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| Sympathetic and Unsympathetic Characters |
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| Recently I began reading a novel, but after slogging through the first 100 pages, I gave up. As I got to know the characters, there was less and less that I liked about them. There wasn�t one character with whom I could identify or like a little bit. Everything about them, their conflicts, their situations, were unbelievable. Perhaps if I had forced myself to finish the book, I would have discovered some redeeming qualities about these characters. After all, the story was supposed to be a satire.
An example of using satire and unsympathetic characters is T. Coraghessan Boyle�s story, �The Hit Man.� The story exaggerates the violence but also shows the title character leading a relatively normal life from early childhood to old age, except for his inclination toward killing people, and the stereotypical black hood he wore. This type of story�s goal is for effect, twisting a theme until it�s hilarious or strange. When I had first started these notes�before I tried reading the book I mentioned in the beginning�I couldn�t find any true examples of unsympathetic characters. I thought of Thomas Harris� Hannibal Lecter but decided even though he was evil, readers still liked him. The Hannibal trilogy is a best seller and movie patrons have flocked to the theatres to make both Hannibal movies blockbusters. How can a man who murders people and serves their livers to dinner guests be so compelling and make readers want to invest time in the novels? Take away his pathology, and Hannibal is left with qualities most people admire. He�s an interesting conversationalist, extremely intelligent, and so clever and cunning. Hannibal Lecter is intriguing. In response to the Medgar Evers assassination in 1963, Eudora Welty wrote her short story, �Where is the Voice Coming From?� The story is told in first-person point of view, through the eyes of the then-uncaptured assassin. There�s nothing likeable about the narrator of this story. But the voice and the writing are compelling. It shows a horrible side of human nature most of us turn away from. Welty says about writing the story: �That hot August night when Medgar Evers, the local civil rights leader, was shot down from behind in Jackson, I thought, with overwhelming directness: Whoever the murderer is, I know him: not his identity, but his coming about, in this time and place. That is, I ought to have learned by now, from here, what such a man, intent on such a deed, had going on in his mind. I wrote his story�my fiction�in the first person: about that character�s point of view, I felt, through my shock and revolt, I could make no mistake.� We don�t necessarily have to like our characters, but we should write them with passion�either positive or negative. And contrary to what many �how-to-write� books and workshops teach you, your main character need not be a sympathetic character. Back to the characters in the book I didn�t finish. I consider them unsympathetic characters (and this is a subjective point of view) because not only did I not like the characters, but also I didn�t understand them or their motivations. Robin Hemley wrote in Creating Fiction, �If we as writers understand our characters, even the unlikable ones, if we understand their motivations and convey this understanding to the reader, then perhaps we will come to understand something more about the mysteries of human behavior and aspiration, not the givens we already grasp, not the people and borders we know well.� A sympathetic character doesn�t necessary have to be likeable. The motivation in the narrator of Welty�s story is clear. One night I watched a television show in which a woman left her newborn baby in a hallway. I was horrified. Who could abandon her baby? I immediately disliked this woman. Later, as she spoke to an attorney from jail, she said about her baby, �I hate it.� From then I lost all sympathy for this woman. As the show continued, it attempted to make the viewer gain sympathy for the woman by trying to make the viewer understand that she was a victim of rape and the baby was a product of rape. I wasn�t an easy sell like the attorney who originally said she wished the mother would be locked up until menopause then did a 180 when she found out about the rape. Adding the complication of the biological father trying to get custody of the child didn�t make me think, �Well, she�s the lesser of two evils, so she should have custody.� I didn�t sympathize with the mother, though the scriptwriters tried to make me feel that way. I think they were successful in portraying two unsympathetic characters, but their attempt to reverse my lack of sympathy failed. In �Roman Fever� Edith Wharton is masterful in the reversal of sympathies. In the beginning of the story, Mrs. Slade is portrayed as the more attractive and energetic woman than the quiet and plain companion, Mrs. Ansley. The story is told through Mrs. Slade�s point of view, so the reader is not privy to Mrs. Ansley�s thoughts. But it�s through Mrs. Slade�s actions and her increasing hostility the sympathy shifts to the quiet and plain companion. By the end of the story, Mrs. Slade gets her just desserts and the reader has subtly been moved to Mrs. Ansley�s side. The reader has been made to care about her. Think about TV dramas. In most, there�s always a character the audience loves to hate. There�s the ruthless businessman or the manipulative woman who will do whatever they can to get what they want. Sometimes they�re caught in their webs of deceit. Sometimes their vulnerabilities are revealed. What is it about them that not only makes the audience scream but also makes them tune in for every episode? If you want to make your reader care about characters who are obnoxious, immoral, evil, or simpletons, you have to show the character changing in some way, or the character�s motivation is one that is universal. For instance, in Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O�Hara comes across as a manipulative and mean. She steals boyfriends, lies and does whatever she wants to get what she wants. What does she want? She wants the same thing as her cousin Melanie, but Melanie is the opposite of Scarlett. In Candace Bushnell�s Trading Up, Janey Wilcox is a modern day Scarlett O�Hara. Through backstory and flashbacks, we see what motivates Janey to strive to be at the top professionally and in her personal life. Perhaps a horrible character wasn�t always so horrible, and events that led up to the situation made him/her turn out that way. Whatever the motivation, it must be believable. Like �real people,� our characters should be complex. Exercises: #1 Write a satire of an unsympathetic character. The key to this exercise is to exaggerate as much as possible. Choose one of these or use one of your own: � a ruthless businessman/woman � a hit man/serial killer � a president/politician � druggie � car salesman � prostitute For an example of this type of story, read T. Coraghessan Boyle�s �The Hit Man.� #2 Find a published story that uses an unsympathetic character. Now continue that story from a different point of view. For instance, if it�s told from the point of view of a sympathetic character, use the less sympathetic character�s point of view to write your story�or vice versa. Unlike the satire exercise above, in this one you will try to retain your character�s believability. The objective of this exercise is to understand the different ways we can approach human behavior. #3 Using Eudora Welty�s story, �Where is the Voice Coming From?� as a model, write a story from the point of view of an unsympathetic character like the ones listed in exercise one. Instead of writing a satire, write the story realistically. |
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