Analysing The Protagonist Character | Narrative Writing

Hi everyone, this is Miss Tang. Today we're going to be looking at analyzing character. A question is, how do authors develop memorable characters in their stories? So the aim of narratives is to entertain our reader. Now, how do we do this? One way we can do this is by developing characters who are believable, who are relatable, and who are also engaging. What is character? Now, a character is— could be a fictional person or an idea. You can give your character an identity, like they could have a personality, they have things that they want, things, goals that they want to achieve, they have emotions and feelings. Characters don't have to always be a human or a person. It could also be a thing like a tornado or an animal. Why is character important? Well, character is important because what happens to characters, um, is what— and what they do help drive the action of our narrative. Characters have to want something. They need to do something in the story to get it going, and they need to achieve a goal. So to make it engaging for our readers, so they need characteristics, they need a goal, they need problems. They also need flaws as well, because then this will help our readers connect with our characters, because people aren't perfect. We also have flaws as well. So to be able to create relatable characters, characters that our audience can connect with, they need strengths and they also need weaknesses. Now today we are learning to analyze how authors develop relatable and engaging characters. The reason is because we want to learn how to entertain our readers. We want our audience to relate to and connect with the characters that we come up with. So we are going to use, um, texts that are already out there as examples how to develop relatable and engaging characters. Now, people change in real life. We don't stay the same. Everyone goes through both positive and negative experiences in our lives, and this shapes who we are. Now, to create a main character who feels relatable and for our readers to connect with, our character has to learn, and they need to grow and change. Now there are different types of characters. You will have your protagonist, um, who is the main character of the story, and the plot is usually developed around this protagonist. They could be the hero of the story. You will also have an antagonist. This antagonist character opposes or fights against another character, so they usually fight against the protagonist, and they could be a villain. Since the protagonist is the main character, our reader follows them in their journey. So you would expect that the main character would develop and progress and change throughout the story. So you know that in a story we have our orientation that introduces our character, our setting, helps our reader understand what's happening, and then the character goes through challenges. Through these challenges, they learn and grow, and at the end of the story, um, they have learned something new. So why people and characters change? Now, our experiences change our perception of the world, and so will our characters. So they will also need to adapt to the changing world because our world doesn't always stay the same. There are always new things happening and new challenges to overcome. They may need to travel to a new world and then adapt to it. And our characters could be growing older, so they'll be learning new things. Here are some examples of character changes. So they might change the way they think and feel about a particular person or group of people. Um, they might change their traits. So maybe before they were really timid and scared, and now they're courageous and they're brave. They might change in status, so maybe there's an ordinary person and then they become a princess or a prince or a part of the royal family. They may increase their level of knowledge, so in the beginning of the story they might not know anything about magic, and then at the end they might know a few more things about being a magician or a wizard. They might change their level of ability, so, you know, from being really nervous as a speaker and then becoming really confident as a speaker. Our success criteria today is: I can examine how the author describes the protagonist at the beginning of the narrative. I can compare and contrast how the character is portrayed at the resolution, so the ending of the narrative. And identify how the protagonist changes and grows. This is going to really help us with writing our own narratives. So we are now going to analyze, um, the character development, and we're going to use Harry Potter as an example. So how does the author describe Harry Potter at the beginning of the book? Um, what examples of his appearance, attitude, and perception of himself? What does he think about the world? What makes him an unlikely hero at the beginning? What adjectives has the author used? And how do we compare this to the character at the end of the book? So here is a description of Harry Potter at the beginning of the book. Harry had a thin face, knobby knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of stella— stello— sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he got it. So now we'll have a look at the description of Harry. And we'll pull apart, um, this excerpt from the beginning of the story. And you can do this too with a text that you are reading. So we'll make some notes on the side. So firstly, you can see, um, that we've got a description of Harry. You've got thin face, knobby knees, black hair. It can show you that he is skinny. You will also see that he's got green eyes. We know that he's got a thin scar on his forehead in the shape of, like, a bolt of lightning. He's also got some glasses, and because it is held together with, um, some tape because of all the times that Dudley has punched him, we can tell that, um, maybe his aunt and aunt and uncle haven't gone to get him new glasses. So maybe he's not the priority in the family. Um, and we know that, um, Harry is a victim of some bullying in the house because of what Dudley has been doing, so punching him. Yeah. Okay, so I have color-coded it so that we can see what it tells us about Harry at the beginning of the book. So we've got, um, everything that is in yellow is showing us that he seems skinny, like he hasn't been given much to eat. The blue is his appearance, and the green is evidence showing us that he's been mistreated or neglected and also bullied. And then him asking about his scar could be a hint or foreshadowing of what, um, how important this, um, this characteristic or this, um, bit of information is going to be to the story. Okay, so we're going to look at the before and after. So we'll look at how the protagonist is being described, what their attitude is, what makes them an unlikely hero. Okay, so Harry is described as skinny, mistreated, and neglected, and bullied. He is an orphan who lives with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and spoiled son Dudley. He has brown— black hair, bright green eyes, round glasses, and a thin scar on his forehead shaped like lightning. So this is how he's been described at the beginning of the story. Now we'll have a look at his attitude. So Harry views himself as an unexceptional character, and we know this because he says in that excerpt— let me just go back— that the only thing Harry liked about his appearance was his very thin scar. That's the only thing that he likes about himself. So he views himself as someone who is unexceptional, someone who's pretty like, yeah, pretty ordinary, not very special at all, when he's actually the opposite. And to avoid getting in trouble, Harry is obedient and he tries to ignore all the insults. And that's why he's content with the way that his life is like, because he doesn't really know a different one or a better one. And what makes him an unlikely hero? Well, Harry is unsure of himself and he he does seem a bit timid because he doesn't really fight back or try to change things with what's happening with his family. Okay, here is the description of Harry at the end of the story. So we've got, 'It was Uncle Vernon, still purple-faced, still mustached, still looking furious at the nerve of Harry carrying an owl in a cage in a station full of ordinary people.' Behind him stood Aunt Petunia and Dudley, looking terrified at the very sight of Harry. "You must be Harry's family," said Mrs. Weasley. "In a manner of speaking," said Uncle Vernon. "Hurry up, boy, we haven't got all day." He walked away. "Hope you have, er, a good holiday," said Hermione, looking uncertainly after Uncle Vernon, shocked that anyone could be so unpleasant. 'Oh, I will,' said Harry, and they were surprised at the grin that was spreading over his face. 'They don't know we're not supposed to be— supposed to use magic at home. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer.' And that was the, um, an excerpt of the end or the resolution of Harry Potter. So now we're going to just break it down and make some notes. So we can see that, um, Uncle Vernon is still not happy with Harry, um, so that hasn't changed from the beginning of the story. So Harry has decided here, um, in his response that he is it sounds like he's going to do something about Dudley, um, bully— yeah, bullying him or mistreating him once he gets home. Because it, it seems like Harry is feeling a lot more confident now that he's gone through a lot of challenges through his time at Hogwarts, um, and learning that he is a wizard, and he feels that he is a lot more empowered and confident now to stand up to his former bully. We had, um, what Harry was like before, and now let's have a look at what Harry is like after. So how is the hero portrayed at the end of the narrative? So when Harry transitions from Hogwarts back to the Muggle world, in the last paragraph, he just um, demonstrates hope, strength, confidence, and belief in himself. So rather than going back to his family who has ignored him, exploited him, and feeling down about it, he now uses his experiences over the year to find a way to stand up to his bully. How has the hero changed? Well, after discovering his magical abilities and finding out that he is a wizard and about Hogwarts, he then grows in confidence and strength and courage. He demonstrates this through his confrontation with Voldemort at the end of the book because he needed to have courage to be able to do that. Now, what are some characteristics which make the protagonist seem hero— heroic? So Harry is brave, he is loyal, he's modest, he shows humility, he doesn't want to use the power of the Philosopher's Stone or the Sorcerer's Stone for himself, and he just wants to make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. So because of this, it makes him a hero. Now it is your turn. So you can use the book that you are already reading, have a look at um, how your protagonist, the main character, is being described in the text at the beginning and also at the resolution and see how they have changed. And then you can also analyze how they have developed and do a before and after. And there you have it. So that's how you analyze, um, the character from the texts that are already out there to understand how the author has developed memorable characters. If you would like to learn how to develop your own memorable character and make sure that it is relatable and that you can connect your characters, make those connections with your readers, then you can watch my next video on how to develop relatable and believable and memorable characters. See you in my next video. Bye! [MUSIC] [MUSIC]