Here is the excerpt:
QUOTE
We may divide characters into flat and round.
Flat characters are sometimes called types, and sometimes caricatures. In their purest form, they are constructed around a single idea or quality. The really flat characters can be expressed in one sentence such as "God Bless you, Pip, old chap," which completely describes Joe Gargery in Great Expectations. Joe has no existence outside this expression, no pleasures, none of the private lusts and aches that most complicate the most consistent of individuals whose lives have been unnecessarily complicated and whose expectations have been disappointed.
One great advantage of flat characters is that they are easily recognized whenever they come in. It is a convenience for an author when he can strike with his full force at once, and flat characters are very useful to him, since they never need reintroducing, never run away, have not to be watched for development, and provide their own atmosphere.
A second advantage is that they are easily remembered by the reader afterwards. They remain in his mind as unalterable for the reason that they were not changed by the circumstances; they moved through the circumstances, which gives them in retrospect a comforting quality, and preserves them when the book that produced them may decay.
The case of Dickens is significant. Dickens' people are nearly all flat. Nearly every one can be summed up in a sentence, and yet there is this wonderful feeling of human depth.
Flat people are not in themselves as big achievements as round ones, and they are best when they are comic.
Round characters give us a slightly new pleasure each time they come in, as opposed to the merely repetitive pleasure that is caused by flat ones. The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way.
If a character never surprises, it is flat.
If a character does not convince, it is a flat pretending to be round.
And the questions are:
1) What does it mean for a character to be "constructed around a single idea or quality"? Think about a fictional character whom you would consider to be what Forster describes as "flat", and explain as fully as you can how this character is "constructed around a single idea or quality":
what is that single idea or quality, and
how is the character constructed around it?
2) How is a character "capable of surprising in a convincing way"? As above, think about a fictional character whom you would consider to be what Forster describes as "round", and explain as fully as you can how this character is "capable of surprising in a convincing way":
what does it mean for a character to surprise the reader or audience?
what does it mean for a character to surprise the reader or audience in a convincing way?
/breathe. I apologize if there are any typos above.
Now here's where I need help. I don't quite understand how a character can be constructed around a single idea or quality (I'm assuming maybe Superheroes since all they mainly do is save people... is that right?), and I don't understand what surprising in a convincing way means (like a character doing something unexpected, but according to his personality and the way the author set the character up that it seems like something the character would do?). Does anyone understand it and think they could explain it to me in an easier way?
Thank you so much if you read all that. I'd appreciate all the help I can get.
