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Protagonist - Examples and Definition of Protagonist

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Definition, Usage and a list of Protagonist Examples in common speech and literature. A protagonist is the central character or leading figure in poetry, narrative, novel or any other story.

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Antagonist Definition

In literature, an antagonist is a character, or a group of characters, which stands in opposition to the protagonist, which is the main character. The term "antagonist" comes from the Greek word antagonistēs, which means "opponent," "competitor," or "rival."

It is common to refer to an antagonist as a villain (the bad guy), against whom a hero (the good guy) fights in order to save himself or others. In some cases, an antagonist may exist within the protagonist that causes an inner conflict or a moral conflict inside his mind. This inner conflict is a major theme of many literary works, such as Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe, Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, and A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. Generally, an antagonist appears as a foil to the main character, embodying qualities that are in contrast with the qualities of the main character.

Examples of Antagonist in Literature

Example #1: Antigone (By Sophocles)

A classical example of an antagonist is that of King Creon in Sophocles' tragedy Antigone. Here, the function of the antagonist is to obstruct the main character's progress, through evil plots and actions. Antigone, the protagonist, struggles against King Creon, the antagonist, in her effort to give her brother a respectable burial. Through his evil designs, Creon tries to hamper her in this attempt by announcing that her brother was a traitor, and decreeing that "he must be left to the elements." This protagonist-antagonist conflict becomes the theme of this tragedy.

Example #2: Othello (By William Shakespeare)

Another example of an antagonist is the character of Iago in Shakespeare's Othello. Iago stands as one of the most notorious villains of all time, having spent all of his time plotting against Othello, the protagonist, and his wife Desdemona. Through his evil schemes, Iago convinces Othello that his wife has been cheating on him, and even convinces him to kill his own wife despite her being faithful to him. The thing that separates Iago from other antagonists is that we do not really know why he wants to destroy Othello.

Example #3: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (By Robert Louis Stevenson)

In his novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson explores the theme of doppelganger in which Hyde is not only an evil double of the honorable Dr. Jekyll, but his antagonist. Jekyll creates Hyde by a series of scientific experiments in order to prove his statement:

"Man is not truly one, but truly two."

He means that a human soul is a mixture of evil and good. In other words, every man's antagonist exists within himself. Hyde is the manifestation of the evil that existed in the honorable Dr. Jekyll. Well-known as a respectable Victorian gentleman, Jekyll could never have fulfilled his evil desires. He separated his "evil-self" and gave him a separate identity, thus inventing his own antagonist who, as a result, brings his downfall.

Example #4: To Kill a Mocking Bird (By Harper Lee)

Bob Ewell is a malicious antagonist in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird. Being convinced that Mayella may have been guilty of committing a crime, Ewell is bent on making sure that someone else gets the punishment. Ewell keeps on following Atticus, Judge Taylor, and Helen Robinson - even after the case is finished - and goes to the extent that he almost kills the Finch kids. In defense of Boo over the killing of Bob Ewell, Heck Tate said:

"To my way of thinkin', Mr Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great favour an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight - to me, that's a sin. It's a sin and I'm not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it'd be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch."

Function of Antagonist

Conflict is a basic element of any plot. The presence of an antagonist alongside a protagonist is vital for the typical formula of a plot. The antagonist opposes the protagonist in his endeavors, and thus the conflict ensues. The protagonist struggles against the antagonist, taking the plot to a climax. Later, the conflict is resolved with the defeat of the antagonist; or, as in tragedies, with the downfall of the protagonist.

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Antagonist - Examples and Definition of Antagonist

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In literature, an antagonist is a character, or a group of characters, which stands in opposition to the protagonist , which is the main character. The term "antagonist" comes from the Greek word antagonistēs, which means "opponent," "competitor," or "rival."

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Because of their flexibility and malleability, digital technologies - especially web-based tools - dramatically expand options for providing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) supports as compared with exclusively print-based media.

Created in partnership with the Google Literacy Project and Carnegie Corporation of New York to celebrate World Book Day in 2008, CAST launched UDL Editions of classic public domain texts, including a short story, sonnet, speech, and more, from world literature to demonstrate the power of technology to transform texts in a way that responds to the needs of all kinds of learners.

UDL Editions brought seven classic texts into a scaffolded digital reading environment with flexible supports for three facets of learning: understanding content, building skills, and having fun. Six of the texts could be viewed in English, and one in Spanish.

The tool reached a target audience of users 10 years of age or older. To incorporate UDL, readers chose their text and level of support desired: minimal, moderate, or maximum, and accessed multimedia resources for background information and enrichment activities for further learning.

Supports included:

Glossary words

In-context explanations of idioms and literary devices

Stop-and-think prompts

Animated coaches providing hints and support

Image descriptions

"Build-your-own" activities to understand the authors' craft

Interactive maps

Teacher resources

In addition, a toolbar contributed by Texthelp offered:

Text-to-speech read-aloud

Dictionary and encyclopedia links

Highlight-and-gather

Translations between English and Spanish

Varied literature was selected to show how a UDL-supported and scaffolded environment can support content across the curriculum and across grade levels. With powerful new technologies and UDL principles, old classics became smart, reader-friendly texts that opened up a new world of reading to learners with diverse abilities, interests, and skills.

UDL Editions and other literacy research project work conducted by CAST informed the development of UDL Studio, which guides and supports educators to build their own UDL-supported materials.

For more information about UDL Editions, contact Kristin Robinson.

UDL Editions in Research

Universal Design for Learning in the Classroom: Practical Applications, published in 2012, uses UDL Editions as a case study to discuss how the principles of UDL apply to reading comprehension, teaching, and learning in Chapter 3: Reading Strategy Instruction, Universal Design for Learning, and Digital Texts: Examples of an Integrated Approach.

In particular, it addresses the what, how, and why of reading:

What: What are the words on the page/screen, and what do they mean?

How: How does the reader make sense of the text?

Why: Why should the reader care about the text?

Learn more & order the book

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Publicized by Google around the world, UDL Editions was a model for presenting classic texts from world literature in a flexible online interface with just-in-time, individualized supports for struggling and expert readers alike.

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Characterization describes the way a writer or actor creates or implies a character's personality, their inner life and psyche. Two main ways to reveal your characters are direct characterization and indirect characterization. What are these character creation techniques? Read on for examples of characterization that illustrate both:

Guide to direct and indirect characterization: Contents

1. What is direct characterization?

2. Direct characterization example

3. What is indirect characterization?

4. Indirect characterization example

5. Eight tips for using direct vs indirect characterization

Let's delve into using both characterization devices:

What is direct characterization?

To begin with a definition of direct characterization, this means the author explicitly tells the reader a character's personality.

For example, explicitly telling the reader a character is kind, funny, eccentric, and so forth.

Direct characterization example

Here's an example of direct characterization from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse (1925).

Woolf explicitly shows what characters think of one another. In the example, an artist staying with the Ramsay family, Lily Briscoe, thinks about Mr Ramsay whom a man Mr Bankes has just called a hypocrite:

Looking up, there he was - Mr. Ramsay - advancing towards them, swinging, careless, oblivious, remote. A bit of a hypocrite? she repeated. Oh no - the most sincere of men, the truest (here he was), the best; but, looking down, she thought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical, he is unjust...
Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse (1927), p. 52.

This is direct characterization - through Lily, Woolf describes Mr. Ramsay's traits directly.

It's telling (direct characterization typically is), but because we read it as one character's opinion of another, it also shows us how Lily feels, whether or not she agrees with the statement that Mr. Ramsay is a hypocrite.

Through Lily, we learn Ramsay is 'absorbed in himself' or self-absorbed, tyrannical - we read direct statements about Ramsay's personality that help us picture him and how he comes across to others.

What is indirect characterization?

'Indirect characterization' shows readers your characters' traits without explicitly describing them.

To give simpler examples of direct vs indirect characterization, for direct you might write, 'Jessica was a goofy, eccentric teacher'.

For indirect revelation of Jessica's character, you might write instead, 'Jessica had named the stick with a hook on the end she used to open the classroom's high windows Belinda and would regale her children with stories of Belinda's adventures (even though they were fourteen, not four)'.

In the second example of characterization above (the indirect kind), it is inferred that Jessica is goofy and eccentric. She names inanimate objects and tells teenagers stories of make-believe that would probably be better-suited to younger children.

Indirect characterization invites your reader to deduce things about your characters, without explicitly telling them who they are.

Indirect characterization example

Here, John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath (1939) shows a character's personality indirectly.

Steinbeck doesn't say that hitchhiker Joad is a down-and-out, blue-collar worker. Instead, the author creates indirect characterization through the items a worker in this context would perhaps have: whiskey, cigarettes, calloused hands:

Joad took a quick drink from the flask. He dragged the last smoke from his raveling cigarette and then, with callused thumb and forefinger, crushed out the glowing end. He rubbed the butt to a pulp and put it out the window, letting the breeze suck it from his fingers.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), p. 9.

Types of indirect characterization

What types of indirect characterization are there?

Any writing that helps us infer or deduce things about a person's psyche, emotions, values or mannerisms. For example:

1. Dialogue-based inference: From the way your character speaks to others in the story, your reader may deduce that they are kind, cruel, gentle, etc.

2. Implying through action: What your character does (for example jumping on a beetle to squash it) implies their character (in this case, it may imply that a character is cruel).

3. Fly-on-wall description: Although what visual description implies may differ from country to country, culture to culture, neutrally-worded description may cause your reader to make specific assumptions based on what you've shown. We might assume, for example, an extremely pale-skinned character is reclusive or agoraphobic, like the reclusive Boo Radley in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

So how do you use direct and indirect characterization well? Read tips for each (and our complete guide to description for more examples):

8 tips for using direct and indirect characterization

1. Avoid overusing direct characterization

2. Be direct with key details

3. Support direct character statements with scenes

4. Imply character through action and reaction

5. Tell direct details that serve concision

6. Use dialogue to characterize indirectly

7. Let narrative voice give character

8. Read examples of direct and indirect characterization

Avoid overusing direct characterization

Direct characterization is useful shorthand. Instead of pages showing how a character is mean, you could start with 'He was mean.' Balance is key, though. Overusing direct characterizing may skew the balance towards telling, not showing.
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If, for example, you wrote, 'He was mean. He was petty and generally unkind, so that neighbors crossed the street when he passed,' that mixes some indirect characterization with the direct type. Neighbors crossing the street is a visual that indirectly implies avoidance and discomfort or possible dislike.

If you were to only tell readers about your characters' traits without weaving in illustrative showing (which give indirect inference about who your characters are), the effect would be:

1. Hazy visuals: Crossing the street in the example above gives a more specific visual than simply saying 'he was disliked by the community'.

2. Lack of depth and color: If you tell your reader who your characters are exclusively with minimal showing or inferring, it may read as though you have a private understanding of your characters you are summarizing for the reader, rather than showing them a fuller, more detailed picture.

Example of blending direct and indirect character detail

The opening of Toni Morrison's powerful novel Beloved characterizes a house that is haunted by the ghost of an infant.

Note how Morrison moves from the direct characterization of the first sentence to specific, visual details:

124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old - as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard).
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987), p. 17.

Be direct with key details

The trick to effective direct characterization is to reserve it for key details you want to establish upfront.

In the example of blending indirect and direct character description above, Morrison starts with direct, broad detail. A sense of spite that drives boys in the family from a home filled with the ghosts of a corrosive, violent history.

If you were to write a retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol you might start with 'Scrooge was stingy' and then similar flesh this key detail out with the illustrative, supporting detail.

The indirect characterization you then add on to key details gives further texture, color, specificity to your characters. It helps, of course, to know your characters inside out:

Support direct character statements with scenes

The example above from Beloved shows how indirect characterization supports direct descriptive statements.

The boys Howard and Buglar fleeing from mirrors that seem to shatter by themselves or tiny hand prints appearing in a cake, for example. These specific images and incidents support the suggestion that the home at 124 is haunted by a 'spiteful' (or rather, determined-to-be-known) presence.

If you tell your reader a character is kind, think of dedicated scenes as well as passing moments that support the direct revelation.

Maybe your character gives up a seat on public transport for an elderly person. Maybe they help a neighbor get a pet that has run out of an open gate into a busy road to safety.

Indirect characterization is useful because it shows your reader the type of actions your character is likely to take.

This in turn enables your reader to make educated, qualified guesses about how your characters' might react in situations whose outcome is not yet known. Through this, one 'gets to know' characters as though they were real people.

Imply character through action and reaction

Action and reaction provide useful ways to tell your reader who your characters are indirectly.

For example, Sarah has a vase that belonged to her grandmother that she cherishes, and her hyperactive son knocks it over and breaks it. Does she scold him to be careful? Lash out? Show a mix of anger and understanding?

Think about what you want your reader to infer about a character from the way they react, even in incidents or situations that are trivial or secondary to your story's main plotline.

In this way every scene, every incident, will contribute toward building your characters' personae.

Tell direct details that serve concision

One of the benefits of direct characterization is that it allows you to be concise.

Direct characterization is useful, for example, when a narrator is recapping prior events that are useful to the present story but not its main focus. For example, in the first page of Nick Hornby's Slam, a novel about a sixteen-year-old skater named Sam:

So things were ticking along quite nicely. In fact, I'd say that good stuff had been happening pretty solidly for about six months.
- For example: Mum got rid of Steve, her rubbish boyfriend.
- For example: Mrs Gillet, my art and design teacher, took me to one side after a lesson and asked whether I'd thought of doing art at college.
Nick Hornby, Slam (2007), p. 1

At this point in the story, the reader doesn't need lengthy exposition about why Steve was a rubbish boyfriend. So the direct, telling characterization suits the purpose of this part of the story - catching the reader up on what has been happening in the teenaged protagonist's life.

There is still balance between indirect and direct characterization in this example. The second example Sam gives tells us (through Mrs Gillet's action) that the teacher is caring and sees artistic potential in Sam, without saying so explicitly. The part or unique incident suggests the whole of the teacher-student relationship.

Use dialogue to characterize indirectly

Dialogue is a fantastic device for characterization because it may move the story forward while also telling your reader who characters are.

If, for example, there is banter and characters tease each other, it may imply an ease and familiarity (compared to stiff formality between strangers).

Note, for example, how Hornby creates a sense of how awkward Rabbit is (an 18-year-old skater at Grind City, a skate park Sam frequents) in the dialogue below:

'Yo, Sam,' he said.
Did I tell you that my name is sam? Well, now you know.
'All right?'
'How's it going, man?'
'OK.'
'Right. Hey, Sam. I know what I was gonna ask you. You know your mum?'
See what I mean about Rabbit being thick? Yes, I told him. I knew my mum.
Hornby, pp. 11-12.

In this brief exchange, we see through the awkward, stop-start flow of conversation how Rabbit lacks social graces and awareness and (in the ensuing dialogue) reveals he has a crush on Sam's mother.

Let narrative voice give character

Another useful way to use indirect characterization is to give an involved narrator (a narrator who is also a character in the story) a personality-filled voice.

In the above example of characterization via dialogue, for example, Sam's asides to the reader ('Well, now you know' and 'See what I mean about Rabbit being thick?') create the sense of a streetwise, slightly jaded teenaged voice.

Think of ways to inject characters' personalities into their narration. What subjects do they obsess over (it's clear Sam loves skating from the first few pages of Slam)? How do they see others (Sam appears fairly dismissive and a little cocky, from referring to his mom's 'rubbish' boyfriend to his blunt description of Rabbit as 'thick').

Use language in narration your character would use based on demographic details such as age, cultural background or class identity.

The casual, clipped language Sam uses in the example above suggests the awkward and 'too cool' qualities of a teenaged boy.

Read examples of direct and indirect characterization

To really understand the uses of direct and indirect characterization (and how to blend to two to show and tell, describe and imply), look for examples in books.

You could even write out the descriptions you love, to create your own guide to dip into whenever you're creating characters.

Create believable, developed characters. Finishing a book is easier with structured tools and encouraging support.

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Direct vs Indirect Characterization: How to Show and Tell - Now Novel

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Characterization describes the way a writer or actor creates or implies a character's personality, their inner life and psyche. Two main ways to reveal your characters are direct characterization and indirect characterization. What are these character creation techniques? Read on for examples of characterization that illustrate both: What is direct characterization?