Table Of ContentThe Rhetoric of Character
in Children's Literature
MariaN ikolajeva
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford
In memoriam Astrid Lindgren
SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
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Copyright© 2002 by Maria Nikolajeva
First paperback edition 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
The hardback edition of this book was catalogued by the Library of Congress as
follows:
Nikolajeva, Maria, 1952-
The rhetoric of character in children's literature/ Maria Nikolajeva.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Children's literature-History and criticism. 2. Characters and
characteristics in literature. I. Title.
PN1009.5.C43 N55 2002
809'.927-dc21
2002019952
0-8108-4886-4 (pbk: alk. paper)
Q'e:J ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the
United States of America.
Contents
Acknowledgments v
Introduction: Why a Theory of Character? vii
Part I. Ontology and Typology of Character
Chapter 1 Approaches to Literary Characters 3
Chapter 2 From Hero to Character 26
Chapter 3 In Search of the Protagonist 49
Chapter 4 Collective Character 67
Chapter 5 From Collective Character to lntersubjectivity 88
Chapter 6 Secondary Characters and Character
Constellations 110
Chapter 7 Complexity and Development 128
Part II. Epistemology of Character 153
Chapter 8 Character and Plot 159
Chapter 9 Authorial Discourse: Description and Narration 182
Chapter 10 Authorial Discourse: Actions and Events 198
Chapter 11 Figural Discourse: Speech Acts 223
iii
iv ,____. Contents
Chapter 12 Figural Discourse: Internal Representation 241
Chapter 13 Implicit Characterization 268
Conclusion: Returning to the Text 282
Bibliography 285
Name Index 306
Title Index 309
Character Index 315
Subject Index 323
About the Author 332
Acknowledgments
This book is the first result of a large-scale research project on "Children's
Literature and Narrative Theory" financed by Stockholm University. Dur
ing my three-year research grant, I was able to devote my whole attention
to the theory of characters, which is almost an unheard of luxury for a
scholar in the humanities. I feel privileged by having been given this oppor
tunity and would like to extend my thanks to the Department of Compar
ative Literature at Stockholm University for supporting this project, espe
cially given the fact that the alternative proposal was August Strindberg.
The idea for the specific examination of literary characters in children's
literature was prompted by the members of the research project "Children's
Literature: Pure and Applied" at Abo Akademi University, Finland. While
the initial inspiration came mainly from Mia Osterlund and Kaisu Rattya,
during the later stages of my work, Maria Lassen-Seger's investigation of
transgressional characters provided many valuable thoughts.
The book was researched and written during my two years as a visiting pro
fessor at San Diego State University (SDSU) in California. I would like to
extend my thanks to Alida Allison for initiating this enterprise; to Carey Wall,
the chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at SDSU,
for providing this opportunity; and to all colleagues at SDSU for the stimulat
ing intellectual climate. Nobody is forgotten, but I must emphasize weekly
lunchtime conversations with Mary Galbraith as an indispensable part of my
scholarly process, as well as Carole Scott's ever-inspiring skepticism.
Roberta Seelinger Trites has been especially important during this time,
with her unfailing confidence and support. Apart from this personal inspi
ration, I received many helpful comments on my research during the semi
nar she invited me to give at Illinois State University.
v
vi Acknowledgments
,____.
I received several opportunities to present parts of my research at the
University ofTurku and the Abo Akademi University, Finland; the Danish
Center for Children's Literature, Denmark; and the conference on Modern
Critical Approaches to Children's Literature at Middle Tennessee State
University, Murfeesboro.
I am indebted to Judith Plotz for soliciting an essay on work in children's
fiction (appearing in The Lion & the Unicorn), which has become incorpo
rated into chapter 10.
Great thanks to Lydia Williams, who managed elegantly to change hats
from being a demanding and helpful colleague to shaping my text into
proper English idiom.
Finally, thanks to my husband Staffan Skott, who once again showed
patience and understanding during my long and boring explications on
intersubjectivity and psychonarration.
INTRODUCTION
Why a Theory of Character?
I wrote this book in response to recurrent experiences as a university teacher
of children's literature. Before I became aware of the problem, I, like so
many of my colleagues, favored examination topics such as "Discuss char
acterization in . . . ." What we got back were dull, descriptive essays, even
though we naturally wanted something other than a rendering of what char
acters do in the story or even an evaluation of the ideas they represent.
However, the fault was ours: we failed to offer our students adequate tools
for analyzing the artistic means used for characterization.
The issue of characters seems to be so self-evident that few studies of
children's literature have paid any attention to it. We may find some basic
concepts in textbooks, and we often see children's book reviews men
tioning something to the effect that "characterization is strong and vivid."
However, there is no clear understanding of what exactly "characteriza
tion" includes. Scholars do not agree about the nature and function of
characters in literature for children, nor has theoretical research been
done on characterization in children's fiction. Little established termi
nology exists for discussing characters and characterization. No theoreti
cal work compares characters in general fiction and characters in fiction
for children.
Among the many questions that teachers put to schoolchildren when dis
cussing literary texts, I find two particularly illuminating: "Who is the main
character of the story?" and "Who do you like best in the story?" (Less sophis
ticated versions include "Who would you like to be friends with?"; more
sophisticated: "With whom do you identify?") When teachers ask such ques
tions, they obviously assume them to be simple and self-evident, but on closer
consideration they would probably have problems, as do my students-many
vii
viii Introduction
,____.
of them future teachers-determining the main character in Little Women or
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Moreover, the assumption that as read
ers we necessarily must identify with some character in the story we are read
ing has been seriously questioned by contemporary literary theory. Children's
writers have successfully subverted identification by creating a variety of
repulsive, unpleasant characters with whom no normal human being would
want to identify. The problem of subjectivity in literature, which has recently
become a key issue in general criticism, has so far not reached the attention
of children's literature scholars, with few exceptions (e.g., McCallum 1999).
These are just two very elementary examples of the complexity of this seem
ingly simple matter.
Unfortunately, there is no option, as there has been in some other areas
of children's literature research, to borrow concepts and analytical tools
from general criticism. The theory of character is only marginally more
developed in general literary studies. Searching the subject "character and
characteristics in literature" in the Library of Congress on-line catalog, I
found 427 items, 95 percent of which fall roughly under one of three cate
gories: ( 1) "who is who in literature," including who is who in Shakespeare,
Dickens, Jane Austen, and so on; (2) writers' manuals ("how to create a
plausible character"); and (3) critical studies of particular writers or works.
In the third category, the majority of studies focus on the question of what
or who the characters are or, at best, what they represent, rather than on how
they are constructed and revealed for the reader. In children's literature
research, Gillian Avery's (1965, 1975) studies of nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century heroes and heroines in children's fiction are a very good
example.
Many titles are misleading in this respect. For instance, Life Made Real:
Characterization in the Novel since Proust and Joyce by Thomas F. Petruso
(1991), a brilliant study of what characters are, hardly addresses any theo
retical aspects of characterization. Mary Doyle Springer's (1978) promising
title A Rhetoric of Literary Character has the subtitle Some Women of Henry
]ames, which corresponds better to the contents of the study. The titles of
some studies of children's fiction are equally deceptive; for instance Ray
mond Jones's (1997) Characters in Children's Literature is an annotated
index, while Margery Hourihan's (1997) Deconstructing the Hero is a mar
velous feminist study of ideology in traditional children's literature.
Paradoxically, the most rewarding theoretical discussions on character
are to be found in general studies of narrative, not specifically focused on
character. These range from the standard Aspects of the Novel by E. M.
Forster (1927 ) to one of the most recent contributions to the field, the sec-
Introduction .--._. ix
ond edition of Narratology by Mieke Bal (1997). However, far from all the
oretical works on narrative pay attention to character. Such a milestone in
contemporary theory of the novel as Wayne C. Booth's (1 961) The Rhetoric
of Fiction does not discuss character or characterization at all. In The Nature
of Narrative, Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg (1966), striving to go
beyond the examination of the novel and to build bridges between ancient
or medieval and postmodern literature in terms of narrative structure, have
provided valuable insights into characterization. In fact, most of this illu
minating study is about character, even the chapters devoted to plot, point
of view, and meaning. Scholes and Kellogg maintain that "characters are
the primary vehicles for revealing meaning in narrative" (104 ). Yet, while
some valuable observations are made in the chapter on character in narra
tive (160-206), they have long been surpassed by more recent studies, espe
cially in the area of depicting the characters' inner life. Also the chapter on
point of view feels outdated, given the expanding nature of narrative stud
ies in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
The ever-increasing number of writer's manuals on character do not, of
course, represent any scholarly rigor; however, given the general lack of
sources, they should not be neglected (see Card 1988; Cowden 2000; Edel
stein 1999; Hood 1998; Kress 1998; Lauther 1998; Swain 1990). Although,
for obvious reasons, not based on any theoretical ground, they do suggest
the vast scope of artistic devices available for writers in creating characters.
These include descriptions, dialogue, background, psychologically plausible
personality traits, professions and hobbies, relationships, involving charac
ters in a plot, using setting for characterization, and so on.
The dilemma for a children's literature scholar is that it is almost impos
sible to extrapolate the results of general narratological studies to children's
fiction. One very good example is that many genres discussed in studies of
narrative are not relevant for children's fiction, such as the courtesy novel,
fabliaux (Martin 1986, 31), sacred myth, epic, legend, allegory, confession,
or satire (Scholes and Kellogg 1966, 3 ). With very few exceptions, such as
Roald Dahl, children's literature does not employ the grotesque. According
to conventional genre definitions, all children's literature can be labeled as
bildungsroman. The nature of children's literature presupposes a different
set of rules both for the authors' creation of characters and for the readers'
understanding of them.
A number of studies, often of surveys, discuss concrete types or charac
ters in children's or young adult fiction: the portrayal of Afro-Americans
(MacCann 1998), homosexual characters (Cuseo 1992; Day 2000), immi
grants (McCoy 2000), people with disabilities (Robinson 1992), and so on.
