Do Your Characters Speak For You?

A commenter mentioned being annoyed that in a post about scenes, I spoke about my characters "male-bashing" (with words, not bludgeons :).  Wasn't that sexist? If it were reversed, and these were male characters trashing women as a group, would I be more sensitive?

That brought up an interesting issue! At what point does our portrayal of characters being offensive become offensive "from us"? If I have a character who insults a group or is otherwise objectionable, does that mean I am espousing those sentiments? What if there are several characters like that? (I don't mean just politically incorrect offensiveness, but maybe also violence or discrimination.) When does it stop being just offensive characters and become an offensive book by an offensive author?

But... it gets so complicated when we're working with fictional characters. Every character we create is within us, they say, so perhaps a reflection of us. Yet if we create only characters that reflect what is best about us, well, there won't be much conflict in our books! Not to mention, you can't always know ahead of time what will offend someone somewhere.

 

Recently I was teaching character point of view to college students, and this issue came up. Most of their "novels" are really sort of fictionalized memoirs, with (probably idealized) selves as narrators. There was some bafflement when we read "A Cask of Amontillado" where the first-person narrator is truly an evil guy. (One of the worst ever-- walls up a friend for committing "an insult" and leaves him to die). They weren't sure how Poe might write a bad narrator without being bad himself, and who knows? Can we create a character who is not within us? Or should we even try? (And Poe of all writers has probably suffered the most slings and arrows because his first-person narrators are so nasty... many readers and his first biographer succumbed to the belief that they were him.)

I often wonder if mystery writers or thriller writers are associated with the bad behavior of their characters. We think, oh, yes, it's just fiction, but deep within, we might wonder... well, if she created this plausible serial murderer, does she have a serial murderer within??? 

I bet we've all read books where the entire tone and plot seem to push some offensive button-- it's not just one character who hates Italians, it's all of them, and there are three scenes where someone gets food poisoning at an Italian restaurant, and then there are all those metaphors referring to the Mafia, and the only joke in the book has a punchline about the dirtiness of Venice canals, and.... Yeah, it's not just "subtext" that's screaming out there.

 

In my own writing, sometimes I'll notice I have a character will reflect some silly prejudice of my own, usually something like "only children" or  "people who bring potato chips to a potluck dinner" or "those annoying sorts who are cheerful at 6 am." And I do sense sometimes I just give it a bit too much emphasis to this Thing I Don't Like, you know, sliding into rant-territory.

 

There's probably a point where this stops being a story with a character or two who is offensive, and becomes an offensive story overall. But I don't know where that point is. What do you all think? Is it safer to avoid characters being offensive, or instead just impart all the potential offense to a villain character so it's clear I Disapprove Of Male-Bashing and Only Bad Guys Hate Spaghetti? Is it worth examining our own subtexts and tone to see if we're conveying some offense we don't want to convey? What do you do? Have you ever changed a story or character because you thought you'd gone too far?

My example:

One of my characters was "authentic" in a lot of ways, bristly and angry and sardonic, but at some point, it just went too far, and readers didn't like her or sympathize with her. Worst of all, they didn't want to spend time with her. I don't think we need to make characters "likeable" to keep readers interested, but there is a point where the character just gets tiresome. I didn't want to make her a wimp or trivialize her justifiable anger about the past. But I found several "offense-ticklers" and phased them out. Like she had a habit of endowing people with slightly mean nicknames. And she was always thinking if not saying defensive responses to other characters' conversations. Once I could isolate the "too much", I was able (I hope) to make her both herself and reader-involving.

I notice I keep saying, "There's a point where...." That indicates, I guess, that this is a matter of degree, that what's acceptable at 48% can become annoying at 55%.

 

Alicia

Irony! An example thereof!

I came across an example of "dramatic irony," where the reader knows something the character does not. This is from Pompeii by Robert Harris.

"The safest investment is property in Pompeii!"

The reader, of course, knows that all property in Pompeii will shortly be covered in lava.

Alicia

Irony, juxtaposition, coincidence

Sorry I've been on hiatus for so long, and thanks to Theresa for posting so much. My mother died after a long illness, and I went to England for a couple weeks (getting back right before the volcano cloud would have trapped me... but being trapped in England is sort of my hope for the afterlife :).

Anyway, I'm back to the usual much work and travail. But I decided to get back into the posting mode by talking about "irony". That's because I was reading a book about the big economic crisis we mostly avoided, and about the bankers involved, and there's a line about how pre-crisis-- I'll paraphrase here, because I don't recall the details-- "(name of bank) CEO (name of CEO) bought a $25 million apartment on the Upper East Side, ironically, the same apartment once owned by (another bank) CEO (name of CEO)."

Well, of course, I have to grouse about this. Coincidence does not an irony make. Just because two rich guys in the same line of work at some point own the same apartment in the same banker-friendly area of Manhattan doesn't make it even that much of a coincidence-- I mean, who but bank-bonus-babies can afford $25M apartments? It's sort of like saying that by a huge coincidence, both I and my neighbor happen to go out to dinner at a nearby restaurant Friday night. Well, no, it's not that big a coincidence, since it's Friday night and the restaurant is nearby.

Anyway, this got me thinking about what REALLY makes for irony. What would make Banker A and Banker B both owning the same apartment (at different times) ironic, do you think?

Well, let's define dramatic irony. I was taught it's a disparity between what the audience understands and the character understands, but I don't like that, because it seems to me that it's not just perception that makes an event ironic. (That is, wouldn't an ironic event be ironic even if no one notices?) Most of the dictionary definitions hit this distinction between the audience and character, but... but that supposes 1) the audience makes the irony by noticing it, thereby requiring an audience, and 2) the character doesn't notice the irony and certainly doesn't create it deliberately.

Oedipus understands the irony of his situation, I think, that in trying to figure out who the murderer is, he outs himself.

Iago certainly MEANS to be ironic when he praises Othello (trying to make Othello trust him). (But it's more than just a ploy... Iago wants to trick Othello, in order to prove himself superior... hmm... the audience realizes that. Does Iago?)

Stephen Colbert means to be ironic when he pretends to want to be the Bush White House press secretary and tells reporters, ""But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"

So while a disconnect between the character and the audience can be ironic (it was certainly ironic that the White House correspondents refused to get the joke :), I wouldn't say it's necessary. (Maybe the "character" is Othello? The WH correspondents?)

What's necessary? Well, juxtaposition, I think. That is, two events or people or somethings have to be juxtaposed, whether it's Colbert's view of White House reporters and their own self-images ("the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage....") or Iago's desire to destroy Othello and Othello's belief in his loyalty.

But "juxtaposition" is more than opposition and more than coincidence, right? To juxtapose means that something is overlaid on something else (that is, they're connected, as both are about, say, Iago's feelings for Othello), but slanted or cock-eyed somehow. They aren't identical or parallel (as, ahem, when two rich bankers in the same wealth class and professional circle buy the same apartment), but related and distinct.

Also I think the irony has to mean something, has to show us something in a different light. Coincidence doesn't do that. ("Gee! I never knew that rich people bought expensive apartments!" Uh, no.) With Oedipus, there are several messages that come out of the juxtaposition, the "be careful what you wish for" one, for example, and "truth might set you free, but it's lies that make you happy". "That which makes you great (curiosity, a desire for truth) will bring you down" is quite ironic, I think.

Colbert's irony has the meaning that it's really hard to be tough on the president when you have dinner with him and depend on him for news.

Iago's ironic situation has the meaning that the ones we trust the most have the greatest power to betray us.

(Hmm. What's ironic? The event or the lines? That is, is what Colbert said ironic? Or just the event that what most people found wickedly funny left the reporters in stony silence? Or both? Is it just Iago's observations which are ironic, or the position he puts Othello in?) (Is it the juxtaposition that is ironic, or the result?)

So... anyway. Let's go back to the bankers and the expensive apartment. What would make that event of buying the same apartment truly ironic?

The dh suggests that the first banker was being bugged by the FBI, and the second banker gets caught in the net and arrested. I was thinking that would be -really- ironic if Banker 1 was Banker 2's idol, and that 2 bought the apartment because he so admired 1 and wanted to be like him. THEN he finds out the FBI had bugs all over the apartment? Would it be more or less ironic if what he really admired about 1 was his "honesty and ethics"?

What if 2 got the apartment at a huge discount because he'd ruined 1 in some deal, and 1 had to sell to avoid foreclosure, and so 2 feels like he triumphed over 1 and the symbol of this is the apartment... and it's the apartment that eventually leads to his downfall (because the FBI had it bugged)?

What else?

What's the diff between ironical speech and sarcasm? Was Iago just being sarcastic?

How much of this requires an involved and savvy audience? Can the banker's downfall be ironic even if there's no audience to it? (But don't we at least like to imagine #1's glee at reading of #2's arrest?)

Irony is important in fiction and drama, and juxtaposition is REALLY important. Okay, so is juxtaposition always ironic? Is irony always funny?

Here's an example of something I think gets meaning from juxtaposition but maybe isn't ironic (though it requires a savvy audience), Rhonda in Big Love singing "Happiest Girl." If you know the show (which kind of grows on me, though I think it's annoying ), Rhonda is a 15-year-old bride of "The Prophet" (the old man in the first frame of the video). Oh, she's going to be his 9th wife-- and the others are all still alive.

So here she is, singing this "happy song" and she looks (and is) miserable. (She's also a lying manipulator, and that tests our sympathy... but she is a victim.) Also she's singing a song about the love between equals ("You make my lunch and I'll make yours"), and monogamy, and she's the powerless child bride of an aging but still very powerful polygamist.

Is that irony? Or just juxtaposition? Does the juxtaposition create irony or subtext? Is irony subtext, or is subtext irony, or???

And more important than the audience almost is the author-- there's a writer who is forcing these two things into juxtaposition. (I mean, selection is all in irony, isn't it? It wouldn't be ironic if she were singing, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.") So does there have to be a consciousness of the irony before it's even presented to the audience?

Does anyone use irony much? What are your thoughts about this? I think I use "meaningful juxtaposition," but I don't know if it's ironic.

I am wrestling with a character who is deliberately and self-consciously ironic, and I'm finding it hard to make any dramatic irony... I think because he's his own audience, noticing the irony. (Oscar Wilde's characters were like that, come to think of it.)

Alicia (who thinks what befell the bankers wasn't ironic enough :)