What you'll learn
How to analyse characters and why they act as they do.
Key ideas
- Characterisation: how a writer presents character through speech, action, appearance and others' views.
- Motivation: the reasons behind a character's choices.
- Character development (the arc) across the text; protagonist, antagonist and foil.
Analysing
- Focus on how the writer presents the character, using evidence.
Exam tips
- Discuss the writer's methods, not the character as a real person only.
- Track how a character changes.
Common mistakes
- Describing characters as if they were real, with no analysis of method.
- Ignoring how a character develops.