Characters – Round and Flat
Characters are the backbones of all literary pieces of work. Major characters can have an overall affect that can change the development of a story. Minor characters can provide further insight into the mind of the leading character(s) through their actions. Round characters are characters that represent a number of qualities and traits and are “complex, multidimensional characters” of considerable intellectual and emotional depth that have the capacity to grow and change (1147). In other words, these characters come much closer to representing a real, dynamic human being. These are usually the types of characters that are chosen to play major roles in literary works as they have the ability to undergo character change and learn lessons from their adventures.
In the story of “The Necklace”, the author focuses this short fiction story on a couple of peoples experience. Mathilde Loisel believes that she should born in a wealthy family and be a rich person. It is clear to see that she wants more chances and luck out of her life to just being married to a “little clerk in the Ministry of Public Instructions” (Maupassant, 554). Because she wants to seem wealthy at the ball party, she borrows the necklace. The fact that she is fixing her appearance constantly during the event causes her to lose the necklace that she borrowed from her friend, Madame Forestier. For this reason, she and her husband must work hard for ten years to pay the debts they owe for replacing the necklace. Mathilde is a round character as she changes throughout the story as the years pass by. Not only does her appearance change because of all the heavy labor, but her personality also changes as she learns her lesson from her mistake; although Mathilde still has a little bit of a self-center attitude, which is shown in the end of the
Khamissi 2
story when she meets Madame Forestier. This attitude is visible when she says, “Yes, I have had days hard enough, since I have seen you, days wretched enough – and that because of you!” (Maupassant, 559) She learns that honesty is more important than what she looks like outside. Mathilde and her husband, both signify round characters. Her husband also helps his wife by paying off the debts they owe, but even though he changes and become old on the outside, his feelings toward his wife dont change.
An example of a round character is my life would be my friend Jodi. Through high school, she is a quiet, she, modest, and very conservative person. Our relationship is very close, we are like two sisters, but as she enters college her personality completely change. She gets into a relationship and becomes very a fashionable person by wearing fancy clothes and putting on make-up to show beauty. For this reason, she completely forgets about our friendship and instead of being like a sister, she becomes my opponent.