What Is a Character Arc?
- Melchior Antoine
- Oct 29
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 31
Most stories concern themselves with charting out the progress or lack thereof made by the main character or protagonist. This is otherwise known as a character arc or a character curve. It is key to proper characterization.
A character curve charts the progress, positive or negative, made by the main character. This progress or growth can be seen as the level of fortune that is experienced by the character throughout the course of the story. However, a fuller or truer definition of the term is as follows:
A character arc describes how a character grows or changes through the course of a story.
A character arc, at the most basic level, usually has three patterns:
Positive Change
Negative Change
Neutral Change
With the character arc of positive change, the character grows in terms of knowledge of self, knowledge of the world, or moral character. This type of character is also known as a round character. A good example of this is Darth Vader in Star Wars. Negative change means that the character experiences regression in terms of moral character. A good example of this is the protagonist in Macbeth.
Neutral change means that the character experiences no change, either in a positive or a negative direction. This means that if the character started off badly, they remain so. If they start off positively, they don’t change for the worse. Such a character can also be referred to as a flat character.
A good example of a neutral character curve of a negative character is that of King Claudius in Hamlet. He starts off as a villain and ends as one. An example of a neutral character that starts off positively is Macduff in Macbeth, who starts as the stereotypical good man, who is the antagonist to Macbeth. In this article, we delve deeper into the meaning of a character arc using the example of Hamlet.
Hamlet’s character arc
The best character curves or characterizations in literature aren’t linear. They take us on a topsy-turvy journey of self-discovery, failure, and growth by the protagonist. A good example of this is the character arc for the protagonist in Hamlet.
Hamlet begins the story in the dumps. He is depressed, contemplating suicide, and revolted at the idea of his mother marrying his uncle weeks after the death of his father, King Hamlet. In particular, his mother’s supposed infidelity and incest disturb him. His gravest crime is committed during the climax of the play, while he accuses his mother of incest in the closet scene, saying:
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty (Act 3, Scene 2).
However, nonetheless, Hamlet retains a core of Christian morality as defined by the moral universe of the play. Even in his suicidal speech, he mentions that these Christian principles prevent him from killing himself:
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
He doesn’t commit suicide because the Everlasting (which can be interpreted as either God or the eternal afterlife promised in Christianity) has fixed “His canon ’gainst self-slaughter.” Nonetheless, he feels there is something sick and wrong with the world. In other words, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Act 1, Scene 4). His intuition is proven correct when it is revealed that his father was murdered by King Claudius.
The narrative arc should not be mistaken with the character arc, but in Hamlet, the two are closely related. The narrative arc describes the chronological order of the plot that maps out how a conflict is resolved. Hamlet’s character arc closely follows the narrative arc.
The narrative arc is made up of 1. Exposition (or introduction), 2. Rising Action, 3. Climax, 4. Falling action, and 5. Resolution. In the exposition, we see Hamlet at a low point depressed and suicidal. The rising action of the play marks the potential for Hamlet’s progress.
Hamlet first meets his father’s ghost, who informs him that King Claudius has murdered King Hamlet by poisoning him through the ear. This leads to a series of three scenes that decide Hamlet’s character arc:
The Mousetrap Scene (Act 3, Scene 2)
The Prayer Scene (Act 3, Scene 3)
The Closet Scene (Act 3, Scene 4)
In the Mousetrap Scene, Hamlet puts on a play that mimics the manner of his father’s death before King Claudius. King Claudius’ reaction to the play confirms that he is guilty of murder. Hamlet then walks in on King Claudius praying (in the Prayer Scene), draws out his sword to kill him, and then changes his mind.
The Closet Scene is the climax of the play, where Hamlet is having a conversation with his mother and sees someone spying behind the arras. He mistakes that someone for King Claudius, pulls out his sword, and stabs only to find out that it was the innocent Polonius, spying on behalf of the king.
Hamlet tries to make up for his crime by choosing to participate in a fixed fencing match arranged by King Claudius and Laertes, the son of Polonius. He has no idea what the outcome will be, although being fully aware of the danger. When his friend Horatio advises him to refuse the fencing match, he doesn't listen. The outcome of the fencing match brings us to mind his words after killing Polonius:
I do repent: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister (Act 3, Scene 4)
Here, Hamlet is, as it were, putting himself in the hands of God to be simultaneously punished and carry out punishment against King Claudius for killing his father. It works in a sense, as by the end of the fence-fighting scene, Hamlet is poisoned to death and dies, but not before killing King Claudius. We can say that Hamlet experiences an overall positive character arc and is an example of successful characterization.
He begins the play as suicidal and self-involved. His moral arc begins to rise when he discovers the truth behind his father’s death from a ghost and proves it in real life with the Mousetrap Scene. His moral arc reaches a high in the Prayer Scene when he resists the temptation to kill King Claudius as he prays.
It reaches its lowest point after he decides to mistakenly kills the innocent Polonius.
Finally, Hamlet redeems himself by participating in the fencing match and trusting God that things play out as they must. Hamlet can even be interpreted as the archetype of the sacrificial hero. To summarize, Hamlet is transformed from being a man who is self-involved and angry with the world, even contemplating suicide, to a man who is willing to sacrifice himself to make the world, or at least his country, right.
