Character analysis is an essential part of literary analysis. It typically involves explaining what motivates a character in terms of their thinking, conversation, and behavior. Character analysis can help reveal how well a short story, novel, or play is written in terms of consistency and credibility
In this article, I explain what a character analysis is and how to write a character analysis essay. Lastly, I provide appropriate examples of character analysis essays.
What is character analysis?
Character analysis is a type of critical literature review that analyzes the motivations and behavior of a character in works of fiction such as novels, short stories, and plays.
The analysis seeks to uncover how consistent characterization is and how it fits in with other aspects of the work of fiction, such as the plot or the overarching themes.
How to write a character analysis essay?
To write a character analysis essay, you should follow these steps:
1. Point out the facts of the character’s behavior and actions;
2. Tie these acts and behaviors to the character’s thinking and motivations;
3. Use evidence from the text to justify your conclusions; and
4. Judge whether or not character actions or motivations are consistent or tie in with the work’s wider themes.
In addition to this, you should pay close attention to the text even before you begin your analysis. It would also help to rely on models for proper analysis. For example, you can consult your professor to find out critical literature that provides ideal examples or character analysis.
This approach would allow you to study these texts and let them serve as models for your own original analysis. Below, we provide examples of character analysis from famous works of fiction. The character we will look at in this min-essay is that of Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (1925):
Example of a character analysis essay |
Tom Buchanan Character Analysis
Tom is portrayed as a careless and violent brute from the beginning to the end of the novel. He is the stereotypical highschool or college jock who is incapable of anything else besides excelling in sports. Nick Carraway describes him in the very first chapter as follows:
One of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anticlimax.
He is the husband of Daisy, the object of Gatsby’s desires. He has the character of an unlikable jock. He is violent, including with his mistress Myrtle whose nose he breaks. Even the careless way he carries on his affair with Myrtle, with no regard for his wife, yet still expecting his wife to remain faithful is an extension of his carelessness. His physical power and strength is emphasized by the narrator of the novel:
Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.
The role he plays in violently breaking up Gatsby’s fantasy of being with Daisy is suggested in the very beginning pages of the novel in the famous billowing curtain scene that introduces Daisy and her friend Jordan to readers:
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
Here, Tom is portrayed as violently punching the wind out of Gatsby’s fantasy of being with Daisy. The scene is a premonition that is fulfilled when Tom arranges for Gatsby to take the blame for running over his mistress in a hit-and-run. This begins a chain of events that leads to Gatsby’s death.
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Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, November 20). What Is a Character Analysis? https://www.eminentediting.com/post/what-is-a-character-analysis |
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