This document outlines 8 methods for characterizing characters in literature: 1) Physical Description, 2) Attitude/Appearance, 3) Dialogue, 4) Thoughts, 5) Reactions of Others, 6) Action or Incident, 7) Background Information, and 8) Objects and Possessions. It provides examples for each method from passages of novels. The examples demonstrate how each method can reveal aspects of a character's personality, relationships, values, and development over the course of a story. The document encourages analyzing characters using all 8 methods to develop a well-rounded characterization rather than a superficial description.

1. Characterisation
in Literature

2. How do characters become
real ?

3. The 8 Methods of
Characterisation
8 different ways of looking at a
character in a story

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

5. 1. Physical Description
• The most common way of describing a
character.
• Identifies anything physical about the
character.
• Includes height, skin, hair and eye colour,
short/tall, skinny/fat, wear glasses? How
he/she walks/stands, anything physical
about the character.

6. Example of physical description:
I am the tallest kid in the whole school but
I don’t like that much. I’ve always been
skinny, specially my arms and legs. A
teacher once called me a bag of bones
when he was mad at me. (p.10)
What is it about this physical description of
character that makes it so effective?

7. Example of physical description:
But not Gracey. When she runs, she ties her
long black hair in a pony tail that streams out
behind her and bobs up and down with each
step. Like a pony; that’s it. She’s like a
beautiful young horse, a black horse, trotting
and galloping, enjoying how fast she can go.
(p.10)
What is it about this physical description of
character that makes it so effective?

8. 2. Attitude/Appearance
• This method of characterisation is the
readers description of the character’s
attitude.
• The character’s attitude is how the
character appears to feel about what is
happening to him/her in the story.
• Similar to how you may describe your
attitude if you were in a similar situation.

9. Example of attitude/appearance:
My name’s Dougy. I’m nobody much. p.8
In this quote from the novel story we learn
that the main character’s attitude is one of
insignificance and inferiority.

10. Example of attitude/appearance:
“Don’t we have to see the bloke in charge?” Raymond
asked his as he put the bags on the floor in our room.
“I’m in charge,” said Steve. “Well, for the moment
anyway. My father’s the manager, but I work here too
and I'm sort of the manager along with him,” Steve
said with a grin on his face. He liked telling people
that, I bet. I didn’t believe him for a second. No blacks
in our town were the boss of anything, always white
blokes. That’s just the way it was. The white people
own everything just about. p.28
What is the character’s attitude here?

11. 3. Dialogue
• Dialogue is the way in which a character
talks.
• Dialogue includes the characters choice of
words and syntax.
• It also includes the tone and diction of the
character when he/she speaks.
• Is the character serious? Sarcastic? Shy?
Obnoxious? Ignorant? Etc…all these qualities
can be conveyed through the characters
dialogue.

12. Example of dialogue:
“I think it’s great, your scholarship, Gracey,” she said.
“Anything would be better that staying in this place.”
Normally when Melissa started to big note herself and bad
mouth our town, the other kids argued with her, but they
stayed quiet this time.
One of the girls who had held Craig back broke in then and I
was worried the girls would start a fight as well. “My mum’s
pretty mad about it,” said this girl. “Thinks it’s just like a few
weeks ago. Gracey gets extra money to go to the State
Championships and now she gets this scholarship so she can
do better at school than us. Blacks get everything, whites get
nothing. She and Dad are getting fed up.”
Gracey had had enough of this. She was mad herself.
“I earned that scholarship. You saw how much training I did.
You could of done it too,” p. 67

13. Example of dialogue cont:
In this quotation from the novel we hear from
the adolescent girls in the novel and their
racism is very evident in the opinions they
voice.
We know here though that, while Dougy is
timid and concerned about the outcome of
this confrontation, Gracey is determined to
prove a point.

14. 4. Thoughts
• The thoughts of a character can only be
analysed if we are inside the head of the
character.
• This means that you can only include an
analysis of a character’s thoughts if you
are told what the character is thinking.

15. Example of thoughts:
I never thought about Gracey being scared. I
was the one who got frightened; of being
knocked about, shouted at, left on my own.
Frightened of the Moodagudda, too. Gracey
wasn’t frightened of those things. I didn’t
understand that she could be scared of
anything. p. 73
What insight do Dougy’s thoughts give us
about his character here?

16. 5. Reactions of Others
• When analysing the reactions of others you are
looking closely at how other characters in the story
react to or treat the character that you are
characterising.
• Reactions include verbal responses and physical or
emotional treatment.
• Character reactions can tell you if the character you
are analyzing is liked or disliked, popular, honest,
trust-worthy etc…

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

18. 6. Action or Incident
• A character can be analysed by looking at an
action or incident and how it affected them or
how they reacted to it.
• What action did the character take when
confronted with a certain situation.
• Is there and incident in the characters past
that has shaped them as a character and
affected the way they look at their life.
• The action or incident determines the way the
character develops as the story goes on.

19. Example of Action or Incident:
It was no use. The white men had forgotten why
they had come now and the black man had
forgotten why he was pointing the gun. They didn’t
care about Johnny Warren anymore. What they
wanted was to force the other man to give in to the
fright he must be feeling and lower the gun.
Then, forever after that, one side would say they
had beaten the other. p.93
What can we tell about these two characters from
their reactions to this incident and to each other?

20. 7. Background information:
• The setting of a story affects the
characters’ development as well as the
plot.
• The physical setting of a story is where the
story is actually taking place and can
effect the way a character develops.
• The emotional setting of a story is the
series of emotions that the character deals
with throughout the story.

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

22. 8. Objects and Possessions
• The things to which characters are attached
tell us a lot about who they are and what they
value.
• It is important to understand why the
character values these items.

23. Examples of Objects and Possessions
[Mr. Jenkins] gave Gracey a pair of running shoes with long spikes
sticking out of the bottom so she wouldn’t slip on the grass. Gracey
loves them, never has them more than a few feet away from her. She
doesn’t like other people touching them, but one day when she saw
me staring at them, she said would I like to clean the dirt away from
around the spikes. She could have done it herself – maybe it didn’t
need to be done at all – but Gracey knew I wanted to handled those
shoes, to see how light they were, to test how sharp the spikes were.
(p.11)
• What does this passage tell us about what Gracey valued?
• Why were the shoes so important to her?
• What does this passage tell us about Gracey’s relationship with
Dougy…about how important he is to her?

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