(toc) #title= (Table of Content)
INTRODUCTION
A novel is like a rich forest upon which human beings depend for its wealth of crop trees. The crop trees are tall oaks, deciduous and evergreen Iroko; fruit-bearing mangoes; or pear trees. The edge of the forest may be lined with climbing shrubs, even sweet-smelling flower shrubs. There may even be a few tall palms – oil palms, coconut palms, date palms – at the edge of the forest. Characters, men, women, children; professionals, from domestic servants, vehicle drivers, artisans, to royalty and rulers, politicians, dictators, emperors, presidents, and kings occupy places at the edge, in the middle, or dead-centre of the book – characters are the ‘trees’ of the novel. They have to be tall enough to be remembered; fat enough to hold certain ground; intelligent or foolish, wicked or kind enough to move and be moved in the ‘world’ of the story being told; in the ‘universe’ of the story. Who does not recall Achebe’s Okonkwo? Who has forgotten Elechi Amadi’s ‘Concubine’ Ifeoma? Who does not relish Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Sailor’ and even the ‘Sea’ which, though watery, lives with the old man’s medal as a lively, concrete creature? Indeed, it is in characterisation that the writer readily becomes a creator and a style maker. Ezeulu in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, for example, is so gripping in attention that the reader and interpreter of the soul of the story of a collapsing civilization can no longer even remember that he was just an ‘illiterate’ high priest of a god of a tribal setting battling the ‘civilized’ giants of a cultured and colonizing religion and commerce-driven empire! When a character is that good, the reader suspends disbelief! Real ‘drama’ resides in the character.
Building the Character
Society is made up of a range of people. In some, the people are said to be in “classes” – poor and working class; rich and leisured; they live in the countryside or cities and urban conglomerates; they work in farms or in factories. In a work of fiction, the writer draws from this range of people. The characters, that is, the personages of the action in the story, like the crop trees of a rich forest, must be built, constructed, made rich, richer, than ordinary mundane life-living people in everyday society. Stephen King says, “…the job (that is, of building the character) boils down to two things: paying attention to how real people around you behave and then telling the truth about what you see. You may notice that your next-door neighbour picks his nose when he thinks no one is looking. This is a great detail, but noting it does you no good as a writer unless you’re willing to dump it into a story at some point” (King, 189).
Let us take one illustration. Aubrey Kachingwe of Malawi (born 1926) has written a novel, No Easy Task.
“Briefly, the novel tells the story of Jo Jozeni, son of a village pastor. Jo is offered a job on a newspaper in Kawacha, the capital of a British colony in Central Africa. Although his roots are in the country, Jo gradually takes to life in the city; and through his colleagues, becomes involved in politics, though always remaining a little outside the ‘inner circles.’ Suddenly his attitude changes: at a political rally… it is his own gentle, retiring father who emerges as a hard and determined political fighter. Jo is faced with a difficult choice: should he identify himself with his father? Or take the line of least resistance, marry his girl, and settle down? Or look for something else out of life?”
I have quoted the blurb on the Heinemann African Writers Series, editorially advised by Chinua Achebe, word for word. That gives you the setting. That gives you the environment. To see how Jo Jozeni’s character is built up and merged into the circumstances in which he must make his choice, let us look at the very opening of the novel:
“I’m sorry, man. We can’t take any more passengers in the bus. It’s full,” the conductor said. He started to close the door.
“Can’t you squeeze me in, please?” I pleaded. “I have only this small suitcase. That’s all.”
“I can’t take any more,” he said firmly. “The traffic patrolmen are very strict these days. You want me to lose my job?”
He rang the bell.
“This is the last country bus for today, and I have been standing here waiting for it in this hot sun for over one hour,” I said, half to myself. “Surely, you can’t leave me?”
I dropped my suitcase and clung to the rails of the door of the bus. The conductor pushed me off and I almost fell under the wheels as it started to move. My suitcase was run over but I was luckier.
I stood up, dusted myself, and looked at the suitcase. It had been flattened out of shape and was gaping half open. A little dust had got inside.
It made me bitter to think that I would have to walk three miles back to the school at Makwasa, and possibly spend the night alone in an empty classroom. The place was empty now because the school was closed. I had just been there to see the principal about getting me a scholarship to England, but he had promised nothing. Now I was returning to my father at Bangwe, a little mission station thirty miles farther in the interior.
I did not like to go back to that school even for a night. The principal would probably tell me to go away. Reverend John Webb and I never got on well, although he was the missionary in charge of all this area, including Bangwe where my father was the parish priest, and had thus known my parents for years. Lately, he had been my principal. Perhaps we knew each other too well.
Suddenly, I heard a car hoot. Shaken, I jumped off the road. The car pulled up, and the two men inside it laughed heartily.
I recognized the one driving. “I am very sorry for blocking the road, Mr. Dube,” I said apologetically.
“One should expect that sort of behaviour on a country road,” he said without anger. “But you are educated, Jo, and ought to know how to conduct yourself on a highway.”
“I am sorry, Sir,” I repeated.
“That’s all right, Jo. Only don’t do it again,” he said. “Now, why are you here?”
“I am going to Bangwe – I was going – but the bus has left me behind,” I said. “There was no room.”
“I am going there; can I give you a lift?”
“If you can, Sir, most grateful.”
“Take your bag and come in,” he said. He turned to his friend. “This is Jo, the son of the Reverend Josiah Jozeni.”
“And this gentleman, Jo,” he said to me, “is Mr. Zake Lukani, a great friend of mine. We are both going to see the old man. Make yourself comfortable.”
I shook hands with Mr. Zake Lukani as the car started to move …
Dan Dube was the first African to be a municipal councillor on the white-only Kawacha Town Council… an outstanding businessman and clever politician… tall and broad, at forty-five… respectably handsome… I never understood how the mysterious Dan Dube and my father were such good friends… my father was over sixty, and, because of poverty and hard work, looked much older than his age… laughed seldom, and outside his clerical work… had no ambitions. Yet the two were good friends.
(Kachingwe: No Easy Task. 1966.1-3).
In this tightly-knit, economical writing, you can see how the characters of Jo Jozeni, Dan Dube, Reverend Josiah Jozeni, Mr. Lukani, and even Reverend Webb have, with deft touches, been made to stand as the trees in this forest of a story!
The rest of the novel develops details that tell the reader of poverty, ambitions, politics, beliefs, views, and conditions that move society.
Character and Life
The big question is, “Are the characters in fiction drawn directly from life?” If they are, why then do writers often disclaim the fact when they write, ‘… any resemblance to any living person here is purely coincidental and unintended … characters here are all imagined …’
If novels are about life, if they are about society as men and women and children and families and communities share experiences in a context, then the characters must reflect life, must come out of society.
Natalie Goldberg says, if fictional characters must do this, that is, reflect life, come out of society, the writer must follow the old adage, “Don’t tell, but show” – that is, “don’t tell us about anger – or any of those big words like ‘honesty,’ ‘truth,’ ‘love,’ ‘sorrow,’ ‘life,’ ‘justice’ – show the reader the situation in which the character brings out the particular feeling or embodied idea. Let the character live sharp and clear and be the concrete picture you describe. For instance, you can write about the nature of life from observing the birth of a child in a modern hospital: just describe WHAT you see: the mother’s face… the rush of energy as the baby finally enters the world with a piercing cry, after the nurses have urged and/or bullied the woman in her several attempts at ‘pushing,’ the husband breathing with his wife… the reader will see characters illustrating the nature of life.
Characters as Symbols and Images
You may wish to write an allegory, or a parable. In such seeming “fantasy” writing, your characters are “abstract” objects personified. In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, in many Biblical “stories” which Jesus used to illustrate facts and rules of life, the characters were not always “persons” as we normally think of them. Instead, you may want to focus on the things around you that make you ask whether life is worth living or not, things like crime, poverty, injustice, death; or the “things” inside each one of us, things like frustration, boredom, despair, and turn them into “living” characters. Read carefully the parable of Jesus at Mark 4:1-10, 13-20, and you will see how an abstract of “farmer” (“Sower”), “Seeds” on “path,” on “rocky places,” or “thorny ground,” and on “good soil” translate from abstractions to concrete features of life in “the word” of God among various experiences of people – with Satan, with superficial attitudes, with succumbing to deceits and temptations. In the end, “sower,” “seed,” and “soil” become lively characters.
To further clarify how abstract, symbolic characters may be understood and created, let us look at a contrast: realistic characters created in action. Remember that all your characters are in a setting, have voices, have beliefs and concerns in their environment, do develop and evolve. ‘Abstract’ characters tend to be fixed in a situation where they exist to illustrate some idea or belief. Now, real-life characters are real.
Let us take an example of a character really created by “showing” her actions, in the famous American novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Robert Olmstead illustrates it.
“ …The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise – she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression – then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’mp-paralyzed with happiness”
She laughed again, as if she said something very witty,
and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming. ”
Here is a character, real, with a name; you come to know her from WHAT she is doing: - “attempts to rise,” “leans” … “laughs” … “speaks” … “laughs again” … “holds hands” … “looks” … “promises” … “hints” … “murmurs” … . Each action affects the storyteller because he, in turn, “…leans,” “laughs,” “listens,” “holds” her hands. Behavior and appearance here help to further concretize the character. It is not like that in the abstract characters of the parable or allegory.
CONCLUSION
Character and character creation are a big challenge to the writer. He has to build them; he has to take them from life, but not brazenly or carelessly; he has to balance various aspects and observe and use the least detail, provide them with believable motivations, or even make them abstract. Characterization produces excellent story.
Leave a comment behind