For every Hamlet, there is a supporting cast; for every Mrs.
Dalloway, an entire realm of subordinate portraits. Yet if literary
criticism cares at all about significant detail, emergent patterns,
and the subtleties in narrative, flat and minor characters are
crucial to an understanding of the fictional process itself.
Beginning with E. M. Forster's landmark study of flat and round
characters, this book is both a critical and writerly examination
of the species: Why are certain minor characters so salient in
readers' minds, and why are flat characters often so comic? Is a
name enough to create a character, and if so, what is the vanishing
point of characterization? The walking allegory, the narrator, the
disrupter, the doppelganger--how are they used, and to what effect?
The Supporting Cast first explores the theoretical limits of
character, from structuralist taxonomies to reader-response
concerns, with examples culled from a wide range of literature. The
author then applies these concepts, in chapters of sustained
analysis, to works of Conrad, Forster, and Woolf. The work also
provides comments on flat and minor characters in other media and a
full-scale character index of Woolf's Jacob's Room.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!