Introducing and Sustaining Characters in Literary Narrative: A Set of Conditions

Author(s): Uri Margolin

Source: Style , Spring 1987, Vol. 21, No. 1, Rhythm, Rhetoric, Revision (Spring 1987),
pp. 107-124
Published by: Penn State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42945634

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 Uri Margolin

Introducing and Sustaining Characters in

Literary Narrative: A Set of Conditions

0. 1 The intuitive, pretheoretical notion of literary character (LC) is

highly ambiguous and multifarious. The first requirement for any theory of
literary character is hence the explication of the term character by means of
an explicitly defined theoretical vocabulary; the explicated term will then des-
ignate literary character as a model object within the given theory, which will
then proceed to formulate questions and propositions about this theoretical
entity. Contemporary poetics has indeed given the term character a variety of
definitions, each stemming from a different theoretical framework available in
it. A fair number of these definitions can be represented along a scale extending
from textuality to representation, from signifier to signified.
In text grammars, character is understood as the grammatical person,
designated by proper names, pronouns, and (in)definite noun phrases. The
central questions here are strictly inner-textual, involving the various expres-
sions designating persons and their interrelations, such as equivalence between
indefinite/definite referring expressions and between the three kinds of refer-
ring expressions.
In narratology, character is studied as speech position or constitutive role
in the process of narrative transmission or communication. Distinctions are
accordingly made between narrator, narratee, focalizer, and subject of narra-
tion; between first-, second-, or third-person narration; homodiegesis and het-
erodiegesis, and so forth. Questions are asked about the origin of utterances,
the position of the narrator vis-à-vis the narratee and the topic of discourse,
point of view, and the number and interrelations of narrative levels. In recent
years, a pragmatic dimension has been added, involving propositional atti-
tudes, knowledge and evaluation, pragmatic contextual presuppositions, and
types of speech acts performed.
In Greimasian ( école de Paris) narratology, character is conceived of in
a twofold manner. Most basically, it is an actant : a purely functional category
involving the one who accomplishes or undergoes an act (doing) preceding
any semantic investment. As a second step, it is an acteur, or point of con-
vergence of actant role and thematic role, that is, theme or thematic trajectory
(Greimas and Courtés 5-8).
In thematological studies, character is regarded as standing for a semantic
complex or macrosign, composed of a cluster of smaller units (motifs, semes)
unified by a proper name ("When identical semes traverse the same proper

Style: Volume 21, No. 1, Spring 1987 107

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 108 Uri Margolin

name several times an

67]) and embodying as
139-48).
Finally, in current possible world semantics (Doležel, Maitre, Ryan, Wol-
terstorff) character is viewed as signifying an individual, designated by means
of a proper name, pronoun, or (in)definite noun phrase, who is included in or
is a member of some nonactual state of affairs or possible world. Within this
nonactual world the individual can be referred to, located in space-time points,
and ascribed human or human-like properties and relations: actantial (includ-
ing locutionary), physical, social (ethical, interpersonal role), and mental (cog-
nitive, emotive, volitional, perceptual). In addition, such an individual may
be ascribed inner states, knowledge and belief sets, intentions, wishes, attitudes,
and dispositions, that is, an "interiority" or personhood (Ryan 732). In what
follows, our discussion will focus exclusively on this sense of character.
1.1 The model object literary character as a nonactual individual, or
individual existing in some hypothetical, nonactual world, is radically different
from a flesh and blood human being. It is a stipulated individual, an artificial
construct, called into existence, introduced and sustained exclusively by means
of a set of semiotic procedures/operations (Doležel 511-12). Any adequate
theory of literary character, formulated within possible world semantics, will
have to take into account the underlying differences in mode of existence and
in ontological features between actual and nonactual human individuals. It
should also reckon with properties specific to literary discourse as a cultural
institutional fact, constituted and governed by specific conventions of sense
production. Finally, if we concentrate on literary character in narrative, a third
set of basic conditions has to be included, having to do with the constitutive
features of narrative discourse as opposed to, say, drama or lyrical poetry.
The ontological perspective includes at least the following differences: all
the information about any literary character "is in." Literary characters are
entities, statements about which can be made and verified only by consulting
a limited set of statements contained in a specifiable text or other statements
implied by this set (Eaton 28). Such entities are hence ontologically "thin"
and, unlike actual individuals, are definitely not subject to an indefinite number
of predications. This radical closure or limitation of information about literary
characters also means that they are available to us only as radically incomplete
entities and that many predications which can be made about them will get
the truth value "indeterminate" or "undecidable." Literary characters are thus
wttderdetermined objects whose property structure is only partially defined.
For every such individual, there will be cases where neither o(x) nor (x) obtains.
In a word, they are schematic beings, as Ingarden argued long ago. On the
other hand, there is no guarantee that invented individual entities will always
conform to any pattern of ontological regularity, coherence, or even consist-
ency, be it physical or logical, formulated in scientific or everyday descriptions

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 109

of the actual world. Not all imaginable worlds conform

represented by standard logic, and for some hypothet
indeed be the case that both 0(x) and (x) obtain. In oth
acters may be inconsistent or endowed with semantica
erties. Moreover, while actual individuals are assum
tology to be continuous, at least in space and time,
continuities they may possess, semiotically created bein
to us textually as a series of discontinuous person stat
discontinuous series of state descriptions. Their unique
tinuity or identity over time are not guaranteed prima
on textual features, as we shall see below.
The ontological deficiencies of literary characters s
balanced by underlying conventions of literary disc
literary texts it is thus possible to have absolutely cer
knowledge about the inner states and properties of inv
thermore, actual individuals possess an indefinitely larg
of the most heterogeneous kinds. When literary charac
the other hand, the information provided about their
whether implicitly or explicitly, is not only circumsc
often follows criteria of selection based on the require
evance or homogeneity. In this way, all the features a
viduals can be subsumed under a limited number of semantic dimensions or
categories. The information content of the text is further enhanced by a basic
rule of reading which requires us to regard all the details provided by the text
about an individual as significant and relevant for his1 characterization. Finally,
in literary texts the individual literary characters introduced never exist in
isolation from one another. They form a part of larger designs or patterns of
interrelations, be they actantial, ideological or formal-compositional. As a re-
sult, the literary characters are related to one another along certain semantic
axes, or via formal groupings, and much information about each of them can
be derived through these structural relations in a relative contrastive manner.
The standard model of narrative, prevalent in contemporary poetics, is
dualistic; it envisages all narratives as built on the solidarity of two sub-systems:
narration and the narrated (Prince) representation and the represented (Ruth-
rof), story and discourse (Chatman). Every narrative thus contains one or more
individuals who are participants in the system of narration (the figure of the
narrator), and one or more individuals who are participants in the system of
the narrated (a character in the story). Every literary character is of necessity
a participant in either system or in both. The nature, sources of information,
and degree of knowability of any literary character will depend on his location
in either system. The narrator, for example, is present to us directly, but ex-
clusively as a locutionary agent at narration time. All information about char-
acters in the story, on the other hand, is mediated or filtered through a narrating

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1 10 Uri Margolin

instance, but these char

tal, or physical. A nar
narrator have no absolu
the story may possess
between literary chara
each variety separately.
narrated domain ("stor
monly referred to as n
poral conjunction or s
sequence), each specifie
by the text (Ryan 717)
analysis, since I assume
rative sequence can be d
is repeatedly divisible u
"atomic" states (Ferrar
with only one variety
literary narrative, the on
a heterodiegetic narrat
ization statements abou
fying assumptions: (1) t
(2) all the information
events and existents, is
Now that we have red
can formulate our cent
ditions under which lit
erties, can be introduc
domain? In other words
as existents in a narrat
the question can be ref
tions which the reader
be able to speak meanin
a given narrative. But t
tion of textual conditio
constitutive conditions
in terms of five pairs
The five conditions a
presupposing its antec
universal, being pure
stronger, and optional.
modernism to postmode
were satisfied (realism
the latter situation bei
in the contemporary no

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 1 1 1

Text-world aspect Corresponding reader-

operation

(1) existence vs. mere semiotic possibility establishment of membership

in a text-world

(2) identity vs. indeterminacy predication or qualification

(depersonalization)
(3) uniqueness vs. deindividuation differentiation
(4) paradigmatic unity vs. array, aggregate, networking, hierarchization
random assemblage
(5) syntagmatic continuity vs. temporal temporal integration
dispersal

Fig. 1

acter introduction and maintenance are not immediately evident in realistic

narrative and become most apparent or foregrounded only when they are laid
bare, not fulfilled, or explicitly negated. The best way to study their nature and
force is hence ex negativo , from cases of total or partial nonfulfillment, which
we shall accordingly illustrate for each condition.
2. 1 Existence or extensional dimension , answering the question, "Is
individual x in narrative domain Wn?"
Fulfillment of this condition means that it is possible, on the basis of
textual data, to identify uniquely, stably, and unequivocally an individual as
existing in a given story state Sn. Individuals are textually introduced in nar-
rator-formulated propositions as existing in a given domain by means of re-
ferring expressions, such as proper names, pronouns, and definite descriptions.
It is a basic pragmatic assumption that "the speaker, in using a singular definite
referring expression, commits himself, at least temporarily and provisionally,
to the existence of a referent satisfying his description" (Lyons 183). Non-
satisfaction of the existence condition, leading to a failure of the corresponding
reader operation, can be brought about by means of a variety of textual pro-
cedures.
If, for example, it is not clear whether a singular definite referring expres-
sion is used or just mentioned/quoted on a particular occurrence, referring is
not established, and we are left hovering between word and world, the name
being just displayed or used referentially. In a literary context, a proper name
or definite description may function referentially, or it may just be quoted
intertextually as in a literary formula, cliché, or stereotype, or as part of a
textual fragment from another discourse, as, for example, in parodie quotation.
In this case we are left with the expression as pure signifier. Similarly, a pronoun
may refer ambiguously to representational and/or textual units, as in Philippe

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112 Uri Margolin

Sollers's Drame (1965),

or to le texte and la p
to whether we are dea
verbal creation, as a set
textually self-referent
Uniqueness or singular
or proper name is us
individuals; when it is
expression are corefere
and indefinite article
scriptions are ambiguo
story state remains un
of coreference are boun
number of existents w
The linguistic proced
of ontological operatio
narrated domain and
tological "twilight zon
main are first made an
them are modalized a
tional ("if on a winter
one"). Similar cases inv
the existence of a cert
appeal to the reader to
narrated domain, wh
when boundaries betw
rated world are fluid
unstable, shifting, or
"actual" world within
belief, wish, and inten
ontological status of in
did narrative agent X
another narrative agen
narrative agent (Flann
ternately in different
sphere of existence is
domain and a semioti
book, painting, film,
vous ; Coover, "The Bab
erogeneous ontological
weakening the existenc
"Abenteuer der Sylves
a literary character fro

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 1 1 3

and signified and multiple ontologies are among the hall

nonrepresentational narrative, in which one gets stuck a
literary character construction.2
2.2 Identity or intensional dimension , answering
is the individual X like?"
To establish the naked existence of an individual in a given story state
is a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for turning him into a
literary character. To this end, identification and qualification of the bare pa
ticular are essential, especially as it is doubtful that one could meaningfully
conceive of an individual bereft of any properties. The text would accordingly
ascribe to the individual existent some traits or properties (features, attribut
characteristics): locutionary, physical, mental, and social, which identify him
as the kind of person he is. Such ascription is explicit, through characterizati
statements made by the narrator, or implicit, that is, entailed by narratori
propositions concerning the verbal, mental, and physical acts and states of a
narrative agent or by narratorial propositions describing the setting and lo-
cation of a narrative agent. Implicit ascription of properties may also follow
from formal compositional patterns or grouping: analogy, opposition, repet
tion, and so on. As regards their specific nature, the properties of any literar
character can be ranked as fundamental or not. The fundamental or categoric
properties of an individual are those which determine whether the attributio
of most other properties (physical, social, mental, locutionary) to this indi-
vidual is significant (meaningful) or not, literal or metaphorical. Categorical
properties also determine which of the individual's states and acts will coun
as a manifestation of properties expressed by predicates with a built-in eval
uative component, such as "just," "clever," or "beautiful." Examples of ca
egorical properties are the species to which an individual belongs (human vs
inanimate vs. animal), age, sex, social role, and rank as defined by the te
world.3 The degree of characterization of any narrative agent can vary enor
mously from one single brief predication, which is just enough to distingui
each narrative agent from all others, to a large number of finely nuance
complex predications, involving many aspects or dimensions, as in Henr
James. Degree of characterization often serves as an indicator for the centrali
of an individual in a given story state.
By convention, characterization statements made by the narrator in a
past tense heterodiegetic story with access to the inner states of the narrativ
agents are of absolute validity, while characterization statements made by o
narrative agent about another may or may not be valid in the text wor
However, even narrational ascriptions of properties may be defeated if they
are first made and subsequently denied within the same state description. Suc
ascriptions are weakened if modalized (2.1) or if several alternative versions
(characterizations) of the same individual are introduced and left as undecid
able or equiprobable, that is, possessing the same degree of truth claim. In th

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 114 Uri Margolin

latter case, all of these

terization at all takes
matized if a narrative
without restriction or
case we may say that
another, turning the i
acterization possibilitie
universe (Rescher and
rative agent cannot co
and the construction
structed. Such are the
Narratorial character
troduced throughout a
specific nature, as imp
characterizations hove
When ascription of p
narrator's propositions
of inference is thwart
about one and the sam
happened, who did wha
of events is unclear, or
since in either case w
characterizations of th
ment inferred on the
ened if there is no une
or happenings, if men
its contents are dictat
sciousness narratives.
question when the disc
referential. One good
Woman, where the na
terized her, goes on to
her with equal probab
tures (chapter 1 3). Thi
back to the status of m
When ascription of p
is possible, it yields a c
paradigm of traits (C
noun phrase. But narr
state. They should the
arately but also related
the third necessary con
and differentiation.

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 1 1 5

2.3 Uniqueness , answering the question, "How m

viduals are there in Wn?"
Uniqueness implies that adequate criteria exist for the numerical dis-
tinction of individuals in any given story state, assuring their separateness.
For any two narrative agents existing in the same story state, there must hence
be some difference between them in the nature of one or more of their prop-
erties and/or in the configuration of their properties. In this context, literary
character is seen as a cluster of simultaneous relations of similarity and dif-
ference in traits between any narrative agent and all other coexisting ones. In
fact, in the economy of narrative a property of a narrative agent is significant
only if it is differentiated, that is, if it, or its negation, belongs to one or more
other narrative agents as well. Unlike actually existing individuals, textually
constructed ones cannot be distinguished by means of direct acquaintance but
only through differences in their verbal descriptions. But these differences must
be with regard to shared dimensions or semantic axes, or they will not be able
to fulfill a differentiating role. At the lower end of the scale of differentiation,
two individuals may be separated by means of part of their proper name and/
or their spatial location, being otherwise indistinguishable, such as Tweedledee
and Tweedledum in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass or Golyadkin
Sr. and Golyadkin Jr. in Dostoevsky's The Double. This is the absolute min-
imum of differentiation: the case of character re-duplication in the group per-
son, clone, identical twin, and double. Quite often there is in such cases a
lingering doubt in the reader's mind as to the "actual" number of different
individuals involved, as they seem to merge into one another, as in Carlos
Fuentes's The Heads of the Hydra. In all other cases, for any two individuals
involved, there will be one or more differences between them along one or
more shared semantic dimension(s), making it possible to relate the individuals
to one another according to their degree of similarity: from analogues or si-
multaneous parallels, through variants sharing their central properties and
differing in marginal ones only, to opposites, revealing a whole set of anto-
nymous properties and relations along several dimensions which highlight each
other in a contrastive manner. Since the same narrative agent may be related
to different other agents with respect to different semantic dimensions in each
case, each confrontation between the given agent and another one will bring
out different features of the given agent.4 Moreover, the juxtaposition of in-
dividuals along shared semantic axes is indispensable for perceiving and in-
ferring the absence of certain properties in a given agent, especially as such
absence is seldom indicated textually in an explicit manner. Quite obviously,
this absence or zero property is significant only within a pattern of interrela-
tions, in which other agents do possess the given feature. Differences in the
configuration, especially hierarchy, of the same properties can also serve the
differentiating function, for instance, predominance of kindness over envy or
vice versa in two agents.

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 116 Uri Margolin

The explicit establish

is not possible if it is
property sets are free
state. Differences in f
situation are ascribed
in the same register o
also fails when acts ca
or interchangeable, or
icable masks (Robbe-
venting the identifica
novel, with its unclear
to decide how many a
how the individuals in
2.4 Paradigmatic un
kind of individual is X?"
The various traits or differential semantic features ascribed by the text,
explicitly or implicitly, to a narrative agent in a given story state are first of
all named and accumulated. This yields an unordered set (array, aggregate,
inventory) of conjoined features. Such an array is sufficient to identify and
differentiate an individual, and many modern novelists would in fact stop their
characterization at this point, not yielding any overall kind of person. However,
for many other narratives it is possible to go one step further and inquire about
the existence of unity relations obtaining within such a simultaneous set of
properties. These texts will point out, explicitly or implicitly, a possible struc-
turation of the inventory of features in terms of a total or partial network,
arrived at through a succession of operations, whose order is as follows:

a) Sorting out, grouping, or classifying the available traits into categories or dimensions
according to criteria of semantic relevance or homogeneity, often using natural language
categorical terms and distinctions.
b) Inferring further- more comprehensive or second order- traits from those initially pro-
vided, sometimes in a purely analytical manner, for example, relying on subsumption
and hyponymy relations.
c) Ordering the properties within each category through total or partial networking, espe-
cially rank ordering or hierarchization, into central and peripheral, dominant and sub-
ordinate, core and marginal, essential and accidental in the given story state.
d) Total or partial hierarchization of the categories themselves according to the foregoing
pairs of oppositions. The core features of the dominant or central category can be des-
ignated as the core features or essential properties of the narrative agent of a given story
state, "the sense of his proper name" (Lamarque 59). Operations (a) and (b) are guided
by a general natural language logic, not by a text-specific one. The results of operations
(c) and (d), on the other hand, depend entirely on the way the writer chooses to construct
the given narrative agents and are therefore an indication of the kind of fictional universe
he prefers to create: for example, agents dominated by passion or by will or by intellect
or by bodily, instinctive drives; intellectual dominance which leads to bold, swift con-
clusions or one which leads, conversely, to endless analysis.
e) Totalization of the resultant set of sets or pattern of patterns in terms of a global frame
(configuration, Gestalt), kind of whole, or type of person. Such an identification will be

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 117

based on a code of personality models whose sources are sev

traits (stereotypes) taken from the encyclopedia or life-world
plicitly formulated theories of personality available to the writer
to psychoanalysis); general literary personality models, genre
ones (Faust, Don Juan) (Culler 237). It goes without saying t
of traits and categories- that is, types of persons- are equipro
phase, for a given school or movement, or within a given gen
authors may construct new person types which are text-specif
and/or combination of features and categories they display,
labelling in terms of any pre-existent set of categories. Or altern
narrative agents whose set of categories does not cohere into
global configuration. Nevertheless, whenever an overall kind
in a given configuration of traits, a route is provided for a princ
traits not explicitly indicated by the text, thereby reducing
schematic nature of any textually constructed narrative agent

Macrocoherence in terms of a personality type is unat

or rank order among the properties provided by the te
if categories cannot be related to one another in such
vidual possesses in an absolute manner incompatible fe
pertaining to different species (Corti 149). The best ill
case are stories where bodies with their associated p
with minds of a different species (a God assuming hum
E. T. A. Hoffmann's Kater Murr, a combination of
bourgeois; Kafka's "Metamorphosis," where a human
cased in a vermin's body). The overall nature, identity, a
hybrid being are hence made sharply problematical.
ground relation in such cases is either unresolved or d
the narrator and by different narrative agents. Is Sam
being with a vermin's body, or is it a vermin with ru
2.5 Syntagmatic continuity, answering the que
same X?"
The four conditions outlined so far apply to individuals in any isolated
story state. Literary narrative, however, represents a temporal succession o
states of affairs involving change, and this immediately raises the question
individual continuity between any two neighboring states as well as over th
whole series of states. The question is technically that of the reidentificatio
of the same individual in different story states. Under what conditions can
successive or distant stages of personality be said to belong to the "same
continuing narrative agent, and when does the individual "fall apart" or bre
up into a series of disparate or disconnected stages (Rorty 2)? If we equa
each state of affairs with a possible world (Wolterstorff 127), the problem ca
be defined as that of determining the minimal conditions for cross-world iden
tity of individuals in literary narrative, where they exist as aggregates of tem
porally limited person states.
The narrative agent continuity problem could be approached fruitfully
by establishing a scale of possible degrees and frequencies of change in t

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118 Uri Margolin

core/central propertie
proceeding from minim
and enquiring about th
or identity in each.
(1) Zero change occur
remains constant thro
static literary characte
states are nothing but
In all other cases, ther
in the core-property se
state in which it occur
series, consisting of tw
here requires the poss
tricial) person model w
to a series of two or m
paradigms of traits. T
multaneous overall por
him as a totalized traje
(2) Such a permanen
case some core features
"essential properties, "
iational here, not enda
(3) Next in line is si
least some of the essen
states of the narrative
dated as mere varietie
is gradual, continuous,
"semantically related"
into any conceivable p
removed altogether (it
significant pattern of re
occurs only once in t
and its various stages
torial." Familiar types
acter occurs are the B
conversely, stories of
of this kind possess loc
ing narrative agent, si
significantly similar t
coherence as regards t
passed by one continuo
noting once again that
continuous and motiv

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 119

agent, does not require that any core properties in any

persist throughout. The unity in diversity or continui
from the nature of the mechanism of change, its grad
mantically related characteristics.5
(4) Semantically related change as defined above
punctual or abrupt, involving change in some or all es
of the narrative agent between two successive narrativ
dividual seems to fall into two temporal character-fra
compatible or even contradictory in terms of their prop
fragment possesses inner coherence and constitutes a un
The two radically different narrative agent varieties ar
one another by a crisis event, a sudden crossing of a b
There is no local connectedness or microcohesion here between states be-
longing to the earlier and later versions of the narrative agent. To preserve
continuity, we should be able to unify the partial, temporally restricted per
models by means of a second level paradigm, regarding the two as variants
a more abstract dynamic model. Fragmentation, discontinuity, or even incom
patibility on one level should yield to continuity and unity on a higher one
Speaking strictly logically, we should be able to show that the two propert
sets form subsets proper of a higher set (Lotman 251-61, the best discussio
of this question I know of). Such unification goes beyond the purely logical o
analytic and depends, more than in the previous cases, on the availability o
cultural, literary, generic, or text-specific models. These models, when avai
able, will serve to confer global interrelatedness on the two-person varietie
as a whole, so that the narrative agent will possess macrocoherence. Familia
literary models- which provide motivation and rationale for the abrupt chan
together with an overall unifying pattern- are religious conversion, illumin
tion, demonic possession, mental collapse, acquisition of existential know
edge, and the like.
(5) Abrupt, semantically related change may also be iterative. In this cas
the life course of the individual falls into two alternating series of person stat
in that he oscillates rapidly and repeatedly between two opposite states
character, characterized by the alternate presence and absence of key propert
or the alternate possession of opposite properties, rendering the individual
a whole into a contradictory figure. One classical example is Dostoevsky
major literary characters, whose dominant interpersonal attributes move p
sistently between two extremes, such as kindness and cruelty, arrogance an
humility, elation and depression. A different case is provided by multi
personality (schizo) stories or stories of inner split and struggle, such as Dr
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Here too one observes the lack of local connectedness,
coupled with the need for global coherence, which can once more be provid
only by general cultural or literary models, often of a psychological or ide
logical nature.

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120 Uri Margolin

(6) Abrupt, iterative,

most or all core prope
is the absolute lower l
into a radical transfor
of which is related to
semantically unrelated
continuity. The individ
of becoming, where th
inition is continuously
currence of this literar
exhaustively studied an
seeks to deny the unifi
however, we need only
individual together as
is the constancy of th
(Doležel 516). An asser
disregard any particul
narrative state and w
literary narrative as de
set of essential propert
be pragmatically acce
agent continuity or id
addition to constancy
change or becomes unc
this is still "the sam
rendez-vous the main
is given by the narrat
Ralph Johnson. In fac
that his name is "que
(7) The coupling of t
identity or separatenes
of core properties, cou
proper name by a defi
with an indication by
coreferential, ensures
no explicit indication
indeed the same indi
alternately assume tha
the same set of proper
of a universal solution
which it arises. Factor
type of imaginary univ
action-related reasons

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 121

focalization techniques, and so on.6 Another case conce

or permutation of property sets among narrative agent
two narrative agents such that P(x) and Q(y) at initial st
of the narrative may consist precisely in the interchan
between these two individuals (Carlos Fuentes, Cambio d
the properties of each narrative agent at each phase ar
disjunctive set, established at the very beginning of the
retrospect, the two individuals turn out to have had exa
over their life course, the only difference between the
ronic distribution of the occurrence of these properti
of proper name, together with the ability to distingui
each given story state, still ensure uniqueness and i
obtains when "¿«/rapersonal [discontinuity] gives way
tinuity" (Docherty 1 62), represented by "a corporate i
individuals, coinciding in one [story state]" (Dochert
is Virginia Woolf s The Waves, in which at each story
agents involved are interchangeable in terms of their
properties of all of them are radically dicontinuous be
The notion of the individual seems to be replaced here
lective person, a discontinuous "we."
Finally, there are the ever puzzling narrative agents
who are subject to the twin operations of fission and f
single individual persists over a series of states, where
proper name and a property set. But at one particular s
set is split into two or more subsets, each of which is
onwards a label or proper name of its own, turning it in
Conversely, two or more separate individuals, each wit
and property set, are fused at some point in the narrati
individual, possessing from this point onward one pro
conjunction of their property sets. How many individ
the narrative as a whole? The problem does not admit o
answer, either philosophically or narratologically, and
us out of thought, thereby laying bare the very roots
continuity in fictional contexts.
3. Our discussion in this essay has been restrict
kind of narrative: a chronologically related, third-perso
a single global narrator who makes explicit characteriz
ever, the specific ways in which literary characters
sustained in a narrative, that is, the specific ways in w
can be fulfilled, will depend to some extent on the particul
discourse involved. It may therefore be appropriate
brief indications of some other varieties of narrative d
problems they pose as regards the fulfillment of our co

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 122 Uri Margolin

is not related chronolo

maintenance will be a
or can be done in mor
resolved or, conversely
homodiegetic narrativ
are absolutely reliable
rative agent are each
question of continuity
relation between narr
in retrospective autob
the possibilities of ch
question has hardly be
mission is polyvocal,
relation of hierarchy
be differently charact
bined or "weighted" w
one rather speak of al
should they conflict,
decide among them? (
are provided by the n
other kinds of textual
Each of the varieties o

Notes

1 The masculine pronoun for character and reader is used throughout as a mere
convenience.

2 I am indebted to Brian McHale for a discussion of ontological uncertainty in

narrative.

3 On the semantic mechanisms of implicit characterization, see Margolin.

4 For a representation of the system of interrelated literary characters in a story
in terms of a matrix of distinctive features, see Hamon 130-31, 135.
5 An interesting problem arises when mental core properties are replaced by
properties from a different category or dimension, for example, intellectual by emotive.
Such pairs of attributes are semantically heterogeneous and are consequently not an-
alytically opposite of each other, unlike, say, wise-foolish, kind-mean. In this case,
semantic relatedness as a basis for continuity or macrocohesion of the individual arises
only if the text explicitly formulates or alludes to a cultural model in which the two
form a pair of opposites, such as reason and emotion in eighteenth-century literature.
6 The reinstatement of the same property set by different individuals with different
proper names in different story states (temporal positions) poses no difficulty. The-
matically, however, they could be regarded as variants of the same archetype. Their
recurrence endows the narrative with paradigmatic, atemporal, and transindividual

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Introducing and Sustaining Characters 123

unity, residing in attributes, not individuals. This is espec

tional novel sequence, such as Faulkner's novel cycle about
7 When characterization statements are uttered by the nar
narrative agent concerned ("focalization"), we are facing a si
we who have to formulate the "correct" second order characterization statements about
this narrative agent, whose self-characterizations may be limited, biased or simply false.

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