Julie
Basic
Welcome to this month’s Craft Chat on CHARACTERISATION. This is a big subject, so please be mindful that even with this second instalment, we can't deliver everything. However, if you have an aspect of character that we haven't covered, but you would like us to, then do let us know. In April, Rachel and Kay covered Building a Character and Conflict. This month, Galadriel brings you Place as Character & Antagonists.
As before, the discussion thread will be open for FIVE DAYS from when we post the Chat. Let us know your thoughts and experiences. If you disagree with anything, that’s fine. Tell us why. We love hearing from you. All opinions are welcome and valid additions to our learning. Keep it civil.
Rachel (RK Capps), Galadriel, Ed, Kay (Ancora Imparo)
PLACE AS CHARACTER
In Character Part 1 the focus was on the human (or otherwise) construct. Now, we turn our attention to place as character. In a story, the protagonist et al do not exist in a vacuum but inhabit a world constructed by you, the writer. Place and landscape are not just a passive backdrop, but are existing and functioning with or without human/ animal interplay. You are creating a landscape that must be believable, and its construction can be approached on a number of levels.
Let’s take the obvious, that which can be seen:
Let’s Look At Some Examples In Literature:
Place Personifying Human Emotion & Functioning as Archetype
In McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, the honeymoon destination for hapless newlyweds, Edward and Florence, is Dorset’s Chesil Beach. It’s the late 1960s (I shan’t venture into historical timings here, but culturally it’s relevant to the story). A new marriage where the theme of sexual-versus-platonic love plays out within this book. In this extract, the couple take their first view of the beach from the hotel’s garden.
“ . . .he and Florence turned in their chairs to consider the view of a broad mossy lawn, and beyond, a tangle of flowering shrubs and trees clinging to a steep bank that descended to a lane that led to the beach. They could see the beginnings of a footpath, dropping by muddy steps, a way lined by weeds of extravagant size ─ giant rhubarb and cabbages they look like, with swollen stalks, more than six feet tall, bending under the weight of dark thick-veined leaves. The garden vegetation rose up, sensuous and tropical in its profusion, an effect heightened by the grey, soft light and a delicate mist drifting in from the sea, whose steady motion of advance and withdrawal made sounds of gentle thunder, then suddenly hissing against the pebbles.”
McEwan, Ian. On Chesil Beach. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007
I’ve made bold some of the words that contribute to the theme of impending lovemaking. McEwan has placed the garden between the characters and the beach; the new sights dipping down to the as yet unexplored. The burgeoning plants inhibit full view, but tantalise in their description. The paragraph is adjective heavy; the alliterative sibilant "s" chimes with the Garden of Eden and its forbidden fruit. Superlatives abound in ". . . extravagant . . . swollen . . . heightened”. McEwan sets the scene as analogous to human sexual foreplay culminating in the flow and ebb of climax. The landscape is confident; the lovers are not. Its parts appear to move. Even the mist seems like breath.
One could say that the beach characterises the endless repeating patterns of time; the tide goes in and out endlessly. It is the shingle that is moved by time. Perhaps it represents the seemingly inconsequential lives of people, being moved on through life, eventually passing out before being replaced. The beach represents both freedom and imprisonment, depending on perspective. Heady themes, for sure. In terms of the story’s archetype, the place depicts love, but manages to personify the couple’s "third wheel"; a situation (the impending first marital sex) that is impossible to navigate.
Notice the lack of the verb “to be”. The absence of “was” avoids telling. McEwan has gone for showing action in present participle verbs such as “clinging”, “bending”, “drifting”, and “hissing”. This makes everything in a state of continuous movement. The landscape is alive and upon them; almost suffocating. The lovers look upon it as the personification of female and male sexual beings, aroused, entwined with the promise of sexual fulfilment to come as depicted in the final phrases.
Place Where Topography Mirrors Protagonist’s State & Provides Sanctuary
The next example comes from Chapter 4 of Joanna Harris’ Blackberry Wine. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it is a dual-time narrative set in two different times and places. The first line of the blurb reads:
“Jay Mackintosh is trapped by memory in the old familiar landscape of his childhood, more enticing than the present, and to which he longs to return.”
Thirteen-year-old Jay’s parents are recently divorced. It’s 1975, and he’s moved from London to his grandparents in a small Northern town that he hates. Much of this chapter, which has the evocative heading: “Pog Hill, Summer 1975,” is a juxtaposition of desertion: “. . . pit houses staggering towards dereliction, half of the empty windows boarded up, gardens piled with refuse and weeds,” with the gentrified: “. . . Victorian terraces of mellow Yorkshire stone . . . huge secluded gardens with fruit-trees en espalier and smooth, well-tended lawns.”
Harris shows the physical and social divide that exists by using lists (I do direct you to read that entire chapter as it’s beyond the scope to set it all out here). Note the hard “t” in the words which describe a wasteland. It brings a hardness to the area being described. Compare this with the softer use of “t” in “Victorian terraces . . .smooth, well-tended . . .” and so on.
Jay hates it. But Pog Hill, which is described next, Jay is drawn to. Harris weaves an evocative description employing multi-sensory description. Aural: “. . . the open-cast mine, the sound of its machinery a distant drone on the wind.”
Visual images evoke bygone ages, where progress is depicted: “an old canal ran almost parallel to the railway.”
The canal’s disuse is heightened with Smell: ". . . and there the stagnant air was green with flies and hot with the scent of ash and greenery." The visual use of green evokes an untouched, wild place in summer, but is mixed with the aroma of undergrowth. The reader is led further into this concealed place, as Jay is. “A bridle path ran between the canal and the railway, overhung with tree branches.” Harris conjures in her description of place possibilities for travelling and escaping with three different modes of travelling. But the overhanging branches seem to deny and conceal the need to leave.
Nether Edge, the name of this abandoned place seeks to draw him in. It mirrors Jay’s actions as he pushes “his way through great drifts of ripe willowherb . . . sending clouds of white seeds into the air”. Jay then sits and smokes. Perhaps there is an unwritten but sensed element of this in the trains he watches: “. . . making faces . . . as they clattered to their distant envied destinations.”
Harris doesn’t come out and say Jay went off exploring. Rather, Harris lets the place disintegrate gently the physical impossibility of a thirteen-year-old being able to leave by leading him further into the secret world. Throwing stones in the “clotted canal” leads to walking to the river where he “made dams with turf and accumulated garbage . . .”
Place becomes the secret friend offering up treasures, drawing him in until he and place are meshed.
“A flooded mineshaft, an abandoned coal truck, the remains of a barge. It was an ugly, perhaps dangerous place, but it was a place of great sadness too, and it attracted him in a way he could neither combat nor understand.” Here is place saying, look, I know how you feel because I’ve felt it too, look around, this is the proof. Nether Edge is the older friend, the one parents would disapprove of, “His parents would have been horrified at his going there . . “ The thought of the reaction “contributed to its appeal.” And yet, like the newly acquired older friend, there is uncertainty in Jay. “He couldn’t imagine why he went there at all. He would set out with the intention of taking quite a different route and still find himself in Nether Edge, between the railway and the canal, the sound of distant machinery droning in his ears and the whitish summer sky pushing down the top of his head like a hot cap.” Place works its way into Jay, and it’s done because of the evocative description with each element of abandonment and disuse, and mirroring it in Jay. Jay comes to love Nether Edge because it understands him. That is what is implied.
Harris, Joanne. Blackberry Wine. London: Black Swan, 2001
Galadriel
LINKS
features4 - Winter14 (google.com) "Gaps in the Map," Frances Hardinge on how to makes characters of places.
16 Ways to Make Your Setting a Character in Its Own Right - Helping Writers Become Authors
ANTAGONISTS
Antagonists are any force that hinders the protagonist from attaining their goal. They are often characters, but terrain, place and weather can also function as antagonists.
Antagonists can be openly evil or quietly harming. They can pretend they’re the protagonist’s friend; they can fight with them, mislead them, hurt them physically, batter them emotionally, play mind games. The conflicts they cause can seem endless. Whatever their role, they must challenge the protagonist in some way, pushing them from reactive to active. Antagonists are pot-stirrers forcing the protagonist to change.
A writer can decide to put them in at the beginning of the story and let their role unfold from there. Or have them come out of the shadows further in. The protagonist’s opening scene may show them already battling the antagonist in some way, even if this is a toxic town the MC longs to escape from. Or, the reader may be privy to the antagonist’s arrival before the protagonist is. Tension is created as the reader anticipates where and when the “baddie,” and MC will collide.
But, it’s important to note (as mentioned in Characterisation Craft Chat) that just as secondary characters are the stars of their own show, so too are antagonists. A writer can choose whether to give the antagonist a PoV role. Is the reader going to be able to see inside the “baddie’s” head? There is room for fluidity here. Yet, regardless of that choice, the key thing is that the writer must know and understand what the antagonist’s goal is. Does the antagonist want the same thing as the protagonist? Do they desire to destroy the MC, and/ or prevent the MC from reaching their objective, through other methods?
Let’s look at a two examples from different writers to see how they tackle their representation of antagonists. Do pitch in with other approaches and/ or embellish on what’s here.
In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, Noah Claypole forms part of a sliding scale of antagonists that young Oliver must face. Dickens’ story world is dense with characters who fill all the descriptors of poverty-driven avarice and despair. Dickens sifts through the mire of London’s underbelly, placing Oliver in increasingly dangerous situations. Claypole is a bottom-feeder; a cowardly bully who uses his age to pick on Oliver.
Dickens introduces Claypole anonymously, but his actions speak of his personality before the reader (and Oliver) even knows what he looks like.
“Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times.”
Dickens has used sound to convey the impatient, bullying manner of the caller. He intersperses Oliver’s response between the door kickings, lending urgency to the scene. Here is an antagonist who will not be kept waiting. Oliver is forced to react, and even as he does, Dickens wants to show that this may be a character who will give his protagonist no peace. Pressure from the antagonist builds as Oliver answers the door.
“. . . the legs desisted, and a voice began.
“Open the door, will yer?” cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door.
“I will, directly, sir,” replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key.
“I suppose yer the new boy, ain’t yer?” said the voice through the key-hole.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver.
“How old are yer?” inquired the voice.
“Ten, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Then I’ll whop yer when I get in,” said the voice; “you just see if I don’t, that’s all, my work’us brat!” and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle.””
The antagonist remains invisible. Aggressive kicking becomes a mocking voice. ”I suppose yer the new boy, ain’t yer?” The dialogue is kept short and clipped, conveying the interrogative power that Claypole has. Or thinks he has when it comes to bullying those younger and weaker than himself. He knows perfectly well that Oliver is the new boy in a new job. His question, directed through the key-hole, is in itself an insidious sidle up toward Oliver, the door is no bar to his entry.
So, the aggression in the antagonist builds. Oliver, in the face of it, remains compliant. The portrayal of this dichotomy between power and powerlessness compels the reader to feel Oliver’s fear and acceptance. Oliver cannot win against this antagonist who holds all the cards. The writer makes sure to "squeeze the lemon", by having the still-invisible antagonist promising to hit Oliver, and reduces him further as a person, reminding Oliver of his workhouse roots. “Work’us” (workhouse) is delivered in slang. Aurally similar to “worthless,” perhaps. Referring to him as “brat” implies he is delinquent.
The antagonist’s confidence in his ability to break the boy is evident in his whistle. It demonstrates that remarkable quality bullies have of shifting the victim’s expectations. The most coercive ones appear able at balancing forthright nastiness with masquerading friendliness.
When Oliver opens the door, he believes that the threat has gone. Dickens makes the appearance of the antagonist a little comical on the reader’s part. For Oliver, he does not link the aggressor with what he actually sees.
“. . . for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.
The antagonist is not even an adult, but a child grown fat on charitable handouts. Poor still, but he prospers. Dickens has made the antagonist visible to Oliver, and yet, comically, Oliver naively looks past the “big charity-boy”. At that moment, Oliver appears to see the boy more on his level, so to speak.
The comedic element continues:
““I beg your pardon, sir,” said Oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; “did you knock?”
“I kicked,” replied the charity-boy.
“Did you want a coffin, sir?” inquired Oliver, innocently.
At this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way.”
The lightness that Dickens gives the conversation belies the cruelness of even a simple bully. The reader could find a little regard for the charity-boy when one understands the context. This antagonist is as much a victim of circumstance as Oliver is. He needs to feel he has some power in his life, and the only way to get it, is to be cruel to one even less favoured in life. Because Oliver didn’t appear to realise that this was his aggressor, the charity-boy must make a face to show his superiority. He has to make himself appear aggressive to have Oliver take note.
Dickens so far has drip-fed the reader portions of the antagonist; we know only as much as Oliver does. From action, sound, conversation, appearance, and conversation, Dickens builds a picture of the antagonist. It’s a method that serves well rather than dumping the reader with a physical description of the antagonist. It makes us unsure about what kind of antagonist he will turn out to be.
The antagonist has deliberately not asked Oliver’s name, instead referring to him by his social standing. The way, he gets down from the post with utmost seriousness is an attempt to put fear into Oliver.
“Yer don’t know who I am, I suppose, Work’us?” said the charity-boy, in continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity.
“No, sir,” rejoined Oliver.
“I’m Mister Noah Claypole,” said the charity-boy, “and you’re under me. . .” With this, Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air . . . It is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls.”
If the reader harboured any sympathy for Claypole, they removed at his kicking of Oliver. Dickens exploits the Victorian passion for physiognomy (corresponding facial appearance to inherent personality traits) by matching Claypole’s coarse features with his low social standing. He appears uncouth and therefore he is uncouth. And what is Claypole’s goal? He wants to better himself, even if that is at the expense of others. Perhaps, given the times, we can afford Claypole a little sympathy then.
Dickens, Charles. Charles Dickens: Five Novels. London: Barnes & Noble, 2010
In James Herbert’s The Rats, the antagonist (the rats!) cannot be reasoned with or understood. The reader doesn’t meet the protagonist, Harris, until Chapter 4. Until then, we are treated to a couple of gory encounters with expendable characters. The prologue sets the scene of a now-abandoned house, which in chapter 1 we realise is the same house in which alcoholic Harry Guilfoyle has collapsed in a drunken stupor.
Like Dickens, Herbert tightens the tension with drip-feeding snippets of information before revealing the nature of Guilfoyle’s antagonist. Dramatic irony is used so by the time Harris, the main protagonist, discovers what’s going on, the reader already has knowledge of the scale of the problem he faces.
Herbert has placed the fated Guilfoyle in a vulnerable situation: his wits are lost to drink and he’s alone in an abandoned house. Here is Guilfoyle’s first awareness that something is wrong.
“His befogged mind had registered something, but he didn’t know what. He’d drained the rest of the gin before he felt the sharp pain in his left hand. As he jerked the hand up to his mouth, he heard something scuttle away.”
The reader knows this is horror. The trope of the old abandoned house is familiar, and the reader may imagine that if they were in such a place, they may wonder at strange noises or unexpected movement. In this case, Guilfoyle’s mental confusion is not so far gone that he’s oblivious. Still, he dismisses it because he drinks the rest of the gin. The blunt mind feels “the sharp pain in his left hand”. It seems to have brought him to his senses for he heard the “scuttle”. The antagonist has made a move and then retreated. “Scuttle” is a word generally kept for rodents, and of course the reader knows the title of the book, and anticipates what might happen after this preliminary bite. And, of course, Herbert understands the cultural references we make about rats: dirty, flea-ridden, plague carriers, opportunists, and of course their intelligence.
It is precisely this that Herbert draws upon. We fear being in the dark with rats, and we know that a rat has bitten Guilfoyle, and then “scuttled away”. Herbert has hooked us. Will the rat return?
“He shrieked when he realised something was gnawing at the tendons. He tried to get to his feet but only stumbled and fell heavily, bruising the side of his face. As he lifted his hand to his face again he felt something warm clinging to it. Something heavy.”
There is the use of emotive verbs. For example, there is something very specific about “gnawing”. Sharp teeth gnaw. It suggests a sustained action on one area to break through. The “bruising”, the leaching of blood under the skin’s surface draws another animal. So far, Herbert has two creatures attacking Guilfoyle. Guilfoyle has been on the ground, he’s gotten up, and he’s down again. Herbert sustains Guilfoyle’s ignorance through the triple emphasis of the indefinite pronoun “something”.
Throughout this chapter, Herbert employs all the senses to craft a scene that is cinematic, and gory. Guilfoyle realises what is attacking him.
“It was a rat. But it was big. Very big. It could have been mistaken for a small dog . . . “
Guilfoyle knows there is something abnormal about these rats. So does the reader. Three times, in three different ways, Herbert draws the picture in the reader’s mind of their size.
Herbert closes this chapter with a strong hook. It is the promise of the horror to come, and he credits the rats with a shared hive intelligence.
“The rats had had their fill of his body, but were still hungry. So they searched. Searched for more food of the same kind. They had tasted their first human blood.”
The rats goal is clear; destroy humans!
Herbert, James. The Rats. London: New English Library, 1974
Galadriel
As before, the discussion thread will be open for FIVE DAYS from when we post the Chat. Let us know your thoughts and experiences. If you disagree with anything, that’s fine. Tell us why. We love hearing from you. All opinions are welcome and valid additions to our learning. Keep it civil.
Rachel (RK Capps), Galadriel, Ed, Kay (Ancora Imparo)
PLACE AS CHARACTER
In Character Part 1 the focus was on the human (or otherwise) construct. Now, we turn our attention to place as character. In a story, the protagonist et al do not exist in a vacuum but inhabit a world constructed by you, the writer. Place and landscape are not just a passive backdrop, but are existing and functioning with or without human/ animal interplay. You are creating a landscape that must be believable, and its construction can be approached on a number of levels.
Let’s take the obvious, that which can be seen:
- Topography: how much has the land been shaped, if at all, by human existence? Is it wild and open? Built up and industrial? Town, village, city? A hinterland, an edge land, a no-man’s land? Is it a place that draws characters to it? Or one from which they desire to escape?
- How do the seasons work upon it? Does it become inhospitable, barren, cold? Or is it an Elysium, bountiful, and uplifting?
- Does your place change with the passage of time? New buildings? Evidence of change in the natural world? Has it diminished or prospered? Were there notable changes in its past before the story opens? Is it set to alter during your story?
- Are you going to encapsulate the whole or section off its parts, each with their own individual aspects? Think of a city, and its multiple settings: the mall, the underground, the back alleys; all will possess a particular flavour, distinct but not separate from the whole.
- Your place connects with your characters, so allow it to have its own character arc. What is it? What will be the interactions between it and your characters? If place doesn’t physically change, what about the viewpoints of the characters regarding it?
- Personify locations to elucidate your themes. We’re all familiar with tropes such as mist and rain lending themselves to the confusion and sadness of people in stories. How do weather and seasons exemplify characters’ thoughts and actions? Does place work themes subtly or more obviously?
- Perhaps your place is archetypal, representing an aspect of the human/ Self; and/ or the human aspiration to connect with Source/ Divinity?
Let’s Look At Some Examples In Literature:
Place Personifying Human Emotion & Functioning as Archetype
In McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, the honeymoon destination for hapless newlyweds, Edward and Florence, is Dorset’s Chesil Beach. It’s the late 1960s (I shan’t venture into historical timings here, but culturally it’s relevant to the story). A new marriage where the theme of sexual-versus-platonic love plays out within this book. In this extract, the couple take their first view of the beach from the hotel’s garden.
“ . . .he and Florence turned in their chairs to consider the view of a broad mossy lawn, and beyond, a tangle of flowering shrubs and trees clinging to a steep bank that descended to a lane that led to the beach. They could see the beginnings of a footpath, dropping by muddy steps, a way lined by weeds of extravagant size ─ giant rhubarb and cabbages they look like, with swollen stalks, more than six feet tall, bending under the weight of dark thick-veined leaves. The garden vegetation rose up, sensuous and tropical in its profusion, an effect heightened by the grey, soft light and a delicate mist drifting in from the sea, whose steady motion of advance and withdrawal made sounds of gentle thunder, then suddenly hissing against the pebbles.”
McEwan, Ian. On Chesil Beach. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007
I’ve made bold some of the words that contribute to the theme of impending lovemaking. McEwan has placed the garden between the characters and the beach; the new sights dipping down to the as yet unexplored. The burgeoning plants inhibit full view, but tantalise in their description. The paragraph is adjective heavy; the alliterative sibilant "s" chimes with the Garden of Eden and its forbidden fruit. Superlatives abound in ". . . extravagant . . . swollen . . . heightened”. McEwan sets the scene as analogous to human sexual foreplay culminating in the flow and ebb of climax. The landscape is confident; the lovers are not. Its parts appear to move. Even the mist seems like breath.
One could say that the beach characterises the endless repeating patterns of time; the tide goes in and out endlessly. It is the shingle that is moved by time. Perhaps it represents the seemingly inconsequential lives of people, being moved on through life, eventually passing out before being replaced. The beach represents both freedom and imprisonment, depending on perspective. Heady themes, for sure. In terms of the story’s archetype, the place depicts love, but manages to personify the couple’s "third wheel"; a situation (the impending first marital sex) that is impossible to navigate.
Notice the lack of the verb “to be”. The absence of “was” avoids telling. McEwan has gone for showing action in present participle verbs such as “clinging”, “bending”, “drifting”, and “hissing”. This makes everything in a state of continuous movement. The landscape is alive and upon them; almost suffocating. The lovers look upon it as the personification of female and male sexual beings, aroused, entwined with the promise of sexual fulfilment to come as depicted in the final phrases.
Place Where Topography Mirrors Protagonist’s State & Provides Sanctuary
The next example comes from Chapter 4 of Joanna Harris’ Blackberry Wine. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it is a dual-time narrative set in two different times and places. The first line of the blurb reads:
“Jay Mackintosh is trapped by memory in the old familiar landscape of his childhood, more enticing than the present, and to which he longs to return.”
Thirteen-year-old Jay’s parents are recently divorced. It’s 1975, and he’s moved from London to his grandparents in a small Northern town that he hates. Much of this chapter, which has the evocative heading: “Pog Hill, Summer 1975,” is a juxtaposition of desertion: “. . . pit houses staggering towards dereliction, half of the empty windows boarded up, gardens piled with refuse and weeds,” with the gentrified: “. . . Victorian terraces of mellow Yorkshire stone . . . huge secluded gardens with fruit-trees en espalier and smooth, well-tended lawns.”
Harris shows the physical and social divide that exists by using lists (I do direct you to read that entire chapter as it’s beyond the scope to set it all out here). Note the hard “t” in the words which describe a wasteland. It brings a hardness to the area being described. Compare this with the softer use of “t” in “Victorian terraces . . .smooth, well-tended . . .” and so on.
Jay hates it. But Pog Hill, which is described next, Jay is drawn to. Harris weaves an evocative description employing multi-sensory description. Aural: “. . . the open-cast mine, the sound of its machinery a distant drone on the wind.”
Visual images evoke bygone ages, where progress is depicted: “an old canal ran almost parallel to the railway.”
The canal’s disuse is heightened with Smell: ". . . and there the stagnant air was green with flies and hot with the scent of ash and greenery." The visual use of green evokes an untouched, wild place in summer, but is mixed with the aroma of undergrowth. The reader is led further into this concealed place, as Jay is. “A bridle path ran between the canal and the railway, overhung with tree branches.” Harris conjures in her description of place possibilities for travelling and escaping with three different modes of travelling. But the overhanging branches seem to deny and conceal the need to leave.
Nether Edge, the name of this abandoned place seeks to draw him in. It mirrors Jay’s actions as he pushes “his way through great drifts of ripe willowherb . . . sending clouds of white seeds into the air”. Jay then sits and smokes. Perhaps there is an unwritten but sensed element of this in the trains he watches: “. . . making faces . . . as they clattered to their distant envied destinations.”
Harris doesn’t come out and say Jay went off exploring. Rather, Harris lets the place disintegrate gently the physical impossibility of a thirteen-year-old being able to leave by leading him further into the secret world. Throwing stones in the “clotted canal” leads to walking to the river where he “made dams with turf and accumulated garbage . . .”
Place becomes the secret friend offering up treasures, drawing him in until he and place are meshed.
“A flooded mineshaft, an abandoned coal truck, the remains of a barge. It was an ugly, perhaps dangerous place, but it was a place of great sadness too, and it attracted him in a way he could neither combat nor understand.” Here is place saying, look, I know how you feel because I’ve felt it too, look around, this is the proof. Nether Edge is the older friend, the one parents would disapprove of, “His parents would have been horrified at his going there . . “ The thought of the reaction “contributed to its appeal.” And yet, like the newly acquired older friend, there is uncertainty in Jay. “He couldn’t imagine why he went there at all. He would set out with the intention of taking quite a different route and still find himself in Nether Edge, between the railway and the canal, the sound of distant machinery droning in his ears and the whitish summer sky pushing down the top of his head like a hot cap.” Place works its way into Jay, and it’s done because of the evocative description with each element of abandonment and disuse, and mirroring it in Jay. Jay comes to love Nether Edge because it understands him. That is what is implied.
Harris, Joanne. Blackberry Wine. London: Black Swan, 2001
Galadriel
LINKS
features4 - Winter14 (google.com) "Gaps in the Map," Frances Hardinge on how to makes characters of places.
16 Ways to Make Your Setting a Character in Its Own Right - Helping Writers Become Authors
ANTAGONISTS
Antagonists are any force that hinders the protagonist from attaining their goal. They are often characters, but terrain, place and weather can also function as antagonists.
Antagonists can be openly evil or quietly harming. They can pretend they’re the protagonist’s friend; they can fight with them, mislead them, hurt them physically, batter them emotionally, play mind games. The conflicts they cause can seem endless. Whatever their role, they must challenge the protagonist in some way, pushing them from reactive to active. Antagonists are pot-stirrers forcing the protagonist to change.
A writer can decide to put them in at the beginning of the story and let their role unfold from there. Or have them come out of the shadows further in. The protagonist’s opening scene may show them already battling the antagonist in some way, even if this is a toxic town the MC longs to escape from. Or, the reader may be privy to the antagonist’s arrival before the protagonist is. Tension is created as the reader anticipates where and when the “baddie,” and MC will collide.
But, it’s important to note (as mentioned in Characterisation Craft Chat) that just as secondary characters are the stars of their own show, so too are antagonists. A writer can choose whether to give the antagonist a PoV role. Is the reader going to be able to see inside the “baddie’s” head? There is room for fluidity here. Yet, regardless of that choice, the key thing is that the writer must know and understand what the antagonist’s goal is. Does the antagonist want the same thing as the protagonist? Do they desire to destroy the MC, and/ or prevent the MC from reaching their objective, through other methods?
Let’s look at a two examples from different writers to see how they tackle their representation of antagonists. Do pitch in with other approaches and/ or embellish on what’s here.
In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, Noah Claypole forms part of a sliding scale of antagonists that young Oliver must face. Dickens’ story world is dense with characters who fill all the descriptors of poverty-driven avarice and despair. Dickens sifts through the mire of London’s underbelly, placing Oliver in increasingly dangerous situations. Claypole is a bottom-feeder; a cowardly bully who uses his age to pick on Oliver.
Dickens introduces Claypole anonymously, but his actions speak of his personality before the reader (and Oliver) even knows what he looks like.
“Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times.”
Dickens has used sound to convey the impatient, bullying manner of the caller. He intersperses Oliver’s response between the door kickings, lending urgency to the scene. Here is an antagonist who will not be kept waiting. Oliver is forced to react, and even as he does, Dickens wants to show that this may be a character who will give his protagonist no peace. Pressure from the antagonist builds as Oliver answers the door.
“. . . the legs desisted, and a voice began.
“Open the door, will yer?” cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door.
“I will, directly, sir,” replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key.
“I suppose yer the new boy, ain’t yer?” said the voice through the key-hole.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver.
“How old are yer?” inquired the voice.
“Ten, sir,” replied Oliver.
“Then I’ll whop yer when I get in,” said the voice; “you just see if I don’t, that’s all, my work’us brat!” and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle.””
The antagonist remains invisible. Aggressive kicking becomes a mocking voice. ”I suppose yer the new boy, ain’t yer?” The dialogue is kept short and clipped, conveying the interrogative power that Claypole has. Or thinks he has when it comes to bullying those younger and weaker than himself. He knows perfectly well that Oliver is the new boy in a new job. His question, directed through the key-hole, is in itself an insidious sidle up toward Oliver, the door is no bar to his entry.
So, the aggression in the antagonist builds. Oliver, in the face of it, remains compliant. The portrayal of this dichotomy between power and powerlessness compels the reader to feel Oliver’s fear and acceptance. Oliver cannot win against this antagonist who holds all the cards. The writer makes sure to "squeeze the lemon", by having the still-invisible antagonist promising to hit Oliver, and reduces him further as a person, reminding Oliver of his workhouse roots. “Work’us” (workhouse) is delivered in slang. Aurally similar to “worthless,” perhaps. Referring to him as “brat” implies he is delinquent.
The antagonist’s confidence in his ability to break the boy is evident in his whistle. It demonstrates that remarkable quality bullies have of shifting the victim’s expectations. The most coercive ones appear able at balancing forthright nastiness with masquerading friendliness.
When Oliver opens the door, he believes that the threat has gone. Dickens makes the appearance of the antagonist a little comical on the reader’s part. For Oliver, he does not link the aggressor with what he actually sees.
“. . . for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.
The antagonist is not even an adult, but a child grown fat on charitable handouts. Poor still, but he prospers. Dickens has made the antagonist visible to Oliver, and yet, comically, Oliver naively looks past the “big charity-boy”. At that moment, Oliver appears to see the boy more on his level, so to speak.
The comedic element continues:
““I beg your pardon, sir,” said Oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; “did you knock?”
“I kicked,” replied the charity-boy.
“Did you want a coffin, sir?” inquired Oliver, innocently.
At this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way.”
The lightness that Dickens gives the conversation belies the cruelness of even a simple bully. The reader could find a little regard for the charity-boy when one understands the context. This antagonist is as much a victim of circumstance as Oliver is. He needs to feel he has some power in his life, and the only way to get it, is to be cruel to one even less favoured in life. Because Oliver didn’t appear to realise that this was his aggressor, the charity-boy must make a face to show his superiority. He has to make himself appear aggressive to have Oliver take note.
Dickens so far has drip-fed the reader portions of the antagonist; we know only as much as Oliver does. From action, sound, conversation, appearance, and conversation, Dickens builds a picture of the antagonist. It’s a method that serves well rather than dumping the reader with a physical description of the antagonist. It makes us unsure about what kind of antagonist he will turn out to be.
The antagonist has deliberately not asked Oliver’s name, instead referring to him by his social standing. The way, he gets down from the post with utmost seriousness is an attempt to put fear into Oliver.
“Yer don’t know who I am, I suppose, Work’us?” said the charity-boy, in continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity.
“No, sir,” rejoined Oliver.
“I’m Mister Noah Claypole,” said the charity-boy, “and you’re under me. . .” With this, Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air . . . It is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls.”
If the reader harboured any sympathy for Claypole, they removed at his kicking of Oliver. Dickens exploits the Victorian passion for physiognomy (corresponding facial appearance to inherent personality traits) by matching Claypole’s coarse features with his low social standing. He appears uncouth and therefore he is uncouth. And what is Claypole’s goal? He wants to better himself, even if that is at the expense of others. Perhaps, given the times, we can afford Claypole a little sympathy then.
Dickens, Charles. Charles Dickens: Five Novels. London: Barnes & Noble, 2010
In James Herbert’s The Rats, the antagonist (the rats!) cannot be reasoned with or understood. The reader doesn’t meet the protagonist, Harris, until Chapter 4. Until then, we are treated to a couple of gory encounters with expendable characters. The prologue sets the scene of a now-abandoned house, which in chapter 1 we realise is the same house in which alcoholic Harry Guilfoyle has collapsed in a drunken stupor.
Like Dickens, Herbert tightens the tension with drip-feeding snippets of information before revealing the nature of Guilfoyle’s antagonist. Dramatic irony is used so by the time Harris, the main protagonist, discovers what’s going on, the reader already has knowledge of the scale of the problem he faces.
Herbert has placed the fated Guilfoyle in a vulnerable situation: his wits are lost to drink and he’s alone in an abandoned house. Here is Guilfoyle’s first awareness that something is wrong.
“His befogged mind had registered something, but he didn’t know what. He’d drained the rest of the gin before he felt the sharp pain in his left hand. As he jerked the hand up to his mouth, he heard something scuttle away.”
The reader knows this is horror. The trope of the old abandoned house is familiar, and the reader may imagine that if they were in such a place, they may wonder at strange noises or unexpected movement. In this case, Guilfoyle’s mental confusion is not so far gone that he’s oblivious. Still, he dismisses it because he drinks the rest of the gin. The blunt mind feels “the sharp pain in his left hand”. It seems to have brought him to his senses for he heard the “scuttle”. The antagonist has made a move and then retreated. “Scuttle” is a word generally kept for rodents, and of course the reader knows the title of the book, and anticipates what might happen after this preliminary bite. And, of course, Herbert understands the cultural references we make about rats: dirty, flea-ridden, plague carriers, opportunists, and of course their intelligence.
It is precisely this that Herbert draws upon. We fear being in the dark with rats, and we know that a rat has bitten Guilfoyle, and then “scuttled away”. Herbert has hooked us. Will the rat return?
“He shrieked when he realised something was gnawing at the tendons. He tried to get to his feet but only stumbled and fell heavily, bruising the side of his face. As he lifted his hand to his face again he felt something warm clinging to it. Something heavy.”
There is the use of emotive verbs. For example, there is something very specific about “gnawing”. Sharp teeth gnaw. It suggests a sustained action on one area to break through. The “bruising”, the leaching of blood under the skin’s surface draws another animal. So far, Herbert has two creatures attacking Guilfoyle. Guilfoyle has been on the ground, he’s gotten up, and he’s down again. Herbert sustains Guilfoyle’s ignorance through the triple emphasis of the indefinite pronoun “something”.
Throughout this chapter, Herbert employs all the senses to craft a scene that is cinematic, and gory. Guilfoyle realises what is attacking him.
“It was a rat. But it was big. Very big. It could have been mistaken for a small dog . . . “
Guilfoyle knows there is something abnormal about these rats. So does the reader. Three times, in three different ways, Herbert draws the picture in the reader’s mind of their size.
Herbert closes this chapter with a strong hook. It is the promise of the horror to come, and he credits the rats with a shared hive intelligence.
“The rats had had their fill of his body, but were still hungry. So they searched. Searched for more food of the same kind. They had tasted their first human blood.”
The rats goal is clear; destroy humans!
Herbert, James. The Rats. London: New English Library, 1974
Galadriel
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