. But this is only similarity, a weak type of isomorphic relationship. . . .

At a more radical level the variety of subsystems within a larger organism are isomorphic in being subject to mathematical rules by which the physics of the entire system can be described.

There's a tendency, where characterization is concerned, to regard simple and complex as respectively equaling bad and good, but the analogy with vision might help shake us free of that prejudice. We recognize easily enough that a good cartoon is not a failed photorealistic image; it's time we recognize that some characters with less developed personalities or less psychological complexity might not be failed characters, but rather characters who are well-realized at a certain level of abstraction. A character that seems "two-dimensional" or "vacuous," but who nevertheless also seems to work in a given narrative, would be a literary analogue of a well-drawn cartoon figure. Once we start thinking this way, and let the implications of this analogy sink in, it should become clearer why some "two-dimensional" characters work and others do not. Once we start thinking of such characters in terms of abstraction, simplification, and amplification, it becomes more apparent how these techniques can go right or wrong. This chart presents three columns:

The first column presents line drawings--which are already very abstract and cartoony. The second column presents these drawings with a certain amount of line (i.e. information) removed, and the third column presents them with an equal amount of different line removed. In the second column but not the third, the objects remain recognizable. The upshot of the chart is that it really matters which information is preserved and which removed in the process of further abstraction. So with characterization, an author who does a good job of selecting which information to present and does a good job of presenting it can craft a very sketchy character who nevertheless works, but an author who throws in irrelevant details and omits essential ones, or who botches their presentation or proportions or arrangement or any number of other factors, will end up with the literary equivalent of the third column drawings--a flat, lifeless, possibly confusing mess of a character who repels readers rather than drawing them in.

Analogies, of course, break down at some point, and one breaking point for this analogy is that the simplification and its effects can be experienced right there on the surface in a cartoon drawing, but when it comes to characterization, they function successfully more at the level of deep structure; when they're working, they're often experienced more indirectly and unconsciously (when they're not working, just as when anything is not working, they call attention to themselves). Because simplification in characterization is more of a deep structural matter, I think writers have less deliberate control over it. A cartoonist can see, literally and immediately, whether a cartoon is working or not, and make immediate adjustments, but a writer has to discern patterns and rhythms in a story and ultimately form an overall impression from them to judge the success of a given approach to characterization. For this reason, when simplified characterization succeeds, I suspect it usually owes more to intuitive style and native talent than consciously-directed craft. That's not to say it isn't praiseworthy, since these are legitimate sources of artistic excellence. But that is one reason I think most writers don't go for this effect on purpose. I actually tried to do just that in an early draft of my novel Night Falls on a Fairy Tale, and I found it surprisingly difficult--frankly, beyond my abilities to pull off. I'm not claiming my characters are especially deep or complex now, but I am happier with the results of moving further in the direction of psychological realism.

One last issue remains to be cleared up. So far in this discussion, detail (whether visual or characterizing) has been treated as alienating to audiences--as something that inhibits or resists the kinds of projections and identifications that result in an enjoyably immersive imaginative experience. Obviously, that can't be the whole story about it, because artists and writers continue to fill their drawings and characters with rich, complex detail, and audiences mostly lap it up.

Here's my theory. Every fictional work is essentially a guided fantasy or daydream in which we cast ourselves as the protagonist or viewpoint character. While it's true that every detail about the character that differs from us forces us to make certain adjustments, we're generally happy to make them, and we do so through another capacity previously discussed by CRwM, double-scope integration:

Double-scope integration integrates two mental assemblies, two notions, two thoughts that conflict in their basic conceptual organizations, because they are based on conflicting frames or conflicting identities. The result of this integration is a new conceptual array, a "blend," that has a new organizing structure and emergent meaning of its own. In "double-scope" integration, there are two input menial spaces that we typically keep quite separate, but there is also the invention of a blend that draws crucially on both of them.

Double-scope integration is probably the basis for empathy--it's how we put ourselves in another person's shoes, by imagining what it would be like if we were different from ourselves in the way someone else is. By extension, it permits us to construct a self, for the purposes of a fictional experience, that remains fundamentally us, only incorporating all the details given for the character, no matter how different from us they may be. Imagine, for example, an animated cartoon about a ball that seems able to intelligently control its own bouncing, and that it shivers when it lands in some snow. No matter how alien to us a ball might seem (since balls are not only not human, but not even animate), the shiver is an obvious clue that we're still using ourselves as the fundamental point of reference, because shivering only makes sense given our complex of circulatory, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems, which balls obviously don't share. As a somewhat less extreme example, if I read Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, I'm basically letting her guide me through a daydream in which, as always, I'm the star, only this time in the guise of a pre-Victorian girl with a taste for Gothic literature. Given its importance to human social interaction, it's not surprising that double-scope integration seems to have evolved to be inherently pleasurable and rewarding, to the point that we would indulge it on such a massive scale as a leisure activity. And that's probably the main reason so many creators prefer crafting and audiences prefer experiencing richly detailed characters/personas, rather than less developed characters, even when they're well done.