character essay in english

Writing a Character Analysis Essay | Step-by-Step Guide

I’m also going to give you a ton of examples.

This post is split into four parts for easy navigation:

What is a Character Analysis Essay?
What is the best Format to Use?
11 Character Analysis Example Ideas
Template, Checklist and Outline for Your own Piece

In this post, I’m going to explain to you clearly and in a step-by-step way how to conduct a character analysis.

1. What is a Character Analysis Essay?

Let’s get you started with some really simple details about what a character analysis is:

A Quick Definition: A character analysis essay zooms-in on a character in a book, movie or even real life. It provides what we sometimes call a ‘sketch’ of a character.
The Purpose of a Character Analysis: The purpose of a character analysis is to reveal interesting details about the character that might contain a broader moral message about the human condition. For example, Atticus Finch is not just a lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird. Rather, he provides us with a moral message about the importance of doing what you believe is right even though you know you will likely fail.

2. What is the best Character Analysis Essay Format?

Character analysis essays do not have just one format.

However, let me offer some advice that might act as a character analysis essay outline or ‘checklist’ of possible things you could discuss:

1. Start with the Simple Details.

You can start a character analysis by providing a simple, clear description of who your character is. Look at some basic identity traits such as:

Race (if relevant)
Social class (if relevant)
Protagonist or Antagonist? A protagonist is the character who is our central character in the plot; the antagonist is often the protagonist’s opponent or challenger.
Major or minor character?

2. What are the character’s distinctive personality features?

Your character might have some really clearly identifiable character traits. It’s best to highlight in your character analysis the exact traits that this character possesses. Some common character traits include:

I recommend you take a moment to write down what you think the top 3 to 5 words are that you’d use to explain your character’s personality traits. These will be important to discuss throughout your character analysis.

Sometimes a character may start out with some personality traits, but change over the course of the text. This is quite common; and one clear example of this is Lady Macbeth she deteriorates from a cutthroat power player to a guilt ridden shell of a person roaming the halls of the castle. This dramatic character change is something that makes her very interesting, and is worthy of discussion!

3. What are the character’s key relationships?

Does your character have a close relationship with a certain person in the storyline?

You might want to discuss the character’s relationships as a part of your character analysis. These relationships may reveal some key personality traits of your character.

For example, in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Horatio is the loyal offsider to Hamlet. Through his actions in staying by Hamlet through thick and thin, we learn that he is a deeply loyal character.

Examining the character’s relationships with their friends and foes therefore is very useful for digging deeper into who this character actually is, and what personality traits they have when they are put to the test within the narrative.

4. What are the character’s motivations?

Another thing you might want to examine are the character’s motivations . What do they desire most in the world? Some common motivations for characters in stories are:

A simple life
To serve others

This list really could be endless, but I hope the above examples give you a bit of an idea of the sorts of traits to look out for. By mentioning and examining the motivations of the character, we will come closer and closer to learning exactly what moral message this character might be able to tell us.

5. What are the character’s key conflicts?

Stories tend to have a beginning, a complication, and a resolution.

The complication involves conflicts and challenges that need to be overcome. For Edmund in Narnia, it’s cowardice. For Romeo and Juliet, it’s the conflict between love and family loyalty. Here’s some other common conflicts for characters:

Whether to stay loyal to a friend;
To overcome obstacles to love;
To seek a way out of a challenging situation;
To escape war or poverty;
To persevere through imprisonment;
To overcome personal fear

Again, this list is endless.

Knowing the character’s core conflict gets us even closer to knowing the moral that the character is trying to teach us.

For example, in Romeo and Juliet, the challenge of Romeo and Juliet being together despite their families’ objections teaches us something. Personally, I believe it teaches us the importance of letting go of old grudges in order to let love bloom.

This moral lesson was taught to us through conflict: namely, the conflict that Romeo and Juliet were right in the center of.

6. What are the character’s epiphanies?

Sometimes a character has an epiphany. This often happens towards the end of the story and helps the character overcome the challenge or conflict that we discussed in the point above.

Here’s an example of an epiphany:

In the Lion King, Simba runs away from his tribe to live in exile. After a chance encounter with his childhood friend Nala, he has an epiphany that he has a duty to his tribe. This leads him back home to fight Scar and return freedom to Pride Rock.

Not all characters have an epiphany. But, if they do, I strongly encourage you to write about it in your character analysis.

7. Examine the moral message the character teaches us.

Finally, conclude by examining the moral message behind the character. Nearly every character has something to teach the reader. Authors put a lot of thought into creating complex characters with whom we can relate. We relate to the character and say “wow, they taught me a lesson about something!”

The lesson might be something like:

Money doesn’t buy happiness;
Loyalty to family comes above all else;
Love gives life meaning;
Honesty is always the best policy

This is the core of your character analysis essay. If you can pick out exactly what moral message the character teaches you, you’ll be well on your way to writing a strong character analysis.

Below I’m going to give you some examples to help you out. I know it can be hard to really get your head around a character, so sometimes the best thing is to look at some samples!

3. Here’s 13 Example Character Analysis Essay Ideas.

Most times when we create a character analysis, we’re exploring the deeper moral stories / aspects of humanity. Here’s some example ideas. I’ve tried to outline in less than a paragraph exactly what your key point will be about each character:

Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird: A character who teaches us a lesson about standing up for what’s right, even if you know you’re likely to lose.
Huckleberry Finn from Huckleberry Finn: A character who reveals our inner desire for freedom from the elements of society that constrain us.
Dudley from Harry Potter: A character whose personality tells us a cautionary tale of the perils of middle-class narcissism, parents’ desire to wrap their children in cotton wool, and the lack of discipline we perceive in contemporary childhoods.
Jack from Lord of the Flies: A character who represents the innate desire for power that seems to lurk not too far from the surface of the human condition. When social structures are stripped away, he quickly reverts to violence and superstition to assert control over his peers.
Lady Macbeth from Macbeth: Lady Macbeth teaches us a valuable lesson about the perils of contravening our own morality. She starts out a cutthroat killer but is increasingly consumed by the guilt of her own actions. While we may be able to escape full punishment from outside forces, it is the inner guilt that might eat us away to our last.
The Boy who Cried Wolf: The boy who cried wolf is a character whose fatal flaw is his desire for attention and adulation. His repeated attempts at gaining the attention of others leads the townspeople to no longer take him seriously, which causes him harm when he actually needs the villagers to take him seriously to save his life. He teaches us the virtue of honest and humility.
Nick Carraway from the Great Gatsby: Nick shows us all the inner conflict between the trappings of wealth, glamor and spectacle; and the desire for simplicity, honesty and community. He is drawn by the dazzling world of East Egg, New York, but by the end of the novel sees live in East Egg as shallow and lacking the moral depth of his former life in small town Minnesota.
Alice from Alice in Wonderland: In many ways, Alice represents the child within all of us. She is a character of goodwill to all and who looks upon the world (or, rather, Wonderland) with awe. Travelling with a cadre of flawed characters, she learns with them the importance of seeking strength from within.
The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet: Like many Shakespearian characters, the nurse’s role is both as loyal confidante to a central character and comic relief. Shakespeare uses minor characters to regale his crowd and sustain viewer interest between scenes.
Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Lucy represents a surprising character whose youthfulness and small stature make her an underrated character by all around her. Nonetheless, she possesses within the bravery and loyalty necessary to carry out the quest for Aslan. Lucy represents the goodness in children and, by extension, all of mankind.
Anne in Anne of Green Gables: Anne occupies the typical literary role of young girls in many classical novels: she represents innocence and wonder, and her contraventions of rules are seen through a prism of childhood innocence. This frames Anne not as a deviant but as a precious soul.
Simba from The Lion King: Simba’s story follows his struggle with growing up, embracing his destiny and duty to his family, or fleeing towards freedom and a ‘no worries’ lifestyle. Simba flees Pride Rock and goes through an existential crisis with his existentialist friends Timon and Pumba. When he runs into an old childhood friend, he realizes how shallow his new carefree life has become and reflects upon his obligation to his community back home.
Woody from Toy Story: Woody starts out Andy’s favorite toy, but when Andy gets a new flashier toy, Woody’s status amongst the toys falls apart. Woody’s key character challenge is to learn to be humble and inclusive living within the group. By the end of the movie, Woody realizes his duty to love and serve Andy is more important than his own status within the group.

4. Here’s an Example Template for your own Character Analysis Essay

Feel free to use this brainstorming template to get you started with your character analysis essay. I recommend filling out as many of these key points as you can, but remember sometimes you might have to skip some of these points if they’re not relevant to your character.

Once you’ve brainstormed the ideas in Table 1, follow the character analysis essay outline in Table 2 to stay on track for your character analysis essay. Do remember though that each assignment will be different and you should adjust it based on your teacher’s requirements.

Here’s Table 1, which is a brainstorming template for your character analysis essay:

And here’s Table 2, which is an example character analysis essay outline. This is for a 1500 word character analysis essay. Change the word count according to how long your essay should be:

Read Also: 39 Better Ways to Write ‘In Conclusion’ in an Essay

Character analyses can be really tough. You need to know your character really well. You might even need to re-read (or watch) your book or movie a few times over to get to know the character really well.

I recommend when you re-read or re-watch the text before you write your character analysis, have the checklist I provided above handy and take notes. Then, use the essay outline I provided above to put all of those notes together into a clear and thorough final character analysis essay.

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay

A character analysis essay is a challenging type of essay students usually write for literature or English courses. In this article, we will explain the definition of character analysis and how to approach it. We will also touch on how to analyze characters and guide you through writing character analysis essays.

Typically, this kind of writing requires students to describe the character in the story's context. This can be fulfilled by analyzing the relationship between the character in question and other personas. Although, sometimes, giving your personal opinion and analysis of a specific character is also appropriate.

Let's explain the specifics of how to do a character analysis by getting straight to defining what is a character analysis. Our term paper writers will have you covered with a thorough guide!

What Is a Character Analysis Essay?

The character analysis definition explains the in-depth personality traits and analyzes characteristics of a certain hero. Mostly, the characters are from literature, but sometimes other art forms, such as cinematography. In a character analysis essay, your main job is to tell the reader who the character is and what role they play in the story. Therefore, despite your personal opinion and preferences, it is really important to use your critical thinking skills and be objective toward the character you are analyzing. A character analysis essay usually involves the character's relationship with others, their behavior, manner of speaking, how they look, and many other characteristics.

Although it's not a section about your job experience or education on a resume, sometimes it is appropriate to give your personal opinion and analysis of a particular character.

What Is the Purpose of a Character Analysis Essay

More than fulfilling a requirement, this type of essay mainly helps the reader understand the character and their world. One of the essential purposes of a character analysis essay is to look at the anatomy of a character in the story and dissect who they are. We must be able to study how the character was shaped and then learn from their life.

A good example of a character for a character analysis essay is Daisy Buchanan from 'The Great Gatsby.' The essay starts off by explaining who Daisy is and how she relates to the main character, Jay Gatsby. Depending on your audience, you need to decide how much of the plot should be included. If the entire class writes an essay on Daisy Buchanan, it is logical to assume everyone has read the book. Although, if you know for certain that your audience has little to no knowledge of who she is, it is crucial to include as much background information as possible.

After that, you must explain the character through certain situations involving her and what she said or did. Make sure to explain to the reader why you included certain episodes and how they have showcased the character. Finally, summarize everything by clearly stating the character's purpose and role in the story.

We also highly recommend reading how to write a hook for an essay .

Still Need Help with Your Character Analysis Essay?

Different types of characters.

To make it clear how a reader learns about a character in the story, you should note that several characters are based on their behaviors, traits, and roles within a story. We have gathered some of them, along with vivid examples from famous literature and cinema pieces:

Types of Characters

Major : These are the main characters; they run the story. Regularly, there are only one or two major characters. Major characters are usually of two types: the protagonist – the good guy, and the antagonist: the bad guy or the villain.
Protagonist (s) (heroes): The main character around whom most of the plot revolves.

For example, Othello from Shakespeare's play, Frodo from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Harry Potter from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, and Elizabeth Bennet from 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen.

Antagonist (s): This is the person that is in opposition to the protagonist. This is usually the villain, but it could also be a natural power, set of circumstances, majestic being, etc.

For example, Darth Vader from the Star Wars series by George Lucas, King Joffrey from Game of Thrones, or the Wicked Queen from 'Snow White and Seven Dwarfs.'

Minor : These characters help tell the major character's tale by letting them interact and reveal their personalities, situations, and/or stories. They are commonly static (unchanging). The minor characters in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien would be the whole Fellowship of the ring. In their own way, each member of the Fellowship helps Frodo get the ring to Mordor; without them, the protagonist would not be a protagonist and would not be able to succeed. In the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, minor characters are Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. They consistently help Harry Potter on his quests against Voldemort, and, like Frodo, he wouldn't have succeeded without them.

On top of being categorized as a protagonist, antagonist, or minor character, a character can also be dynamic, static, or foil.

Dynamic (changing): Very often, the main character is dynamic.

An example would also be Harry Potter from the book series by J.K. Rowling. Throughout the series, we see Harry Potter noticing his likeness to Voldemort. Nevertheless, Harry resists these traits because, unlike Voldemort, he is a good person and resists any desire to become a dark wizard.

Static (unchanging): Someone who does not change throughout the story is static.

A good example of a static character is Atticus Finch from “How to Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. His character and views do not change throughout the book. He is firm and steady in his beliefs despite controversial circumstances.

Foils : These characters' job is to draw attention to the main character(s) to enhance the protagonist's role.

‍ A great example of a foil charact e r is Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle.

How to Analyze a Character

While preparing to analyze your character, make sure to read the story carefully.

Pay attention to the situations where the character is involved, their dialogues, and their role in the plot.
Make sure you include information about what your character achieves on a big scale and how they influence other characters.
Despite the categories above, try thinking outside the box and explore your character from around.
Avoid general statements and being too basic. Instead, focus on exploring the complexities and details of your character(s).

How to Write a Character Analysis Essay?

To learn how to write a character analysis essay and gather a more profound sense of truly understanding these characters, one must completely immerse themself in the story or literary piece.

Take note of the setting, climax, and other important academic parts.
You must be able to feel and see through the characters. Observe how analysis essay writer shaped these characters into life.
Notice how little or how vast the character identities were described.
Look at the characters' morals and behaviors and how they have affected situations and other characters throughout the story.
Finally, observe the characters whom you find interesting.

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How Do You Start a Character Analysis Essay

When writing a character analysis essay, first, you have to choose a character you'd like to write about. Sometimes a character will be readily assigned to you. It's wise to consider characters who play a dynamic role in the story. This will captivate the reader as there will be much information about these personas.

Read the Story

You might think that if you already have read the book, there is no need to do so again; however, now that you know the character you would like to focus on, reading it again will have plenty of benefits. It will give you an opportunity to be more precise while reading the scenes that relate directly to your character and are important for his/her analysis. While reading the book, pay attention to every tiny detail to make sure you grasp the whole array of your character's traits.

Consider the following things:

What specific descriptions does the author provide for each character?

For example, when J.K. Rowling describes Harry Potter for the first time, she describes his clothes as old and oversized, his hair untidy, and his glasses as broken. It might seem just like a simple description, but she expresses compassion and pity for an orphan neglected by his only relatives.

What kinds of relationships does your character have with others?

Think about how Harry builds up his friendships with others. First, he and Ron do not like Hermione because she acts like a know-it-all, but when she gets stuck in the dungeons with a horrendous troll, he rushes to save her regardless.

How do the actions of the character move the plot forward?

In 'The Philosopher's Stone,' Harry is very observant of any events taking place at school. He analyzes people's actions, which builds up the plot around the stone and its importance for the magical world.

Get help with your character analysis from our experts.

Choose a Dynamic Character

Choosing a dynamic character is a great idea. This does not necessarily have to be the protagonist, but a character that undergoes many changes has grown throughout the story and is not boring and/or static. This gives you a perfect advantage to fully show the character and make your paper entertaining and engaging for the reader. If you choose a character that is not very dynamic, your essay might seem monotonous because your character will not end up doing much and will not be very involved in the story.

While you are reading, it is useful to take notes or highlight/underline any of the critical elements of the story. This will add depth to your character description(s). By providing vivid and specific examples, you connect your reader to the character, and the character comes alive in their eyes. Review your notes and formulate the main idea about your character when you're finished reading with your character in mind.

Make an initial draft while taking note of the character analysis essay outline provided by your instructor. You may follow the recommended character analysis essay format if you have not been provided with a sample.

Choose a Main Idea

While reading the story, make sure you keep track of your notes. It is a good idea to look at them, choose the ones that are the most representative of your character and find patterns. This will be your thesis. Then, you must support this idea with examples and situations involving your character.

If your character were Jem Finch from 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee, the main idea would be how his personal character is shaped through racial conflicts, social inequalities, and internal struggles between public opinion, his own views, and what is actually right. Essaypro offers you history essay help. Leave us a notice if you need to proofread, edit, or write your essay.

Character Analysis Questions

Now that you have jotted down some main concepts about your character, here is a list of questions that can help you fill in the blanks you might still have:

Where do the events involving your character take place?
What are the relationships between your character and other significant characters?
What is the primary change your character has gone through throughout the story?
What is your character's background?
What is your character's occupation?
What kind of emotions does your character go through?
What are your character's values?
What is your character's value?
Does your character have friends?
Is there a lesson your character has learned by the end of the story?
Does the character achieve the goals he/she has set for himself/herself?

Make a Character Analysis Essay Outline

When you're unsure how to write a character synopsis, remember that creating a literary analysis outline is one of the most critical steps. A well-constructed character analysis outline will keep your thoughts and ideas organized.

Character Analysis Essay Introduction:

Make the introduction to your paper brief and meaningful. It should hold together your entire essay and spark your audience's interest. Write a short description of the character in question. Don't forget to include a character analysis thesis statement which should make a case for the character's relevance within the narrative context.

Character Analysis Essay Body:

Subdivide your body paragraphs into different ideas or areas regarding the character. Look at your professor's rubric and ensure you'll be able to tackle all the requirements. You should also be provided with questions to be answered to formulate your analysis better. The body should answer the following questions:

What is the character's physical appearance, personality, and background?
What are the conflicts the character experiences, and how did he/she overcome them?
What can we learn from this character?
What is the meaning behind the character's actions? What motivates him/her?
What does the character do? How does he/she treat others? Is he/she fair or unjust?
What does the character say? What is his/her choice of words? Does he/she have a rich vocabulary?
How does the character describe themself? How do others describe him/her?
What words do you associate with the character? Perhaps a word like 'hope,' 'bravery,' or maybe even 'freedom'?

Character Analysis Essay Conclusion:

It's time to master the secrets of how to write character analysis essay conclusions. Your ending should also hold your ideas together and shape a final analysis statement. Mention things about the character's conflicts that we could experience in real life. Additionally, you can write about how a character should've reacted to a certain situation.

Character Analysis Essay Example

Read our blogs ‘Character Analysis of Jem Finch', 'The Great Gatsby Book Through Daisy Buchanan Character,' 'Analysis of Characters in Beowulf,' or simply use these character analysis essay examples to reference your paper. You might also be interested in a synthesis essay example .

Now that you know what is character analysis, it might be time to choose a character to write about. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to type ' do my homework for me ,' you should contact our writers. You also get a free plagiarism report, formatting, and citing when buying an essay from us!

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How to Write a Policy Analysis Paper Step-by-Step

Character Analysis Guide: Master Literature

What is character analysis, how to identify characteristics of a character, how to analyze character development, how to analyze character interactions, how to analyze character motivations, how to analyze character influence on plot, how to analyze character influence on theme, how to analyze character arc and transformation.

How to write character analysis essay

Picture your favorite book. Now, think about the characters that brought that story to life. Their actions, thoughts, and words paint a vivid picture in our minds, don't they? Well, the secret to understanding those characters, as well as the heart of the story, lies in mastering the art of analyzing characterization in literature. It's like a fun detective game where you gather clues about characters to uncover the deeper layers of the story. Let's jump right in!

Character analysis is a fascinating journey into the heart of a story. It's about looking closely at each character and understanding their traits, roles, and experiences. Imagine you are a detective and the character is a puzzle waiting to be solved. You're not just reading about who they are on the surface, but you're digging into their actions, words, and thoughts to see what makes them tick. Here's how you do it:

Identify the character's traits: These are the qualities that make a character who they are. It could be anything from being brave, clever, kind, or stubborn.
Understand their role in the story: Every character plays a part in moving the story forward. They could be the hero, the sidekick, the villain, or even the comic relief.
Examine the conflicts they experience: Characters often face challenges or conflicts. How they deal with these situations can reveal a lot about their personality and growth.

Remember, analyzing characterization in literature isn't just about listing facts about the character. It's about understanding them in a way that brings the story to life. It's about seeing how they change, how they interact with others, and how they influence the plot and themes of the story. There's a whole world to explore within each character, so let's get started!

So, you're ready to start analyzing characterization in literature, and the first step is to identify the characteristics of a character. But how do you do it? Here is a straightforward plan:

Observe their actions: What a character does can tell you a lot about who they are. For example, if a character always stands up for others, they're likely brave and compassionate.
Pay attention to their words: Dialogue can reveal a lot about a character's personality, beliefs, and relationships with others. For instance, a character who always speaks kindly to others is likely a nice person.
Consider their thoughts and feelings: Sometimes, a character's inner world — their thoughts and feelings — can tell you more about them than their actions or words.
Take into account their appearance: How a character dresses or looks can give you clues about their personality or their role in the story.

Identifying characteristics is like collecting puzzle pieces about a character. It's not just about noting what you see or read, but about putting those pieces together to get a fuller picture of who the character really is. So, keep those detective glasses on and let's continue our journey in analyzing characterization in literature.

Now that you've got the basics down, let's move on to analyzing character development. This involves observing how a character changes and grows throughout the story. Here's the scoop:

Track the character's journey: Look at where the character started at the beginning of the story and where they end up. Have they grown? Have they learned something new? Have their beliefs or attitudes changed? This can give you a sense of their development.
Analyze key events: Major events in the story often trigger changes in characters. Examine these closely and consider how the character reacted, what choices they made, and how it affected them.
Consider relationships: Relationships can greatly influence a character's development. How a character interacts with others, their reactions, and the changes in their relationships can all signify growth or change.

Remember, not all characters will develop or change in a story—that's okay. Some characters are static, meaning they stay the same throughout the story. Others are dynamic, meaning they undergo significant changes. Both are important and understanding this is a key part of analyzing characterization in literature.

Let's dive into another important part of analyzing characterization in literature: examining character interactions. This is all about how characters relate to each other. Let's break this down:

Observe dialogues: So much can be uncovered from the way characters talk to each other. Do they argue? Are they supportive? Do they joke around? Dialogues can reveal a lot about relationships between characters.
Look at their actions: Actions can speak louder than words. If a character helps another in a tough situation, or perhaps the opposite, betrays them, it can tell you much about their relationship and interactions.
Consider their influence: Characters often influence each other's decisions and behaviors. If a character changes because of another, it shows the power and effect of their interaction.

When analyzing character interactions, it's important to note that these interactions can change over time—just like in real life. Characters can start off as friends and end up as enemies, or vice versa. Understanding these changing dynamics can give you a deeper understanding of the characters and the story as a whole.

It's time to explore the driving forces behind characters' actions. Understanding character motivations is a key part of analyzing characterization in literature. Here's what you need to watch out for:

Desires and Goals: What does the character want more than anything? This could be anything from a physical object, a relationship, a change in their life, or even the resolution of a mystery. Their ultimate goal will heavily influence their actions.
Fears and Worries: On the flip side, what does the character want to avoid? Fears and worries can be as motivating as desires and goals. They can push the character to take risks or to make safe choices.
Values and Beliefs: What does the character believe in? What are their morals? These deeply held values can guide a character's decisions, even when they conflict with their desires or fears.

Remember, motivations can evolve as the story progresses. Characters might change their minds, achieve their goals, or face new fears. Keeping track of these changes can help you understand not just the characters, but also the bigger themes and messages of the story.

The plot of a story isn't just something that happens—it's often driven by the actions and decisions of its characters. That's why analyzing characterization in literature includes understanding how characters influence the plot. Here's how you can do it:

Actions: Look at the key events in the story. How many of them are caused directly by the character's actions? A character who frequently makes things happen is likely to have a significant influence on the plot.
Decisions: Similarly, consider the character's decisions. How do they affect the story's direction? Remember, a decision isn't always about doing something—sometimes, the decision to do nothing can be equally impactful!
Reactions: Even passive characters can influence the plot through their reactions. How do other characters and events in the story change as a result of this character's responses? This can give you clues about their indirect influence on the plot.

As you can see, a character's influence on the plot goes beyond their actions. It's about how they shape the world around them, and how the world, in turn, shapes them. This give-and-take is a vital part of analyzing characterization in literature, and it can reveal a lot about the story's deeper meanings.

When analyzing characterization in literature, one often overlooked aspect is how characters can embody and influence the theme of the story. Themes are the underlying messages or big ideas of a story, and characters play a crucial role in expressing these. So how do you analyze a character's influence on theme? Here's a simple guide:

Beliefs: What does the character believe in? Their beliefs can often mirror the theme of the story. For instance, if a character strongly believes in forgiveness, the theme of the story may revolve around redemption.
Speech: The way a character speaks can reflect the theme. For example, a character who frequently talks about freedom and independence might hint at a theme of personal liberty.
Behavior: How does the character behave? Do they consistently act in a way that supports the theme? In a story themed around courage, you might find a character who consistently stands up for what they believe in, no matter the cost.

Remember, characters are often vehicles for the author's themes. By diving into a character's beliefs, speech, and behavior, you can gain a deeper understanding of the story's larger messages. And that's the beauty of analyzing characterization in literature—it's not just about understanding the characters, but also the world they inhabit and the ideas they represent.

Another fascinating aspect of analyzing characterization in literature is the character arc and transformation. A character's arc is the journey they go through, the changes they undergo from the start of the story to the end. This can provide a wealth of insight into not only the character but also the story's overall message. Let's take a look at how to analyze this aspect:

Identify the starting point: Where does the character begin in the story? Are they timid, confident, naive, cynical? This initial characterization sets the stage for their journey.
Track the changes: As the story progresses, how does the character change? Do they become more confident? Do they lose their innocence? Identifying these changes can help you understand the character arc.
Understand the catalysts: What events or experiences prompt these changes in the character? The reasons behind a character's transformation can be as revealing as the changes themselves.
Analyze the end point: Where does the character end up at the end of the story? How do they differ from the character we met at the beginning? Assessing the end point of the character's journey can provide insight into the overall theme of the story.

Character transformation is one of the most compelling aspects of a story. It's what makes us root for characters, mourn their losses, and celebrate their victories. By analyzing a character's arc, we can gain a deeper appreciation for the intricacies of storytelling and the power of character development in literature.

How to write a character analysis essay

Now that we've covered the intricate process of analyzing characterization in literature, let's apply this knowledge to the final step: writing a character analysis essay. This task may seem daunting at first, but don't worry, we're in this together. Here's how you can approach it:

Choose your character: Start by selecting the character you want to analyze. It could be a major character or a minor one—whatever sparks your interest!
Identify key characteristics: Next, list down the key characteristics of your chosen character. Remember, these can include physical attributes, personality traits, and even their habits and quirks!
Analyze character development: How does your character change over the course of the story? What experiences or events lead to these changes? This is where your understanding of character arcs comes into play.
Consider character interactions: Look at how your character interacts with others. These interactions can reveal a lot about your character's motivations and their role in the story.
Examine influence on plot and theme: How does your character influence the plot and the theme of the story? Their actions, decisions, and transformations can have significant impacts on the storyline and the underlying messages of the text.
Organize your thoughts: Before you start writing, create an outline for your essay. This will help you structure your thoughts and ensure a smooth flow of ideas.
Write, review, and revise: Now it's time to bring it all together! Write your essay, then take some time to review and revise it. Make sure your analysis is clear, your arguments are well-supported, and your writing is engaging.

And there you have it! With these steps, you're well on your way to writing a stellar character analysis essay. Remember, the goal is not to simply describe your character, but to delve into their personality, their changes, their motivations, and their impact on the story. So go ahead, flex those analytical muscles and dive into the wonderful world of character analysis!

If you enjoyed our Character Analysis Guide and want to dive deeper into the world of creating compelling characters, be sure to check out the workshop ' Creating Characters: The Design Process ' by Kit Buss. This workshop will provide you with valuable insights on how to design unique and memorable characters for your stories, further enhancing your understanding of literature.

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Education and Communications
Studying Literature

How to Write a Character Analysis

Last Updated: November 11, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jamie Korsmo, PhD . Jamie Korsmo is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Georgia State University. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 753,396 times.

Learning how to write a character analysis requires a thorough reading of the literary work with attention to what the author reveals about the character through dialogue, narrative, and plot. A literary analyst writes about the role each character plays in the work. The protagonist is the most important character, while the character who plays the villain in the conflict with the main character is called the antagonist. Great writers create characters with many facets, so character analysis should focus on these complexities. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you write your own character analysis.

Getting Started

For example, if you are reading Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn , you might consider choosing Huck or the runaway slave, Jim, because they are dynamic characters who show a wide range of emotion, who often act in unpredictable ways, and who move the plot forward with their actions.
It might be less effective to choose the duke or the king, the tricksters Huck and Jim meet in Arkansas, because they have fairly minor roles in the story, they don't show a wide range of emotions, and, more than anything, they're simply stock characters (the story needs a humorous detour and a way for Jim and Huck to be separated, so that Huck can have his infamous All right, then, I'll go to hell! moment, and the duke and the king fulfill that role).

Step 2 Read the story with your character in mind.

For the Huck Finn example, you might think about how Huck is described as a backwoods boy, but he clearly wrestles with larger issues that have complex social implications - like slavery and religion.
Think about how Huck relates to runaway slave Jim, both in the beginning of the novel and at the end. Think about Huck's relationship with his drunk, abusive father and how it shaped his identity.
Huck is the main character, so obviously his actions are important. But what, specifically, is special about the way Huck acts? How does he make different decisions than someone else in the same situation might? You could talk about how Huck decides to rescue Jim from the people who intend to return him to his owner because he decides that slavery is wrong, even though this idea contradicts everything society has taught him.
Think about how Huck grows and learns throughout the story. In the beginning, he is more likely to get caught up in schemes (like faking his own death); but later on, he avoids the trickery he observes (like when he tries to ditch the deceptive duke and king).

You can also keep a notebook handy while you're reading to help you keep track of your thoughts about the character as you read.

For the Huck Finn example, you might choose something about the hypocrisy of civilized society since, in essence, the novel is about a boy who was brought up to support enslaving blacks, but decides, through his experiences with Jim on the river, to value Jim as a person and a friend rather than just as a slave. Similarly, Huck's own father captures and "enslaves" Huck, a situation that Huck eventually escapes and mirrors Jim's own quest for freedom. Society views Huck's escape as moral and just, but Jim's escape is a terrible crime to the townspeople. In this contradiction lies a major crux of the story.

An outline will help keep your thoughts organized and maintain an effective flow as you move through the analysis.

Writing the Character Analysis

Your introduction should provide the topic of your analysis, enough background information to inform and intrigue your reader, and your thesis idea/claim.

Step 2 Describe the physical appearance of the character.

Think about Huck's ragged clothes and what that says about his character. Discuss how Huck dresses up like a little girl to find out the news in town and how this altered appearance influences your analysis of Huck.

Step 3 Discuss your character's background.

Discuss Huck's relationship with his father and with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, who take him in. How do these characters influence Huck's development? The contrast between Huck's alcoholic father and the conservative ladies who care for Huck later is an interesting continuum of social behavior to analyze and consider where Huck's own beliefs/actions fall on that continuum.

Step 4 Discuss the character's language use.

Huck has an admittedly vulgar attitude for a little boy and often does not speak in a way that the Widow Douglas approves of. He does try hard to obey her and act appropriately in church, but he often missteps and announces himself, through his actions and words, as a person who is far less civilized than he pretends to be, or than the Widow would like him to be.

Step 5 Write about the personality of the character.

Huck Finn tries to abide by the rules of society, but at the end of the day he acts based on emotions. He decides to rescue Jim from being returned to his master, even though it is against the law, because he believes that Jim does not deserve to be treated like a slave. Huck decides this on his own, in direct opposition to the values his society has taught him.

Step 6 Analyze the character's relationships with others.

Huck's external conflict relies on all of the events that take place on his journey down the river - the physical struggle of the trip, his mishaps along the way, getting caught up in various scandals and schemes, etc. His internal conflict reaches its climax when Huck decides to help Jim attain freedom from slavery. This is a crucial moment in the story where Huck follows his heart instead of his social conscience.

Step 8 Collect supporting material or evidence for the analysis.

Using Evidence in Your Writing

Step 1 Support your writing with textual evidence.

Using quotes from the text will increase your credibility as an author and will support your ideas more effectively.

For example, you might say the following: Huck Finn garners a significant new identity from being a raftsman. He insists, "It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that." This shows the freedom and pride he associates with his raft.

Step 3 Anchor the quote within your own words.

Incorrect: "It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that."
Correct: He insists that "It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that."
Correct: "It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that," Huck insists.

Writing Help

Community Q&A

Use specific details from the text to support every point. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0
Write a rough draft to gather your thoughts about the analysis before polishing your work for submission. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0
Organize the analysis carefully. Write an introduction that will attract a reader to your work. Make sure that each paragraph is unified around a central topic. Tie your work together with a polished conclusion. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/writing/how-to-write-a-character-analysis.html
↑ https://www.germanna.edu/wp-content/uploads/tutoring/handouts/Literary-Analysis.pdf
↑ https://www.tcc.edu/wp-content/uploads/archive/writing-center-handouts/essay-types-character-analysis-essay.pdf
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/film-analysis/
↑ https://examples.yourdictionary.com/character-trait-examples.html
↑ https://purdueglobalwriting.center/paragraph-development-with-pie-2/
↑ https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/quoting-paraphrasing-summarizing

About This Article

To write a character analysis, first you'll need to come up with a main idea, or thesis statement, for your character, like "Huck Finn embodies the struggles of growing up as a young boy." Then, you'll want to write about each facet of your character, like their appearance, background, personality, relationships, and growth throughout the story, and explain how they prove your thesis. As you're writing your analysis, try to use quotes and examples from the text to back up what you're saying. To learn how to outline a character analysis, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Character Analysis

Learn to spot and describe character traits and development

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M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
B.A., History, Armstrong State University

Being mindful of subtle hints, like mood changes and reactions that might provide insight into your character's personality, can help you write a character analysis.

Describe the Character's Personality

We get to know the characters in our stories through the things they say, feel, and do. It's not as difficult as it may seem to figure out personality traits based on a character's thoughts and behaviors:

"'Say cheese!' the exasperated photographer shouted, as she pointed her camera toward the group of squirming children. Margot displayed her broadest, most convincing fake smile as she inched ever-closer to her younger cousin. Just as the photographer's finger twitched over the shutter button, Margot leaned into her young cousin's side and pinched hard. The boy let out a yelp, just as the camera clicked."

You can probably make some assumptions about Margot from the brief segment above. If you had to name three character traits to describe her, what would they be? Is she a nice, innocent girl? Doesn't seem like it from this passage. From the brief paragraph, we can assume that she's apparently sneaky, mean, and deceptive.

Determine the Character Type of Your Protagonist

You will receive clues about personality through a character's words, actions, reactions, feelings, movements, thoughts, and mannerisms. Even a character's opinions can help you learn more about the individual, and you may discover that the person fits one of these stock character types:

Flat character. A flat character has one or two personality traits that don't change. The flat character can play a major or a minor role.
Round character. A round character has many complex traits; those traits develop and change in a story. A round character seems more real than a flat character because real people are complex.
Stock or stereotype character. Stock characters are stereotypes, such as hot-tempered redheads, stingy businessmen, and absent-minded professors. They are often found in genre fiction (romance novels and mysteries, for example), and are usually flat characters. They are often used as a tool to move a plot forward.
Static character. A static character never changes. A loud, obnoxious "background" character who remains the same throughout the story is static. A boring character who is never changed by events is also static.
Dynamic character. Unlike a static character, a dynamic character does change and grow as the story unfolds. Dynamic characters respond to events and experience changes in attitude or outlook. The character might go through a transformation during the course of the storyline, and grow as a result of actions that took place.

Define Your Character's Role in the Work You're Analyzing

When you write a character analysis, you must define that character's role. Identifying the character type and personality traits can help you better understand what the larger role of the character is within the story. The character either plays a major role, as a central element to the story, or a minor role to support the major characters in the story.

Protagonist. The protagonist of a story is another name for the main character. The plot revolves around the protagonist. There may even be more than one main character.

In "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ," Huck Finn is the protagonist.
In "Little Red Riding Hood," the little girl is the protagonist.

Antagonist. The antagonist is the character who represents a challenge or an obstacle to the protagonist in a story. In some stories, the antagonist is not a person but rather a larger entity or force that must be dealt with.

In " Little Red Riding Hood ," the wolf is the antagonist.
In "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," society is the antagonist. Society, with its unfair laws and rules, represents the obstacle to Huck's development as a person.

Foil. A foil is a character who provides contrast to the main character (protagonist), in order to emphasize the main character's traits. In "A Christmas Carol," the kind nephew, Fred, is the foil to nasty Ebenezer Scrooge.

Show Your Character's Development (Growth and Change)

When you are asked to write a character analysis, you will be expected to explain how a character changes and grows. Most major characters go through some kind of significant growth as a story unfolds, often a direct result of dealing with some sort of conflict . Notice, as you read, which main characters grow stronger, fall apart, develop new relationships, or discover new aspects of themselves. Make note of scenes in which character changes become apparent or the character's opinions on a topic change. Clues include phrases such as "she suddenly realized that..." or "for the first time, he..."

Understanding the journey of your character and how it relates to the story as a whole can help you better understand that character's motives and better represent the person in your overall analysis.

Article edited by Stacy Jagodowski

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Character Analysis

Writing Character Analysis - Outline, Steps, and Examples

12 min read

What is Character Analysis

This type of analytical essay involves examining the traits, motivations, behaviors, and development of a character within a story or literary work.

Its purpose is to deeply understand and interpret the complexities of a character, going beyond surface-level descriptions.

Purpose of a Character Analysis

The key objectives of character analysis are:

Understanding Depth: It aims to uncover the layers of a character's personality, motivations, and emotions to comprehend their role in the story comprehensively.
Exploring Development: It involves tracking the character's journey throughout the narrative, identifying changes in their beliefs, attitudes, or actions.
Identifying Motivations: Character analysis seeks to unearth the driving forces behind a character's choices, behaviors, and relationships within the story.
Relating to Themes: Dissecting characters helps in exploring and understanding the themes, messages, and conflicts within the story.
Enhancing Engagement: It encourages readers or students to engage more deeply with the narrative, fostering empathy and connection with the characters.
Interpreting Author's Intentions: It aids in deciphering the author's purpose in creating specific characters, adding depth to the understanding of the literary work.

How to Write Character Analysis

Writing a good character analysis goes beyond just describing how a character looks or acts. It's like peeking into their thoughts, and feelings, and how they change as the story goes on.

Here are some steps you can follow to write a compelling character analysis;

Step 1: Choose a Character

When you pick a character to study, think if they change or if they stay the same throughout. Each character type brings its significance to the story.

When analyzing characters, knowing their type helps in understanding their roles, motivations, and impact on the narrative.

Here are different types of characters you can encounter:

Step 2: Gather Information

Gathering information is crucial for character analysis because it helps us understand the character better. By knowing about their physical attributes, personality traits, and what they do in the story to move the plot, we can identify the character better.

Look at the example of Harry Potter, the protagonist in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series:

Step 3: Outline Your Analysis

Create a structured plan for your character analysis essay. Begin with an engaging introduction, introducing the character and their significance.

Proceed to discuss the character's development throughout the story and their interactions with other characters in the story.

Here is a basic outline structure you can follow for your essay:

Here is a template you can look at to understand the structure and flow of the analysis essay:

Character Analysis Template

Step 4: Support with Evidence

While analyzing characters, substantiate your observations with evidence from the text.

Quotes, descriptions, or scenes that depict the character's actions or character relationships provide strong evidence for your analysis.

Let’s take a look at the example below of a character analysis of Hamlet:

Step 5: Analyze, Don't Summarize

Remember, your goal is to analyze the character, not summarize the plot. Focus on interpreting their actions, decisions, and the types of characters they represent.

Let’s take a look at the example of character analysis of ‘Waiting for Godot’:

Step 6: Incorporate Critical Perspectives

Consider different interpretations of the character. Acknowledge how their character development influences the story's themes and the author's intentions for including them.

The character analysis of Joseph Andrews is a great example of understanding this factor:

Step 7: Write Your Character Analysis

Craft your analysis into a structured and coherent essay. Ensure your analysis contributes to a broader literary analysis of the work.

Here are some tips to help you:

Avoid summarizing the plot extensively. Concentrate on interpreting the character's traits, actions, and their significance within the story.
Contextualize your analysis within the broader themes or messages of the literary work.

Step 8: Conclusion

Conclude your analysis by summarizing the character's evolution, the impact of their character traits on the story, and their significance to the overall narrative.

Let’s take a look at the conclusion in the character analysis of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness:

Step 9 - Proofread and Refine

Though conclusions mark the end of an essay, it is considered a good practice to proofread. This step ensures the quality and readability of your essay.

Here are some tips to help you proofread and refine:

Look for unclear or difficult sentences that might confuse the reader.
Double-check formatting guidelines, citation styles, and bibliography entries if applicable.
Correct any grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, or spelling issues.
Check that the quotes or scenes you've mentioned actually support your ideas.

Character Analysis Example

Examples of character analyses offer valuable insights into structuring an essay. They help to demonstrate how to organize thoughts systematically, from the introduction to the conclusion:

Let’s take a look at the character analysis of Oedipus Rex:

Let’s take a look at some more examples:

Character Analysis of Antigone

Mr. Birling's Character Analysis

The Crucible Character Analysis

Lady Macbeth Character Analysis

Jay Gatsby Character Analysis

Othello Character Analysis

Okonkwo Character Analysis

John Proctor Character Analysis

Tips for Writing a Character Analysis

Here are some tips that can help you improve your analysis:

Focus on Subtleties: Pay attention to subtle character traits, gestures, or speech patterns that reveal deeper insights into the character's personality.
Contextual Analysis: Consider the character within the context of their environment, era, or social background to understand how these factors shape their actions and beliefs.
Contrast and Compare: Compare the character with others in the story to highlight unique attributes or to showcase how they contrast with different personalities.
Symbolism and Imagery: Explore any symbolic elements or imagery associated with the character, as these can often convey deeper meanings or themes.
Evolution over Time: Analyze how the character evolves or changes throughout the narrative, focusing on pivotal moments that drive their development.
Impact on Plot Development: Highlight the character's role in advancing the story, influencing other characters, or triggering significant events.
Narrative Perspective: Consider how the character's portrayal might differ based on the narrator's perspective or point of view.

So, there you have it!

By now you must have gotten an idea of how to write a character analysis.

By following these steps and tips, you'll grasp how to craft a thorough character analysis. You'll be able to understand and explain the complexities of the character effectively.

However, if you need help with it, then working with a professional essay writing service like MyPerfectWords.com, will save you time and help you learn better.

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Dr. Barbara is a highly experienced writer and author who holds a Ph.D. degree in public health from an Ivy League school. She has worked in the medical field for many years, conducting extensive research on various health topics. Her writing has been featured in several top-tier publications.

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay: Examples & Outline

A character analysis is an examination of the personalities and actions of protagonists and antagonists that make up a story. It discusses their role in the story, evaluates their traits, and looks at their conflicts and experiences. You might need to write this assignment in school or college. Like any other essay, your character analysis should contain an introduction, a conclusion, and a thesis.

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Want to know how to write a character analysis essay? Not sure how to start? We understand. Whichever piece you choose – Lady Macbeth, A Rose for Emily, or something else, – analyzing a character for the first time might be challenging. No worries, we are here to help! In this guide by our custom writing experts, you will find a step-by-step guide, outlining and writing tips, as well as a number of character analysis examples.

📔 Character Analysis Definition
🧙 Types of Characters
📝 Writing Guide
🖥️ Formatting Tips

📑 Character Analysis Essay Examples

📔 what is a character analysis essay.

A character analysis essay is an assignment where you evaluate a character’s traits, behaviors, and motivations. It requires critical thinking and attention to detail. Unlike descriptions, analyses focus on a character’s personality and internal drives. It explains how those factors shape the narrated events.

The picture shows the definition of character analysis.

So, what you need to do is to see the characters as if they were real people who feel and act just as we do. Ensure there are no baseless assumptions and interpretations: the ideas you present should be supported by quotes from the text.

Character: Definition (Literature)

How do you define a character? It is a person, a creature, or an animal that makes up the story’s world. A character can be based on a real-life person, or it can be entirely fictional. It is someone who thinks, feels, and acts.

We use the word “character” in many different contexts. For instance, it can denote someone eccentric or worthy of our admiration. In both contexts, the term “character” means a distinctive personality. Similarly, in an analysis, your task is to show what makes a character stand out.

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Characterization: Literary Definition & Examples

Characterization is the process by which a character’s personality is revealed. It presents characters’ traits, feelings, and motives to the reader. For this reason, characterization is closely connected to character analysis. It helps us to understand the characters better throughout the reading process.

Characterization can be direct and indirect .

Direct characterization is when the narrator directly tells the audience what the personality of a character is.
In contrast, indirect characterization shows things that hint at a character’s nature.

Here are some examples of direct characterization taken from Patti Smith’s Just Kids :

“But he always suppressed his real feelings, mimicking the stoic nature of his father.”

Here we see a direct description of a character. The author straightforwardly talks about Robert’s feelings. In comparison, look at the description of a woman taken from John Steinbeck’s The Snake :

“He looked around at her again. Her dark eyes seemed veiled with dust. She looked without expression at the cat’s open throat.”

These lines don’t directly reveal anything about the woman, but the reader can understand that she is cold and dangerous. It’s an indirect characterization that focuses on looks and actions to convey the message to the reader.

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🧙 Types of Characters for Your Essay

When it comes to characters, they can be divided into several groups. For example, characters can be:

Protagonists or antagonists,
Static or dynamic,
Flat or round.

These types define how much the characters change through the course of the story and their role in it.

Character Type: Definition

In psychology, a character type is defined by a combination of personality traits that coexist in an individual. Authors incorporate different types of characters into their works to convey the message and make the story more exciting or relatable to the reader.

There are three ways to categorize a character type:

by archetypes,
by their role in the narrative,
by their ability to change throughout the story.

If you are about to write a character analysis essay, being familiar with character archetypes is essential. They have been categorized by a generation of writers, including the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the American literary theorist Joseph Campbell. A lot of characters we see in today’s literary works are rooted in them.

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Archetypes include the Trickster, the Ruler, the Lover, the Sage, and others. The Hero is one of the most notable archetypes. Hercules or Achilles can be good examples of heroic protagonists. They are strong and courageous; they meet challenges and save the day by helping others.

Main Character: Definition & Examples

The main character and the protagonist often get mixed up. Most narratives also have the figure of the antagonist , whose actions affect the plot and stimulate change. Let’s have a look at the similarities and differences between these types.

The main character is central in the narrative. We experience the story through their eyes. They don’t necessarily have to be protagonists, though it happens in many cases.

The crucial difference between the main character and the protagonist is that the protagonist goes through changes throughout the story. The main character, however, is there to guide the reader through the experience. Often they help to show a different, darker side of the protagonist.

To understand the difference better, let’s turn to some examples.

What’s a Static Character?

Now that we’ve learned about the main character and the protagonist, we will closely look at other types of character classifications. One of the ways to categorize a character is by their ability to change throughout the story.

A static or simple character is someone who undergoes little or no significant changes. They often exist for comedic purposes. Here are some examples:

Complex Character: Definition & Examples

Complex or dynamic characters are the opposite of static characters. Characters of this type change as the book progresses. They display different qualities, emotions, and motives. They become more complicated and interesting to the reader as the story unfolds.

Check out these examples of dynamic characters:

Other Kinds of Characters

You already know about several ways to define a type of character. Now, let’s go over some other types, starting with flat and round characters.

Similar to dynamic and static ones, round and flat characters represent two different ends of a spectrum. Round characters usually come with an in-depth background. They are traditionally protagonists, antagonists, or those close to them. In contrast, flat characters are two-dimensional, and there is not much depth to them.

For the examples, we will turn to the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Finally, here are some bonus character types for you:

Stock characters have a fixed set of traits and are flat. Most of the time, they exist for comical relief.
Symbolic characters represent a concept or a theme that goes beyond them. They can be round and flat as long as they symbolize a particular notion or phenomena.
Sidekick is a secondary character who supports the protagonist.
The love interest is someone with whom the main character is infatuated.
Foil is someone who’s set in contrast with the protagonist, thus putting more emphasis on the latter’s qualities.

Characterization Essay: Which Character Type to Choose

Before you start writing a paper, it essential to decide on the character you’re going to analyze. There are different types of characters in every story, so you need to choose which one suits your essay topic the best.

Usually, it’s best to choose a dynamic and round character . With static and flat ones, there may not be enough substance for you to analyze. However, some such personalities can be interesting to work with. For instance, a flat character such as Mr. Collins can be symbolic of something. Then, you can talk about how it embodies a specific idea or notion. You can also look at how they affect other characters in the story.

📝 How to Write a Character Analysis Step by Step

Now, we’re going to discuss how to write your paper step-by-step. But first, here are some pre-writing steps for you to consider:

Choose a character for analysis.
Take notes while reading;
Define the type of the character and their role in the story;
Pay attention to their descriptions and actions.

How to Analyze a Character: Description Examples

Knowing how to organize your work is an essential skill. Certain things need special attention if you are describing a character:

physical appearance,
emotional state,
how the character speaks,
behavior and personality traits,
relationships with other characters.

When you analyze a character, try to look at them as if they were a real-life person. You want to know their motive, learn about how they feel, and understand why they think in a certain way. Ask yourself:

How did the character change throughout the story (if at all)?
What do other characters say about them? Can their words be trusted?
Where is the character physically and emotionally? What brought them here?
What is the character ready to do to achieve their goal?

Now, let’s look at the character of Franklin from the short story Just Before the War with the Eskimos by J.D. Salinger:

Character Profile Template for Writing

When writing your essay, use this character analysis template:

The picture shows the main steps in writing a character analysis essay.

In the following sections, we’ll discuss each step in detail.

Character Analysis Outline: How to Start a Character Analysis

The beginning of your essay is its crucial part. It sets the mood and grabs the reader’s attention. There are many different ways to write a character analysis introduction, but here are the most effective ones:

Use a quotation. It’s a great way to make a catchy hook. If it relates to the character and reflects their nature, it can also help to set the tone for analysis. In case you are using a quotation from somewhere else, mention the source in parentheses.
Talk about the book or story. Mention the author, the name of the story, and the genre. Briefly describe the main events that are taking place in the story.
Introduce the character. State their role in the story (define whether they are a protagonist, an antagonist, etc.) Then, explain whether the character is static or dynamic. Finally, describe them in 2-3 sentences.

The final part of an introduction is a thesis statement.Read on to learn how to write one!

Character Analysis Thesis Statement & Examples

A thesis is the key component of every essay, and character analysis is not an exception. It’s crucial to develop a good and clear thesis statement that includes all the aspects of your paper. For instance, if you plan to write a 4-paragraph body, including 4 points in your thesis.

What should a character analysis thesis include? Well, try to think of any trait that the character possesses that has to do with their downfall or somehow influences the story. Think about how this trait affects the character’s relationship with others or how it contributes to their motive or aspiration.

Take a look at the following examples:

How to Write Character Analysis Paragraphs for the Main Body

The main body of your essay can include as many paragraphs as you need. In this part, you introduce the character and analyze them. We have already talked in this article about what kind of questions should be answered in these paragraphs. The most important points are:

Describe the character and their role within the story.
Give the audience an explanation of the character’s motives.
Show what message the author wanted to convey through this character.

Keep in mind that every paragraph should have a topic sentence that captures its main idea.

Tsukuru Tazaki’s spiritual rebirth also affects his physical appearance.

Character Analysis Conclusion: How to Write

The conclusion part of your essay summarizes all the information you have mentioned and restates the thesis. Here is some advice for your conclusion paragraph:

🖥️ Character Analysis Essay Format

Most college assignments and essays are written according to the APA or MLA format. Both styles have the same formatting, which requires:

a double-spaced paper with 1-inch margins,
a page header with page numbers flush right,
an 11-12-point font.

While writing an essay on characters, pay special attention to quotations. Here are some tips for APA in-text citations:

When you summarize or paraphrase the information, mention the author’s name and publication date in brackets. Example: According to Collins (1997.)
When you quote directly from the source, add the number of the page, as well. Example: “There is a view that…” (Collins, 1997, pp. 134-135.)
If the source includes three or more authors, use the abbreviation “et al.” after the first author’s name. Example: (Collins et al., 1997)

As for MLA format:

You can write the author’s name in the sentence. Example: As Collins mentions in his essay<…>.
You can mention the author’s name in the parentheses at the end of the sentence. Example: (Collins, J.K.)
The last option is to use either footnotes or endnotes.

Below you’ll find a collection of character analysis essay examples and a downloadable sample to inspire you even more.

The Grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Character Analysis
Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman: Character Analysis
Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway: Character Analysis
Prospero in The Tempest: Character Analysis
Agamemnon in the Iliad: Character Analysis
Lord Pococurante in Candide: Character Analysis
Andromache in the Iliad: Character Analysis
Character Analysis of the Knight from The Canterbury Tales
Essay on Soldier’s Home: Analysis of the Characters

Character Analysis Example (Downloadable)

Roald Dahl’s Matilda is one of the most famous children’s novels of the 20th century. The protagonist of this tale is Matilda Wormwood, a five and a half-year-old girl with a brilliant and lively mind that distances her from the rest of the family. Matilda’s character is particularly interesting as she has a powerful personality with extraordinary mental abilities, and she manages to overcome all the obstacles that surround her.

Character Analysis Essay Topics

Character analysis of Abbas from A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge .
Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Beowulf and Hamlet : similarity and diversity of the characters.
Personal and social failures of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
Character analysis of Othello .
Analyze the characters of Stanley and Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire .
The tragedy of Mathilde Loisel from The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant.
Character analysis of Huck Finn from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
Moral force of Kate Lipton from Double Helix by Nancy Parker.
Character analysis of Thorvald and Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House .
Discuss the character of king Creon in Antigone .
Analyze the personality of Lydia from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice .
Compare Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Describe the peculiarities of Lord Pococurante in Candide .
Sarty Snopes in William Faulkner’s Barn Burning : character analysis.
Analyze the character of Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman.
Personality of Nora in A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen.
Examine the main characters of The Yellow Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Personality change of the main character in Edgar Alan Poe’s The Black Cat .
Analyze the characters of E. Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place .
Describe the main characters of the novel The Overstory by Richard Powers.
Controversial personality of Vladek in Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman.
Character analysis of Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley .
Discuss the character of Creon in Oedipus the King .
The manipulative character of Iago in Willian Shakespeare’s Othello .
Analyze the characters of Nil and Kristine in A Doll’s House .
Eccentricity of Grendel’s character in Beowulf .
Describe the main characters of Four Summers by Joyce Carol Oates.
Examine the characters of Harold Krebs and his mother in Ernest Hemingway’s Soldier’s Home .
Analyze common and different traits of the characters in The Monkey’s Paw .
Character peculiarities of Rostam and Sohrab in Shahnameh by Ferdowsi Tousi.
How does the character of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen differ from the rest of her family?
The behavior and meaning of the characters in Nicholas Rowe’s The Tragedy of Jane Shore.
Compare the characters of Victor Frankenstein and the monster in Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.
Discuss the differences of main characters in Everyday Use by Alice Walker.
Examine the character of Connie in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates.
The influence of social pressure on the characters of Chopin’s Desirée’s Baby and Sedaris’ A Modest Proposal .
Dynamic feminist characters of Delia and Jig in Sweat by Z. Hurston and Hills Like White Elephants by E. Hemingway.
Analyze the personality traits of Emily in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily .
Examine the characters of The Quiet American by Graham Greene.
Henry ΙV by William Shakespeare : analysis of main characters.

Now you know everything necessary for writing an excellent character analysis. What character would you like to analyze? Let us know in the comments!

❓ Character Analysis FAQ

A character analysis involves:

1. description of a character; 2. explanation of how they change throughout the story; 3. their role in the narrative; 4. relationships with other characters; 5. what idea the author wanted to convey through the character.

A character analysis creates a description that contains their most important qualities. It provides a new perspective of a character that reveals more about what it’s like to be human. It can also point to a moral or a lesson.

Literary analysis uses the technique of tracing the character development. This technique is usually used to understand the theme of the work better. Through tracing a character’s development, we can learn more about the story’s message and how it’s conveyed.

A summary paragraph in a character study should include answers to the questions “what,” “who,” “where,” and “why.” You should mention who narrates the story, where the story is set, its theme, and the message it conveys.

Critical Concepts: Character and Characterization: Kansas State University
Analyzing Novels & Short Stories: Texas A&M University
Guidelines for Writing a Character Analysis Essay: Tidewater Communite College
Literary Criticism: Thesis Examples: The University of Texas at Arlington
Writing a Literary Analysis Paper: Germanna Community College
Flat and Round Characters: Encyclopedia Britannica
Literature: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
How to Write a Book Analysis: Kean University
Elements of Literary Analysis: Alamo Colleges District
Defining Characterization: Read Write Think
APA Style: General Format: Purdue University
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How to Write a Character Analysis Featured

Scriptwriting

How to Write a Character Analysis — Tips and Techniques

A great story is often, if not always, synonymous with great characters. Crafting great characters is not an easy feat. So it’s no wonder that readers and writers alike gravitate toward the best characters in storytelling. Analyzing characters can be incredibly helpful for crafting your own characters or simply understanding your favorite story more deeply. In this article, we’ll dive into how to write a character analysis by asking the right questions, analyzing characterization, and retaining curiosity throughout the process.

How to Write a Character Analysis

First, let’s define character analysis.

Before we dive into the details of how to write a great character analysis let’s make sure we on the same page by looking at the character analysis definition.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS DEFINITION

What is a character analysis.

A character analysis is a written body of work that analyzes the qualities and traits of a specific character. These characters are primarily from literary works, but can also be from cinema and television. The purpose of a character analysis is to dissect the various intricacies of a character and their role within a story. A character analysis should focus on the quality and function of a character in a story rather than on personal opinions on how the writer might feel about the character. A character analysis should dissect various types of characterization from the writer of the character to form a well-rounded analysis.

Example character analysis types:

Protagonist.

First and foremost, it’s important to identify the type of character you're writing about. To identify the character type of your analysis here are two questions that are important to address: What is their function in the story? And how do they change or not change throughout the story?

How to Do a Character Analysis

Determine the character’s function.

A character’s function in a story is incredibly important to understand because it gives context as to why the writer made specific choices around the character such as their goals, behavior, and even outward appearance.

Depending on a character’s function in the story they will fall under one of the following types: protagonist, antagonist, foil, or mentor.

A protagonist is a character who pushes a story forward. He or she is also the central force of the story. Here's a video where break down the main types.

What is a Protagonist • Subscribe on YouTube

Derived from the Greek words prōtos and agōnistēs, “protagonist” quite literally translates to “first actor.” In the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter is the protagonist.

An antagonist is the force of a story that the protagonist contends with; whether it be human, natural or supernatural. Every protagonist needs an antagonistic force. Here is a quick rundown on antagonists.

What is a Antagonist • Subscribe on YouTube

Derived from the Greek word agonizesthai, “antagonist” literally translates to English as “to contend with.” In the Harry Potter series, "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" is the antagonist. Alright we’ll say it for clarity — Lord Voldemort.

A foil character is a fictional character that serves to expose something intrinsic in another character. Oftentimes, the thing that is exposed is a character folly, like cowardice or greed.

In the Harry Potter series, Draco Malfoy is often Harry’s foil.

A mentor is a character that serves a guide and/or teacher for the story’s protagonist. The mentor is an integral component of Joseph Cambell’s hero’s journey story structure .

In the Harry Potter series, Albus Dumbledore is Harry’s mentor.

Analyze the character’s development

This second question will help you write a better character analysis because it addresses whether or not your character changes or does not change over the course of the story.

Static character

A static character is a character that does not undergo any significant internal change over the course of a story. Throughout a story, a static character largely remains the same and does not grow or develop in a substantial way.

Watch our character analysis of Marty McFly and his "flat arc" for a great example of a character who doesn't change.

Dissecting a "flat" character arc • Subscribe on YouTube

Dynamic character.

A dynamic character is a character that undergoes significant internal change over the course of a story. This change can happen subtly and gradually throughout the story and can be a change for better or worse. This is a character who often learns a lesson or changes in beliefs or principles.

For a few examples that will drive home the differences between dynamic and static characters, check out this video breakdown below.

Analyzing Characters • Dynamic vs Static Characters

Understanding what a character’s function is and what their development is over time will help you determine the focus point of your character development analysis

What is a Character Study? →
Character Archetypes in Literature & Movies →
Character Development: Write Stronger Characters →

How to Write a Proper Character Analysis

Choose a point of focus.

When learning how to write a character analysis choosing a focus point is important for creating a thoughtful, and poignant analysis. Without a solid focus, you run the risk of writing a character synopsis and regurgitating facts and details the reader already knows about the character.

To reverse engineer a focus point in your character analysis, ask yourself what the reader can learn from this character from a writer’s perspective? Is this character a complex hero ? What makes this character memorable or iconic?

In the video below, we analyze the character Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men and focus on what makes Chigurh the perfect antagonist.

Why Anton Chigurh is the Perfect Antagonist • Subscribe on YouTube

It can be difficult to land on the focus point of your character analysis right away. This is why it is important to first analyze the function of your character and their development throughout the story.

In this process, you will find what makes this character unique and what readers can take away from your analysis.

Analyzing characterization

Once you have your focus point, it’s time to gather evidence and support for your thesis. These pieces of support will derive from the characterization .

Characterization is the process through which an artist communicates character to an audience. In writing, characterization is achieved through dialogue, actions, and descriptions. There is both direct characterization and indirect characterization. To help you analyze these two types of characterization, let’s break them down.

Direct and Indirect Characterization • Analyzing Characters

Direct characterization.

Direct characterization is “surface level” characterization. It’s simply the overt information we’re given about a character, such as “what they look like, what their job is, and what they appear to others.” Many literary scholars describe this type of characterization as “what we’re told about a character.”

An example of this can be found in The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway uses direct characterization to describe the main character writing “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

Indirect characterization

Indirect characterization , on the other hand, is a subtype of characterization that’s defined by “showing” rather than “telling.” It is an important technique used by writers for developing nuanced characters. It is primarily utilized through what the character says, thinks, and does.

A common acronym for indirect characterization is “STEAL” which refers to speech, thinks, effect, action, and looks. These details often come from dialogue, goals, desires, and the history or background of the character.

An example of indirect characterization can be found in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird . Harper writes, “First of all,’ he said, ‘if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

What is a Character Arc? →
What is a Flat Character? →
How to Introduce Characters in a Screenplay →

Character analysis questions

As you continue to flesh out and write your character analysis you may hit some road blocks. A valuable tool to overcome these roadblocks are questions. Try to think of the character that you are analyzing as a person that actually exists that you are interviewing.

What questions would you ask them to really understand who they are? Here are a few examples of character analysis questions to get you started.

What are your values?

What is your background? How did you grow up?

How have you changed from what happened to you or through what you experienced?

Is there a lesson you learned from all of this?

While you may not be able to answer all of these questions from the characterization the author provides, it’s a great exercise to uncover what you may not have yet realized about this character.

Character analyses are not only a dive into the craft of writing and storytelling, but an analysis of psychology and experience. When analyzing a character, it’s important to wear both hats to provide an insightful, well-rounded character analysis that is unique and thoughtfully presented.

Up Next

What is characterization .

As we mentioned above, characterization is incredibly important to understanding the characters of a great story. In our next article, we take a deeper dive into characterization and more examples of both indirect and direct characterization.

Up Next: Characterization Explained →

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How to Write a Character Analysis Essay With Examples and Tips

11 December 2023

last updated

Essay writing is an exciting and valuable academic exercise for students at all levels of learning. Basically, the practice helps in developing students’ critical thinking skills. For example, when writing a character analysis essay, students use these skills to cover a specific character’s personality and mannerisms objectively. Moreover, this type of essay aims to analyze a character in a story in such a way that readers can develop a mental picture of them. In this case, the secret of writing a good character analysis essay involves choosing a dynamic character, such as a protagonist or an antagonist. Then, another tip is to write the first draft and read it at least twice to identify and correct errors and mistakes. In turn, the final draft should reflect a perfect document. Hence, students need to learn how to write a good character analysis essay with its features.

Definition of a Character Analysis Essay

Among many different types of essays is a character analysis essay, a text that describes a particular character in a story. When writing this essay, students analyze relationships between characters in question and other characters, paying particular attention to their mannerisms. Also, these mannerisms are exemplified by their behaviors, styles of speaking, physical appearances, and many other characteristics. Even though students may offer their personal opinions when analyzing specific characters, they must employ critical thinking and be objective. In essence, what matters in a character analysis essay is factual information about a character in question. In this case, the writer’s opinion should support rather than challenge the specific traits and characteristics of a character. Hence, a student writes this type of essay when instructions require them to discuss how a particular character is shaped in a story.

Types of Characters

When analyzing a character in a story, writers must first understand what kinds of characters are their subjects. Typically, there are different types of characters whose distinctions are based on particular behaviors, traits, and roles that they exemplify within a story. In turn, the main character types fall under five categories: major, minor, dynamic, static, and stoic.

1. Major Characters

In a story, major characters run a storyline, and they define a plot of this story. For example, there are two types of major characters: protagonists and antagonists. In this case, the former represents typical heroes, those characters that the audience is likely to admire. Then, the latter represents characters that take the role of a villain. Basically, the audience is likely to despise this type of character. Moreover, it is easier to spot protagonists because a story’s plot revolves around them. In literature, examples of protagonists include Harry Potter from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, Othello from the tragedy Othello by William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Bennet from “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen, and Frodo from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. On the other hand, examples of antagonists from the literature include King Joffrey from Game of Thrones , Darth Vader from the Star Wars series by George Lucas, and the Wicked Queen from “Snow White and Seven Dwarfs.”

2. Minor Characters

As opposed to major characters, minor characters do not run stories. However, they are ones that help major characters to shine through storylines. In other words, minor characters in the course of their activities help main characters to create situations and circumstances that reveal the central characters’ personalities. As explained, this personality is defined by mannerism. Then, examples of minor characters in the literature include the whole Fellowship of the Ring in J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Individually, these characters help Frodo, a protagonist, to deliver the Ring to Mordor. In turn, another example of minor characters in literature is the duo Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. On several occasions, they help Harry Potter, a protagonist, in his battle against Voldemort.

3. Dynamic, Static, and Stoic Characters

Dynamic characters are those characters that change the course of a story in certain respects. In many cases, a protagonist is a dynamic character. Moreover, an example in the literature is Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling’s book series, who notices that he is similar to Voldemort in many ways throughout a storyline. Nevertheless, he resists “dark” traits that define Voldemort because he is a good person. As such, he resists any temptation to become a dark wizard. On the other hand, static characters never change in a story. Also, an excellent example in the literature is Atticus Finch from “How to Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. Despite finding himself in controversial circumstances, he remains firm in character and worldview throughout a story. Further on, stoic characters draw attention to the main character(s), and their role in a story is to fortify the protagonist’s role and image. In turn, a great example of a stoic character in literature is Dr. Watson from Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Step 1: Preparation

Preparation is the starting step in writing a critical analysis essay. In essence, this step involves planning how to go about writing. Basically, a student reads a story, chooses a character, defines a topic, prepares ideas, and considers the audience and its needs. In this case, the essence of preparation is that it enables students to “get it right” from the beginning. Moreover, it is by preparing that students take into consideration requirements and seek clarification as necessary.

A. Reading a Story

In most instances, instructors guide students on which story to read and a character to analyze. However, if such guidance is not provided, a student should – as a matter of priority – choose a story and a character in this story to write about. About a story, writers should read it at least twice to have a good understanding of a plot and each character’s role.

B. Choosing a Character

The standard practice is that a character analysis essay focuses on major characters (protagonist and antagonist) as subjects of analysis. However, as indicated, an instructor may require students to analyze a specific character. In this case, instructions can require students to explore how a minor character enhances a major character’s image in a story. Also, the writer’s issue is to identify characters for analysis and read all about them in an assigned story.

C. Defining a Topic

Like any essay, a character analysis essay should have a topic. Basically, even though the goal is to analyze a specific character, writers must have a topic that underscores their work. When defining a topic, students may follow the instructor’s prompt or develop their own approach. Ultimately, a character analysis essay topic should align with the paper’s goal, which is to analyze a specific character.

D. Preparing Ideas

Typically, students get ideas about their work as soon as they read prompt requirements given by their instructors. When writing a character analysis essay, a student should generate ideas after reading instructions and reading through them. However, it is the latter exercise that serves as the foundation of ideas for writing a text. Indeed, this aspect exemplifies the essence of a character analysis essay, focusing on how a character emerges from a story. As discussed, a character can only be a protagonist, antagonist, minor, dynamic, or stoic. Understanding where characters fit helps a writer to generate ideas about effects of their roles in a story. Here, students should apply critical thinking to dissect characters objectively.

E. Considering an Audience

Every form of writing has an audience – readers that writers have in mind when writing their texts. In essay writing, the main audience is the instructor. However, in an application essay for college , the audience is the admission board of a college or university. Since instructors determine the quality of a character analysis essay, students should consider their requirements. Ideally, these requirements reflect what instructors, as the audience, need regarding a character analysis essay.

Step 2: Setting Up the Stage

The second step in writing a character analysis essay is setting the stage for the actual writing of a text. Here, students engage in several activities, including finding credible sources , making notes, creating an essay outline , and creating an annotated bibliography. As an academic text, a character analysis essay should satisfy all academic writing conventions, including backing up claims and arguments with evidence. Although a learner can write about a character in a story by simply reading a story, a character analysis reflects an in-depth discussion about a specific character. Hence, students should write about what others (scholars) have said about a story and a character.

A. Finding Sources

Reliable sources are external texts that writers rely on to find evidence supporting what they intend to write. Basically, when writers make claims or observations when composing a text, they must back it up with evidence to avoid making what they write seems like a personal opinion. Notably, subjective opinion is not encouraged in academic writing, unless writers are using it objectively. Moreover, the only way that students can demonstrate that their essays are free of bias is by providing evidence for their claims, arguments, opinions, and observations. In turn, this evidence comes from external academic sources – books and journal articles.

B. Making Notes

After finding sources, a student should read through them while making notes. Basically, these notes should be relevant to a task at hand. Therefore, when authors of a character analysis essay find sources pertinent to their mission, they should make notes as they read through them and write down what they find interesting about their characters. Given that the task at hand involves analyzing a character in question, students’ notes should reflect a deeper understanding of this character, such as what others say about their manner of speaking or effect in a story.

C. Creating an Outline and an Annotated Bibliography

Like any other academic text, such as a research paper , a term paper , a Master’s thesis , or a dissertation , essays have outlines that provide a structure. Typically, this outline involves having three main sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. When writing a character analysis essay, a student should stick to this essay structure . Then, an annotated bibliography summarizes study sources that writers intend to use to get evidence that backs up their claims and arguments. Although it is not needed in an essay, students who write a character analysis essay can develop one based on credible sources that they identified in the second step of essay writing. In this case, annotated bibliographies would provide quick access to evidence that learners need to strengthen their papers.

Step 3: Actual Writing of a Character Analysis Essay

After preparing and setting the stage, authors of a character analysis essay begin the actual writing of a paper. Here, students begin with the first draft, which provides an opportunity to organize thoughts, make mistakes, come up with new ideas, find new sources that back them up, and alter a critical analysis essay outline. Basically, this stage is about putting everything together to develop an essay that addresses the instructor’s requirements.

A. Writing a First Draft of a Character Analysis Essay

When writing a character analysis essay, students are likely to make numerous spelling and grammatical errors and other mistakes, such as inconsistent arguments and illogical conclusions. As such, writing the first draft provides writers with this allowance since they would have an opportunity to perfect their work. Nonetheless, the first draft’s content should mirror the expected work, which is dissecting a character’s personality.

Step 4: Wrapping Up

After writing the first draft of a character analysis essay, students must read and reread their work to identify all mistakes and errors. As discussed above, the chances of the first draft having spelling and grammatical errors, illogical conclusions, and inconsistent arguments are high. In turn, this fourth step in writing a character analysis essay provides students with an opportunity to perfect their work. Here, learners revise and edit the first draft to eliminate all errors and mistakes and ensure that their papers reflect a format of an academic text in all aspects. Also, body paragraphs should have topic and concluding sentences, transitions, and right formatting. Additionally, writers should subject their work to peer review and then write the final draft.

A. Revising and Editing the First Draft

The purpose of reading the first draft at least twice is to identify all errors and mistakes, as explained above. Basically, once writers note them down, they should revise their papers accordingly, ensuring that all inconsistencies are corrected. Moreover, students should edit all spelling and grammatical mistakes to give a written document to look like a professional appeal.

B. Topic Sentences.

The first statement that a student writes in every paragraph in the main text (body) should reflect a topic sentence. Basically, this sentence aims to introduce a single idea that a writer intends to develop in a paragraph. By considering a character analysis essay, this idea can be a claim or an observation about a subject under analysis. In this case, the standard practice is that a single idea that a writer expresses in a topic sentence should align with a paper’s thesis statement , as it is developed in the introduction part of a character analysis essay.

C. Concluding Sentences

While a topic sentence introduces a paragraph, a concluding sentence brings it to a close. For example, a reason why a student writes a concluding sentence is to finalize an intended message captured in a section. As such, it provides the writer’s concluding thoughts about a topic sentence and how it advances a thesis statement. Also, the content that comes between topic sentences and concluding sentences reinforces a sandwich rule: making a claim, backing it up with supporting facts, elaborating on it, and indicating its relevance in a context of a thesis.

D. Transitions

In writing a character analysis essay, students need to create a document with a natural flow from a beginning to an end. Basically, the aspect that enhances this flow is the use of transitions, which involve words and phrases, like “consequently,” “hence,” “thus,” “nonetheless,” “as such,” and “put differently.” In this case, a writer can use these words and phrases in any part of a text. However, using them in the main text is more appropriate as it is where writers need to create linkages between claims, evidence, and elaborations. Hence, transitions make such connections flawless and logical.

E. Formatting

When writing an academic text, it is critical for students to observe all academic writing rules. For example, one of these rules is writing a character analysis essay according to assigned rules that guide a paper format that learners are using to write their work. In this case, the main paper formats are APA 7, MLA 8, Harvard, and Chicago/Turabian, all of which differ in certain ways. For instance, they all have different requirements for citations and paragraph formation. Therefore, when writing a character analysis essay, a student should format a paper according to the appropriate writing format. Although learners may observe this rule when writing the first draft, they should certainly do so when creating the final draft.

F. Peer Reviewing

When writing a character analysis essay, students should ensure that their work is of high quality. Basically, what makes an academic text of high quality is peer review, which means subjecting a written work to a critical review by a friend, tutor, or mentor. For example, journal articles are regarded as peer-reviewed scholarly sources for a simple reason that they have been reviewed and made perfect. In turn, this perfection entails ensuring the absence of errors and mistakes and the use of credible and reliable sources.

Step 5: Writing a Final Draft of a Character Analysis Essay

The final draft represents the final work of a student in writing a character analysis essay. Basically, it is a document that students hand over to the audience by way of submission or publication. As such, writers must ensure that their texts are of the highest standard to eliminate the possibility of attracting penalties, such as a low grade or lousy review, in case they publish their work on online platforms. Also, to be clear that what students have is of the highest quality, they should read and reread their papers. In turn, it is the only way in which they can be sure that there are no errors or mistakes.

Simple Outline Example of a Character Analysis Essay

As indicated in the previous section, students should take time and create an outline for their work when writing an essay. This outline comprises three main sections: introduction, body, and conclusion as below.

I. Introduction Paragraph II. Body Section (this part may include several paragraphs) III. Conclusion Paragraph

While most academic texts follow this outline, some papers differ on features that writers address in each section. Basically, when writing a character analysis essay, students should ensure that the introduction section highlights its thesis. In turn, this statement guides the entire writing, meaning that it is the central claim or idea in a paper. In body paragraphs, writers should ensure that topic sentences open each paragraph while concluding sentences end them. Moreover, learners should ensure sufficient and appropriate use of transitions and observance of a sandwich rule. In the conclusion section, students should restate the thesis and summarize the paper’s main points.

How Students Know That They Write a Character Analysis Essay

Generally, the purpose of a character analysis essay is to provide an in-depth analysis of a specific character. As such, writers know that they write a character analysis essay if their texts describe a given character’s personality and mannerisms. In turn, the latter entails how a character in question behaves, speaks, looks like (physical features), and their familial and social relationships, as it is covered in a story.

How a Character Analysis Essay Differs From Other Papers

When it comes to an outline, a character analysis essay is similar to other types of papers . However, regarding the content, this type of essay differs from other papers significantly. For example, an argumentative essay focuses on making the writer’s argument acceptable to the audience, meaning that the content revolves around the writer’s perspective regarding an issue. In contrast, a character analysis essay focuses on providing the audience with a detailed picture of a specific character in a story, meaning that the content revolves around a subject (character). In an informative essay , the writer’s goal is to educate the audience about a topic or an issue, meaning that the content revolves around explaining concepts relating to a specific theme in question. Therefore, the point of difference between a character analysis essay and other essay types is content more than structure.

Easy Strategies for Writing Each Section of a Character Analysis Essay

When it comes to the introduction, authors of a character analysis essay should provide a hook, which can be a statement, quote, or a joke. Basically, a hook sentence aims to grab the reader’s attention and make them interested in reading the entire paper. Then, if students know how to write a hook , they provide a brief background of a text after it. Also, it is where they introduce a story and a character under investigation. In turn, writers should conclude this section with a thesis, thus outlining the purpose of writing. About the main text (body), if learners are familiar with the rules of how to write a topic sentence , they begin each paragraph with it, which establishes a claim. Further on, the feature that follows is evidence (supporting facts) and then an explanation. As a result, the last element is a concluding sentence.

1. Paying an Attention

Based on the above information, it is evident that authors of a character analysis essay must pay attention to several things. In the introduction, writers should pay attention to the thesis, and, in the body paragraphs, they should follow a sandwich rule. Basically, this rule reinforces the claim-evidence-explanation approach. In the conclusion section, students should pay attention to the main points’ summary to make sure no new information is captured in this paragraph. Additionally, learners should ensure that they provide closing remarks, which emphasize their objective opinions about subjects matter.

2. Major Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Besides spelling, grammatical and other mistakes, writers of essays make other mistakes, leading to the fact that their work becomes less than high-quality. In writing a character analysis essay, one mistake that students make is to focus on a single aspect, such as personality, thereby undermining the subject’s full image. In this case, the solution to this mistake for a writer is to focus on the character’s mannerisms – behavior, speaking style, and appearance. Then, another mistake that learners make is to focus on aspects that do not advance an in-depth analysis of a subject, such as a story’s plot. In turn, the solution to this mistake for students is to focus on the subject’s roles in a plot’s context.

An Example of Writing a Character Analysis Essay

Topic: Frodo and His Heroic Weakness

I. Sample Introduction of a Character Analysis Essay

In literature, characters play an essential role in enhancing the plot of a story. Basically, they do this through their actions, behaviors, relationships, and other aspects of personality. Moreover, their mannerisms define who they are within the context of a story. In The Lord of the Ring , J.R.R. Tolkien captures a heroic conscience that characterizes human existence. Then, the author reveals the destructive power of greed and envy, mainly where promises are concerned. Nonetheless, Tolkien shows how friendship and courage overcome these vices. At the center of a story , The Lord of the Ring, is Frodo Baggins, a protagonist, who, despite undergoing a series of challenging adventures, emerges as a hero.

II. Example of a Body in a Character Analysis Essay

A. frodo as a hero.

Tolkien develops Frodo as a young hobbit with a remarkable character. As a ring-bearer of a fellowship, Frodo has the Ring that belongs to Sauron, the Lord of the Rings. As such, Sauron is an antagonist in a story. For example, he is “a dark lord who lost the one Ring that held much of his power” (Tolkien, 2003, p. 54). Then, the author describes the Ring as precious and powerful enough to enslave Middle Earth. While everybody is scared of the Ring and no one wants to lead its destruction, Frodo courageously overcomes such fear. Despite a myth that absolute evil and frightening dark forces are likely to victimize anyone who attempts to destroy the Ring, the young hobbit is keen to prove everybody wrong. In turn, it is the anger toward myths and oppressions that they seemed to cause people that motivate Frodo to act to restore safety in Middle Earth.

B. Frodo’s Weakness

The first indication of Frodo’s inexperience comes when he faces his initial challenges in his quest. Basically, how he deals with them reveals his weak points. For example, when Frodo delays his departure from the Shire, in spite of the urgency of the task ahead, he comes out as an indecisive character (Tolkien, 2003). Although a protagonist has common sense, he lacks wisdom, which is evident when he chooses to face the Old Forest’s dangers. Besides getting himself into harm’s way, Frodo also endangers the lives of his friends. In this case, he comes out as a fool in Bree when he draws unnecessary attention to himself. At Weathertop, the main character gives in to the temptation of putting on the Ring, thus exposing himself to an attack by the Ringwraiths (Tolkien, 2003). Despite all these shortcomings, Frodo survives the dangers of his own mistakes and those of his quest. Moreover, the novel attributes this success to the fact that hobbits are tougher than they look and can endure hardships. More importantly, Frodo himself is not interested in possessing the Ring, which makes him avoid the dark forces it represents. In this respect, he emerges as a hero in the end.

III. Conclusion Example of a Character Analysis Essay

Frodo’s adventure in The Lord of the Ring is a selfless quest to bring good to society despite powerful myths that undermine people’s courage to act when needed. In this case, Tolkien describes specific events that characterize the protagonist’s quest to destroy Sauron’s Ring. Moreover, what is clear is that Frodo is a courageous hobbit who refuses to be defined by his weaknesses. Eventually, his actions display his heroic character, one that defies all odds against him. In turn, a lesson from a story is that people do not need to be perfect to be heroes, but they need to aspire to do what is right.

Arthur, S. (2003). Walking with Frodo: A devotional journey through the Lord of the Rings . Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Summing Up on How to Write a Good Character Analysis Essay

When writing a character analysis essay, students must understand that this type of paper is different from all others. While an argumentative essay focuses on convincing the audience about an issue, a character analysis essay covers telling the audience about a specific character’s personality and mannerisms within the context of a story’s plot. As such, it also differs from an informative essay that focuses on educating the audience about a topic or an issue. Nonetheless, all these essays assume the same outline, which entails three main sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. In turn, when writing a character analysis essay, a student must note the following tips:

Read the instructions carefully.
Read a story.
If there is no instruction about a character, choose a dynamic character, who is either a protagonist or antagonist.
Reread a story and make notes that are specific to a chosen character.
Develop a thesis statement.
Draft an outline.
Write the first draft.
Read and reread the first draft to identify and correct errors and mistakes.
Subject the first draft to a peer review.
Write the final draft.
Read and reread the final draft.

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

How to write a critical response essay with examples and tips, free personal narrative examples: basic guidelines with tips.

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E.M. Forster and the Character of ‘Character’

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Laura Marcus, E.M. Forster and the Character of ‘Character’, The Cambridge Quarterly , Volume 50, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages 159–172, https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/bfab018

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In ‘Notes on the English Character’, first published in the American journal Atlantic Monthly in 1926 and reprinted as the opening essay in the 1936 collection Abinger Harvest , E.M Forster outlined, both humorously and poignantly, his perceptions of the defining features of Englishness. ‘I had better let the cat out of the bag at once’ (a favourite Forsterian expression), he writes at the essay’s opening, ‘and record my opinion that the character of the English is essentially middle-class’. Whereas Russia is symbolised by the peasant, and Japan by the samurai, ‘the national figure of England is Mr Bull with his top hat, his comfortable clothes, his substantial stomach, and his substantial balance at the bank’. It is, Forster continues, the public-school system that is at ‘the heart of the middle classes’; an institution, he argues, found only in England: ‘How perfectly it expresses their character…. With its boarding-houses, its compulsory games, its system of prefects and fagging, its insistence on good form and on esprit de corps , it produces a type whose weight is out of all proportion to its numbers’. 1

The Old Boys go forth into a diverse and complex world ‘with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds, and undeveloped hearts’. This last aspect is illustrated by Forster with an experience of his own; that of a temporary leave-taking from an Indian friend (known to be Syed Ross Masood, whom he had tutored in 1907 and with whom he developed a close and lasting relationship). The friend expressed his desolation at the parting, while Forster pointed out that ‘I could not see what there was to make a fuss about.’ ‘“Buck up,” I said, “do buck up.” He refused to buck up, and I left him plunged into gloom’. When they met again, an argument ensued, in which the friend accused Forster of measuring out his emotions like potatoes. Forster’s rejoinder was that this was preferable to ‘slopping them about like water in a pail’. The difference between their responses, Forster concludes, was determined by their national characteristics:

I spoke as a member of a prudent middle-class nation, always anxious to meet my liabilities. But my friend spoke as an Oriental, and the Oriental has behind him a tradition, not of middle-class prudence, but of kingly munificence and splendour. He feels his resources are endless, just as John Bull feels his are finite. 2

This comparison, which draws largely on Masood’s patrician status, is the first of many that Forster makes in the essay. It offers a glimpse of his much lengthier representations of ‘the Indian national character’ (in essays, in his travel book The Hills of Devi (1953), and in A Passage to India (1924), dedicated to Masood) and of his numerous fictional representations of English reserve.

‘Notes on the English Character’ began life as a talk given by Forster to a group of Indian students at Cambridge in 1913, following an invitation to deliver a lecture ‘that dealt with the relations between east and west’. The lecture opened in this fashion:

Having little knowledge of politics and none of Economics or Science I had to neglect the great forces that are driving East and West together and mixing them up whether they wish it or no: and I am keeping to psychology only. I offer for your consideration a few remarks on the historical character of the English … You will be coming across Englishmen all your lives and it is right that you should ask yourselves what manner of men they are, and I being by profession a novelist, have to ask myself the same question. 3

The draft of the lecture, unlike the published version, contains, as a prelude to the discussion of the differences in emotional response between Forster’s Indian friend and himself, an insistence that the English character is not ‘cold’:

Now that the English character is undemonstrative is true enough; the public schools throwing their shadow far into life are responsible for this. But a very warm emotion lurks behind, and though this sounds like a paradox – the Englishman often doesn’t express that emotion because he values it so highly. He does not feel that it should be exposed to the light of common day […] There’s a reticence in him, a delicacy that’s easily misunderstood. And there’s also involved his keen sense of the appropriate. He likes emotion to be appropriate to the occasion. 4

Both the lecture draft and the published essay contain further illustrations of national character. The anecdote of Forster and his Indian friend is used to make a general point about ‘the English character’ and the misunderstandings that its characteristic reticence generates, with a claim for his own ‘typicality’ with which Forster expresses unease. It is, however, the only one with an obviously personal charge. In Autumn 1913, when the talk was delivered, Forster had recently returned from India, where he travelled widely and spent time with Masood, who, though his affection for Forster was clearly intense, did not return his sexual feelings. ‘Will [his love] ever be complete? Is the enigma him or his nationality?’, Forster had written of Masood in his diary in 1909. 5

In letters to Masood, Forster discussed the question of the English character, as in correspondence written during a visit to Dublin (11 February 1912): ‘The Irish view of the English character resembles the Indian: they say we are such hypocrites, and that we should be better, if we did not pretend to be so good. For my own part, I think that we should be worse: hypocrisy is a sort of cement that holds one’s wretched little character together’. 6 Here ‘character’ is ambiguously situated between the nation and the individual, and while the term ‘wretched little character’ summons up the image of a person, it appears in the letter in relation to the nation as a whole.

The question of English hypocrisy is also explored, though to rather different ends, in ‘Notes on the English Character’. Forster chose to illustrate it with a lengthy discussion of the scene in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in which John Dashwood and his unsympathetic wife, over the course of a conversation, become increasingly parsimonious in their proposed provision for Dashwood’s widowed mother and sisters, until, as Forster writes, ‘nothing is done, nothing’. 7 They illustrate, for Forster, neither villainy nor, in any true sense, ‘hypocrisy’, but characteristic English ‘muddle-headedness’ (‘muddle’ is a word that features largely in all Forster’s novels): ‘the state of mind of Mr and Mrs John Dashwood seems to me typical of England—they are slow—they take time even to do wrong; whereas people in other lands do wrong quickly’. 8 The essay, in this as in other instances, is at once a condemnation and an exculpation of ‘the English character’, with a tone that encompasses both satire and conviction.

The 1913 lecture contained further material which was omitted from or altered in the later published version, including discussion of the English indifference to criticism, by comparison with both the German and the French sensitivity to critiques of their nations. Forster makes reference in the latter context to the Dreyfus affair, which came to stand, in the English press of the late nineteenth century, for French indifference to justice and for an apprehension of‘the long-standing defects of French civilization and the French national character’. 9 In fact, Forster is critical of the English press’s campaign against the French political and judicial system, not because he wishes to query Dreyfus’s innocence but because ‘anyone who knows the French—so sensitive, so thin-skinned and resentful—can imagine how they suffered under our bludgeoning’. The French sought revenge, Forster writes, through a press campaign against English military action in the Boer War, but this was a matter of indifference to the English: ‘Our consciences were clear, as always, I remember myself, when a little boy threw a stone at me in the streets of a French town, and shouted “rosbif.” I was not the least annoyed. “How like the French,” I thought, and passed majestically on’. 10 Forster adduces from this an ‘unwillingness to learn from criticism and the spoken or written word’, the positive side of which is that it makes the Englishman ‘level-headed’: ‘He has limited but real appreciation of character and his judgments can be surprisingly acute, because he is not carried away by an outward show of words’. 11

The second comparison is used to illustrate his view of the slowness of the English character: ‘The Englishman appears to be cold and unemotional because he is really slow. When an event happens, he may understand it quickly enough with his mind, but he takes quite a while to feel it’. 12 Here the contrast is illustrated by a tongue-in-cheek anecdote about a group of Frenchmen and Englishmen who were travelling in the Alps when their coach came perilously close to falling into a ravine: ‘The Frenchmen were frantic with terror: they screamed and gesticulated and flung themselves about, as Frenchmen would. The Englishmen sat quite calm’. Yet later, in safety, the ‘situations were exactly reversed. The Frenchmen had forgotten all about the danger, and were chattering gaily; the Englishmen had just begun to feel it, and one had a nervous breakdown and was obliged to go to bed’. The story exhibits, Forster argues, ‘a clear physical difference between the two races—a difference that goes deep into character’:

The Frenchmen responded at once; the Englishmen responded in time. They were slow and they were also practical. Their instinct forbade them to throw themselves about in the coach, because it was more likely to tip over if they did. They had this extraordinary appreciation of fact that we shall notice again and again. When a disaster comes, the English instinct is to do what can be done first, and to postpone the feeling as long as possible… It acts promptly and feels slowly. Such a combination is fruitful, and anyone who possesses it has gone a long way toward being brave. And when the action is over, then the Englishman can feel. 13

The anecdote, with Frenchmen and Englishmen riding in horse-drawn coaches in the Alps, belongs to an earlier age. It draws on a long tradition of comparison between the national characteristics of the French and the English, elaborated throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with France as ‘England’s great defining Other’. 14 Stefan Collini identifies the central terms of the contrasts drawn by the English between their own national characteristics and those of the French: ‘stability and practical good sense against revolution and political overexcitability; pragmatic empiricism against abstract rationalism; irony and understatement against rhetoric and exaggeration; and so on.’ The contrasts continued to be deployed ‘even when the assumptions behind them could no longer withstand the scrutiny that would follow from their being made explicit’. 15 Forster uses them, but with a satirical touch that indicates how fully he is aware of their ossification. The contrast is also not unambiguously in John Bull’s favour. While the anecdote suggests that in a crisis it is more useful to have the Englishman on board or on hand, and that he is not without feeling but rather creates a proper time and space for its expression, he could also be understood to suffer from a bad case of Nachträglichkeit ; to ‘postpone’ feeling is to be belated and sundered from one’s truer self. The belatedness, or anachronism, of the anecdote itself and the well-worn aspects of the national contrast again become conspicuous at the end of the essay, when Forster indicates the contemporary urgency of the topic: ‘The nations must understand one another, and quickly; and without the interposition of their governments, for the shrinkage of the globe is throwing them into one another’s arms’. 16

Forster’s central claim about the English character is that it is not only ‘slow’ but ‘undeveloped, incomplete’. It is in literature—the Elizabethan dramatists, the Romantic poets—that he finds an indication of a fuller sense of being, submerged but powerful: ‘Since literature always rests upon national character, there must be in the English nature hidden springs of fire to produce the fire we see … English literature is a flying fish. It is a sample of the life that goes on day after day beneath the surface; it is a proof that beauty and emotion exist in the salt, inhospitable sea’. 17 Looking to the future, he states his hope and belief ‘that in the next twenty years we shall see a great change, and that the national character will alter into something that is less unique but more lovable’. 18

That the ‘undeveloped, incomplete’ nature of the English character is, for Forster, inextricably linked to the public-school system places his argument alongside commentaries by George Orwell and Cyril Connolly, amongst many others, on the damaging effects of prep- and public-school experience. Writing in the late 1930s, Connolly, in the autobiographical section of Enemies of Promise , in which he focuses near-exclusively on his school-days, wrote of his prep-school, which he calls St. Wulfric’s: 19

The school was typical of England before the last war … based on that stoicism which characterized the English governing class and which has since been underestimated. ‘Character, character, character’, was the message that emerged … Muscle-bound with character the alumni of St. Wulfric’s would pass on to the best public schools … and then find their vocation in India, Burma, Nigeria, and the Sudan, administering with Roman justice those natives for whom the final profligate overflow of Wulfrician character was all the time predestined. 20

This is ‘character’ as conceived by numerous writers of the nineteenth century, including Samuel Smiles, whose study Character (1876) barely defines the concept of ‘character’ except to connect it with other cognate values: duty, self-restraint, self-reliance, truthfulness, energy, integrity. ‘In its highest form’, Smiles wrote, ‘it is the individual will acting energetically under the influence of religion, morality, and reason … Energy of will—self-originating force—is the soul of every great character’. 21 Collini, in a discussion of Victorian political thought, notes the crucial part played by ‘character’ in an economically and socially turbulent society, ‘which paradigmatically envisaged the individual …confronting the task of maintaining his will in the face of adversity’. 22 The task is understood to be at the heart, as Connolly’s description of the Wulfrician project endorses, of the colonial experience and the imperial project.

The dominance of discussion of ‘character’ in both its individual and national dimensions in the early twentieth century represents both a continuation and a break with the character-discourse of the nineteenth century, whose centrality to the period is emblematized by John Stuart Mill’s proposal for an entire new field of study—‘ethology’, or the science of the formation of character—to be devoted to it. 23 Some twentieth-century commentators on character drew on discussions of the earlier period—the influential study by the political scientist Ernest Barker, National Character and the Factors in its Formation (1927) was, Barker wrote, inspired by Charles Henry Pearson’s National Life and Character: a Forecast (1893) 24 —while situating the question of national character in the new contexts of interwar nationalisms and internationalism. Barker, whose study was based on lectures delivered in 1925–6 in Glasgow, was criticised for equating England and Britain, but the book received praise as, in Leonard Woolf’s words, ‘a sober antidote to chauvinistic nationalism’. 25 At the close of his study Barker expresses a hope very similar to that put forward by Forster at the end of his essay: Barker writes of the need for ‘a new depth and a new breadth of national character as nations learn the adjustments which they are bound to make, for their own sake and for the sakes of other nations, under a system of international cooperation’. 26

‘Is there such a thing as “the English character”? Can one talk about nations as thought they were individuals?’, George Orwell wrote in ‘The English People’, imagining these as the questions that would be posed by ‘an intelligent foreign observer’ seeking to construct ‘a reliable picture of the English character’. 27 Three such observers produced studies of national character near contemporary with Forster’s essay: the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, the Spanish academic and ambassador Salvador de Madariaga, and the French novelist and biographer André Maurois, an acquaintance of Forster’s with links to Bloomsbury.

Santayana, in a series of texts published during the war years, published as Soliloquies in England in 1922, explored the paradoxes of ‘The British Character’, including that of the co-existence of ‘convention’ and ‘individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies and humours’. More critically, he wrote: ‘One is tempted at times to turn away in despair from the most delightful acquaintance—the picture of manliness, grace, simplicity, and honour, apparently rich in knowledge and humour—because of some enormous platitude he reverts to, some hopelessly stupid little dogma from which one knows that nothing can ever liberate him’. 28 The Anglophile Maurois, who served alongside British troops in WW1, produced his study Les Anglais in 1927, reprinted in a popular edition in 1935. He wrote more tentatively than Santayana or Madariaga on the topic, focusing substantially on acculturation: ‘To analyse a national character is always an exercise in temerity. I know this or that English person well; I do not know the Englishman. However, centuries of history and common traditions, a climate, customs, a religion, can impose common traits on beings with very different origins’. 29 He was nonetheless prepared to make a claim for ‘the essential trait of the English, a natural confidence in life’. 30

Madariaga’s 1928 study Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards was written while he was working as Director of the Disarmament Section of the League of Nations. He warned against the elevation of ‘national worship amounting to a rite’ 31 that he saw as defining the era, but did not reject the concept of ‘national psychologies’ 32 , arguing that there needed to be greater understanding of the relationship between the qualities of the nation and the individual, and of the ways in which they might be constituted in opposition to each other rather than in accord. ‘A nation’, he writes, ‘is a character.’ 33 He depicted his three nationalities—English, French, Spanish—in terms of untranslatable idées - forces : fair play, le droit , el honor— each to be understood as ‘a characteristic impulse, manifesting itself in a complex psychological entity, an idea-sentiment-force peculiar to each of the three peoples, and constituting for each of them the standard of its behaviour, the key to its emotions, and the spring of its pure thoughts’. 34 He defines ‘character’ as, ‘in its essence’, ‘a given set of tendencies’, whose ‘relative strength and mutual interplay’, differences in quantity , produce, within any given individual, ‘that distinctive difference in quality which we call character.’ 35

This fact, Madariaga argued, ‘explains not only the underlying unity of the human race but also the inconsequence of individual character’:

There is a curious assumption – much resorted to by literary critics – that a character must be consequent. The principle is most useful for writing novels of the ‘distinguished talent’ as opposed to the ‘genius’ type. It is all like a mathematical calculation. You start with a given number of equations; you shuffle them according to the rules and you find yourself conveniently carried on by a ready-made logical mechanism which safely deposits you at your conclusions. Characters thus calculated are to the great creations of art what automatons are to men. Hamlet, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, Tom Jones are not consequent, because they are living. 36

In logic, the term ‘consequent’ relates to the second part of a proposition whose truth is implied by its antecedent part. Madiaraga’s argument is that lesser novelists produce characters whose characteristics and responses are ‘ready-made’, rendering them automatic creatures rather than ‘living’ characters with all their inconsistencies (or ‘inconsequences’) and complexities. He used a Bergsonian model of creative evolution – ‘Each moment of life brings a wholly original set of circumstances, and therefore gives rise to a wholly original act’ – while arguing that ‘there is unity, a coherence in human character without which it would vanish into the cloudy realm of the undefined’. 37

Madariaga’s turn to literary examples to define the nature of ‘character’ and to differentiate between the ‘ready-made’ (the stereotype, the bundle of fixed and pre-determined characteristics) and the complex being both coincides with and bears in interesting ways on Forster’s writings in this context. In 1926, the year in which ‘Notes on the English Character’ was published, Forster was preparing the eight-part series of Clark Lectures at Cambridge, which appeared in book form in 1927 as Aspects of the Novel . Forster devoted two chapters of this text to the topic of ‘People’. In the first, he drew the distinction between ‘Homo Sapiens’ and ‘Homo Fictus’. The former is the province of the historian, who can only adduce the nature of character from his or her actions. This relationship to individuals extends to our knowledge of people in everyday life: ‘The hidden life is by definition hidden’. 38 By contrast, a character in a book is real ‘when the novelist knows everything about it … in the novel we can know people perfectly, and, apart from the general pleasure of reading, we can find here a compensation for their dimness in life’. Characters in fiction—such as Moll Flanders or Emma – ‘are people whose secret lives are visible or might be visible; we are people whose secret lives are invisible’. 39 Forster’s distinction has not often been queried, though it raises many questions about whether and how we can ‘know’ literary characters, including the part played in that understanding by first-person and ‘omniscient’ narration in fiction. There are undoubtedly strongly personal dimensions to Forster’s sense of the opacity of ‘real’ persons and to the charged aspects, in a context in which his sexual identity was concealed from all but his intimates, of the ’hidden’ and ‘secret’ life.

In the second of the two chapters, Forster developed his influential distinction between ‘flat’ and ‘round’ characters. The former, he writes, are otherwise known as ‘types’ or ‘caricatures’, and they are, in most cases, easily recognized whenever they enter the story through a trait, gesture or turn of phrase. ‘Flat’ characters are, Forster writes, ‘little luminous discs of a pre-arranged size, pushed hither and thither like counters across the void or between the stars; most satisfactory.’ 40 His sense of their narrative utility and fittingness contrasts with Connolly’s acerbic account (which resonates more fully with Madariaga’s model of the lesser novelist and the ‘consequent’ character) of novelists who ‘

can only sling a few traits on to the characters they are depicting and then hold them there. ‘You can’t miss So-and-so’, they explain, ‘he stammers and now look, here he comes – “What’s your name?” “S-s-s-so and s-s-s-so.” There you see, what did I tell you!’ Nearly all English novels are written to this prescription.’ 41

The stammerer lacks character, in both the Wulfrician and the literary senses of the term.

Forster spends little time on delineating the obviously ‘round’ character, whose test ‘is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way’, and rather more on characters who, while they may appear and behave as flat ones, exhibit, if only fleetingly, the potential for roundness. All Jane Austen’s characters, Forster writes, ‘are round, or capable of rotundity. Even Miss Bates has a mind, even Elizabeth Elliott a heart, and Lady Bertram’s moral fervour ceases to vex us when we realize this; the disc has suddenly extended and become a little globe.’ 42

The potential for, and the actualisation of, development is clearly an aspect which differentiates the round from the flat character, the former being able to act ‘out of character’. What bearing might this have on Forster’s delineations of ‘national character’ and of the English character as ‘undeveloped, incomplete’? It is tempting to say that in this the English character resembles a ‘flat’ character, though Forster makes it clear in Aspects of the Novel , as we have seen, that he does not identify the quality of flatness with incompleteness or lack of development. Flat characters have their own, limited integrity, ‘have not to be watched for development, and provide their own atmosphere.’ 43 In ‘Notes on the English Character’, the Englishman is, by contrast, represented as having a buried life, buried from himself as well as others: ‘It has a bad surface—self-complacent, unsympathetic, and reserved. There is plenty of emotion further down, but it never gets used. There is plenty of brain power, but it is more often used to confirm prejudices than to dispel them. With such an equipment the Englishman cannot be popular’. 44 .

The use of national characters, or types, to explore different modalities of literature was also central to Virginia Woolf’s ‘Character in Fiction’ (1924), whose most frequently quoted claim is that ‘on or about December 1910 human character changed’, and in which Woolf writes that ‘I want to make out what we mean when we talk about ‘character’ in fiction’. 45 She produces her own representations of ‘national character’, in the familiar form of the joke in which people of different nationalities respond in different ways to the same situation, their characteristics defined by the national context from which the joke emanates. Describing the ways in which an English, a French, and a Russian writer would variously depict the elderly woman she calls Mrs Brown, Woolf asserts:

The English writer would make the old lady into a ‘character’; he would bring out her oddities and mannerisms; her buttons and wrinkles; her ribbons and warts. Her personality would dominate the book. A French writer would rub out all that; he would sacrifice the individual Mrs Brown to give a more general view of human nature; to make a more abstract, proportioned and harmonious whole. The Russian would pierce through the flesh; would reveal the soul – the soul alone, wandering out into the Waterloo Road, asking of life some tremendous question which would sound on and on in our ears after the book was finished. 46

Like Forster, in his ‘Notes on the English Character’, Woolf both points up the clichés of national character types and calls upon descriptions that she elsewhere uses without satire: in ‘Modern Fiction’ she wrote of ‘the inconclusiveness of the Russian mind. It is the sense that there is no answer, that if honestly examined life presents question after question which must be left to sound on and on after the story is over.’ 47

In a 1927 review-essay on Forster’s novels, Woolf took up the question of character in his fiction. She suggested, in her discussion of Howards End , that, while ‘the characters are extremely real to us’, 48 it is the minor characters, such as Tibby Schlegel and Mrs Munt, who, ‘though thrown in largely to amuse us, bring a breath of fresh air in with them. They inspire us with the intoxicating belief that they are free to wander as far from their creator as they choose’. By contrast, the central characters—Margaret and Helen Schlegel, Leonard Bast – ‘are closely tethered and vigilantly overlooked lest they may take matters into their own hands and upset the theory. But Tibby and Mrs Hunt (sic) go where they like, say what they like, do what they like’. 49 The critique is very close to the one that Forster had made of Henry James, in whose novels, he wrote, character, ‘human life’, is subordinated to pattern. 50 Turning to A Passage to India , Woolf suggests that Forster needed to leave England in order to give his major characters, and by extension his readers, these freedoms. In India, Forster, Woolf writes, ceases to act towards the latter like a ‘careful hostess’ and allows them ‘to ramble over this extraordinary continent almost alone’. His Indian characters, too, share this independence from the cautious control formerly exerted by the author. Woolf writes that ‘Aziz is a free agent. He is the most imaginative character that Mr Forster has yet created, and recalls Gino the [Italian] dentist in his first book, Where Angels Fear to Tread ’. 51 The good novelist has become a great one, in Madariaga’s terms, by writing from outside the boundaries, and boundedness, of England and the English character.

In recent years, there have been a number of important studies of the concept and role of character in fiction, a topic less examined, from the mid-twentieth century onwards, than almost any other dimension of literary texts. Forster’s discussions of character in Aspects of the Novel have been a starting point for many of these works. 52 The approaches they take are primarily formalist or, in the case of Blakey Vermeule’s recent book, use cognitive science as a route to an understanding of affective engagements with literary characters. The dimension of character-study that awaits fuller exploration is that of the relationships between concepts of literary and national character which were so prominent in the interwar years.

A possible explanation for Forster’s greater concentration in Aspects of the Novel on the deceptively flat rather than the round character, the character which may gradually, under certain circumstances, reveal its depths, might be that this is his conception of the English character. In this hypothesis, it is an emotional register, rather than, say, the political character of a state, which creates the link between national and literary character. In Forster’s analysis, as in Madariaga’s, this dimension complements the recourse by both writers, and many others, to literary characters as emblematic of putative national character. The connection was further forged in the ‘new biography’, of which Maurois and Woolf were prominent exponents, which drew on recent psychology to rethink the notion of character and which blurred the distinction between ‘real’ and ‘fictive’ characters, with the former treated in a novelistic fashion. It could also be argued that reference to a common European literary heritage was a way of internationalising the concept of national character in a period in which it was already under a suspicion which became yet stronger after the Second World War. At the same time, the hope appears to have been that a more sophisticated awareness of the complexities of literary character could provide a conduit to a more ‘rounded’, less stereotypical, and less ideologically fraught model of character in its national contexts.

E.M. Forster, ‘Notes on the English Character’, in Abinger Harvest and England’s Pleasant Land , ed. Elizabeth Heine (London 1996) pp. 3-13: 3-4.

Ibid., pp. 4-6.

Ibid., p. 404.

Ibid., 406.

Locked Diary, Dec 31 st , Kings College Cambridge Modern Archives, quoted by Wendy Moffat, E.M. Forster: A New Life (London 2010) p. 102.

Selected Letters of E.M. Forster , ed. Mary Lago and P.N. Furbank (London 1983) p. 132.

Forster, Abinger Harvest , p. 11.

Ibid., pp. 11-12.

Stefan Collini, Absent Minds (Oxford 2006) p. 81.

Forster, Abinger Harvest , p. 407.

Ibid., p. 408.

Ibid., p. 6.

Ibid., pp. 6-7.

Collini, Absent Minds , p. 81.

Ibid., p. 69.

Forster, Abinger Harvest , p. 13.

Ibid., p. 8.

Ibid., p. 13.

The school was in fact called St. Cyprian’s, at which Orwell was also a pupil.

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise (Harmondsworth 1961) p. 175.

Samuel Smiles, Character (London 1876) pp. 12, 15.

Collini, ‘The Idea of “Character” in Victorian Political Thought’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , 5 th series, 35 (1985) pp. 29-50: 47.

Mill, A System of Logic , vol. ii (London 1868), pp. 445-460.

Barker, National Character and the Factors in its Formation (London 1927) pp. 1-2; Pearson, National Life and Character: a Forecast (London 1893).

Leonard Woolf, Nation and Athenaeum , 41 (11 June 1927) p. 339. See Julia Stapleton, Englishness and the Study of Politics: The Social and Political Thought of Ernest Barker (New York 1994) p. 6.

Barker, National Character , p. 281.

George Orwell, Orwell’s England , ed. Peter Davison (London 2004) p. 296.

George Santayana, ‘The British Character’, in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (New York 1922) p. 31.

André Maurois, Les Anglais (Paris 1935) p. 12.

Ibid., p. 22.

Salvador de Madariaga, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards , 2 nd edn (London 1970) p. 228.

Ibid., p. 231.

Ibid., p. xi.

Ibid., p. 4.

Ibid., p. xiii.

Ibid., p. xiv.

Forster, Aspects of the Novel , ed. Oliver Stallybrass (London 1990) p. 55.

Ibid., pp. 69; 70.

Ibid., pp. 73; 74.

Connolly, Enemies of Promise , p. 65.

Forster, Aspects , p. 78.

Ibid., p. 74.

The Essays of Virginia Woolf, vol 3: 1919 to 1924 , ed. Andrew McNeillie (London 1988), p. 421.

Ibid., p. 426.

Woolf, ‘Modern Fiction’, Essays , vol iv, ed. Andrew McNeillie (London 1994) pp. 157-165: 163.

Woolf, ‘The Novels of E.M. Forster’, Essays , vol iv, pp. 491-506: 498.

Ibid., p. 499.

Forster, Aspects , pp. 142-3.

Woolf, ‘The Novels of E.M. Forster’ p. 500.

See, for example, Alex Woloch’s The One vs. the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in the Novel (Princeton 2003), Blakey Vermeule’s Why Do We Care About Literary Characters? (Baltimore 2010) and Martha Figlerowicz’s Flat Protagonists: A Theory of Novel Character (New York 2016). John Frow’s compendious Character and Person (Oxford 2010), which also takes a formalist approach, does not reference Forster. On the history of the concept of character, see Susan Manning, Poetics of Character: Transatlantic Encounters 1700-1900 (New York 2013), and Marjorie Garber’s Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession (New York 2020).

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The Cambridge Quarterly

E.M. Forster and the Character of 'Character'

Laura Marcus
Oxford University Press
Volume 50, Number 2, June 2021
pp. 159-172
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Writing a Character Analysis Essay | Step-by-Step Guide

1. What is a Character Analysis Essay?

2. What is the best Character Analysis Essay Format?

1. Start with the Simple Details.

2. What are the character’s distinctive personality features?

3. What are the character’s key relationships?

4. What are the character’s motivations?

5. What are the character’s key conflicts?

6. What are the character’s epiphanies?

7. Examine the moral message the character teaches us.

3. Here’s 13 Example Character Analysis Essay Ideas.

4. Here’s an Example Template for your own Character Analysis Essay

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How to Write a Character Analysis

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Writing Character Analysis - Outline, Steps, and Examples

What is Character Analysis

Purpose of a Character Analysis

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Step 1: Choose a Character

Step 2: Gather Information

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