3.1 Interpreting character description and perspective

In this guide, we’ll cover how to analyze characters based on what a text tells us about them.

Information from the AP English Literature Course and Exam Description.

Descriptions, Descriptions…

When you meet a character, they’ll generally be introduced with a description. 

The description may be short, as in the Brother’s Grimm’s description of Cinderella:

“A rich man's wife became sick, and when she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, "Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you." With this she closed her eyes and died. The girl went out to her mother's grave every day and wept, and she remained pious and good.” (Source)

Or it may be very long, as in certain Victorian works. This is the opening description of Lucie Manette, a main character from A Tale of Two Cities: 

“...he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, though it included all the four expressions…” (Source)

From these descriptions, we have a first impression of our characters. 

Character descriptions may include…

• Physical details such as their hair color and height, such as in the description of Lucie above.
• Personality details such as their hopes, dreams, motives and beliefs, as well as words used to describe personality in general (“grumpy”, “kind”)
• Other details such as their family background.  Anything used to identify a character may be placed in their description. 

Character descriptions may be given by a narrator (as in these two examples) or by a character in the book. Characters can even give descriptions of themselves. 

Besides giving us a visual image in our head of who our character is, the description of a character is important for two main reasons. 

(Great) Expectations

The first is that the description of a character creates expectations for that character’s behavior. In the above example of Cinderella, we can expect Cinderella to be “pious and good” throughout the story, and that’s what she is. 

However, characters can also fail to meet the expectations given to them by a description. Let’s say a character is introduced as “kind and gentle,” but then goes on to be selfish and cruel. How does our interpretation of the character change as a result? Here are some ways it might change…

• It could be that the author is bad at identifying character traits. This may not be the best explanation, though…
• It could be that the person describing the character as “kind and gentle” is biased. For example, if the speaker is the character’s mother or brother, they may be blind to the selfishness of their relative.
• If it’s the narrator speaking, it could be that you have an unreliable narrator. Unreliable narrators are narrators that do not always convey a truthful version of events.
• It may indicate values dissonance between our modern world and the world of the story or the author.
  • If this is the case, it is important to separate our modern values from the values of the author’s time and values of the characters within the story. We should evaluate the work through our own moral lens for sure, but at the same time we should keep in mind the context of the work. All of these will contextualize the way we interpret the character, and the entity giving the description. 

Devil in the Details

The second reason why the character description is important is because you can extract inferred character traits from them. A character does not have to be described as “stingy” or “bitter” for us as readers to know that they are.

One of the aspects of a character that tends to go unspoken are their motives. (The exception being in Drama, where characters will sometimes say outright what their motives are.) A motive is what drives a character to act — common motives include love, fear, and envy. 

If we are introduced to a character who has all their doors bolted and sleeps with a shotgun at the side of their bed, we do not have to be told that this character is afraid of something — we can see it through their actions (keeping a shotgun at their side) and inactions (not going outside.)

Sometimes you can infer character traits based on a metaphor or simile that another character, the narrator and/or a speaker uses. If a character is described as “hard as stone,” we can expect them to be stubborn and cold.

You can sometimes infer character traits based on a state that a character is in or some innate quality they have. For example, Lucie Manette from the example above is frequently described as “young.” We might expect, then, that she’ll be portrayed as naive or innocent or pure-hearted. Sometimes characters fall into certain archetypes such as “the hero” or “the mentor.” It’s important not to slip into stereotypes with this assumption, but it can be a good way to make predictions about a work. 

Other times, it takes knowledge of the context that the author is writing in to understand inferred character traits. For example, characters in older works with blonde hair and blue eyes tend to have kind, sweet personalities. 

Perspective 

Finally, let’s talk about character perspectives! A character’s perspective is their point of view. Characters can have perspectives on the world, events in their lives, other characters… the list goes on. It’s important to know what a character’s perspective is because that can inform the decisions they choose to make and the way they move the plot along. For example, a character who thinks humans are fundamentally selfish will respond to a situation differently from one who thinks humans are fundamentally good. 

How do we tell what a character’s perspective is? 

• Sometimes, characters will tell you — in their narration, thoughts, or dialogue — what they think.
• Characters may indicate their perspective through their actions. It’s important to note that our understanding of a character’s perspective as readers may depend on the perspective of the narrator. For example, a first person narrator, seeing things through their point of view, may not know as much about another character’s perspective as an all-seeing (omniscient) narrator would. A character’s perspective can also change over the course of a work. A character who starts out cynical or optimistic may be completely the opposite at the story’s end. We'll touch on this more in our next guide, we'll talk about how characters change throughout a narrative.