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Characters: The Literary Tour Guides

Of all the elements of good literature, the characters are the ones who provide the reader with the guided tour of the story. They are the heroes, the villains, and the minor characters, or the supporting cast, if you will. The author's job is to make these imaginary beings as believable as possible. They may be likable or despicable, dry or hilarious, but without them, the story would be nothing more than a rehashing of events.

Characters are the heartbeat of a good tale. What they do alters everything else that takes place. The main characters of three literary greats "A Rose for Emily," "The Raven" and "The Metamorphosis" are not people who automatically spring to mind when someone mentions the word "hero." They are flawed, realistic and alive. Plus, all connected by loss, unfolding madness and woven with the author's own autobiographical traits.

On the Surface: A Portrait of the Players

To know the characters, one must create a clear picture of them. William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," tells of an aging Southern Belle residing in a community bent on progress. Told through years of recounts of the surrounding characters, Emily is already an aged figure when she is first mentioned in the tale, described as a "small, fat woman in blackbloated" (DiYanni, 2007, pg. 79, 80). Leaning on a black cane she displays little emotion. In the second section, she is recalled thirty years earlier as "a slender figure in white in the background" (81). This is a sharp contrast to the obese old woman in black the reader meets previously. Midway between these two times, Emily is recalled as having haughty black eyes and "face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and the eye-sockets" (82). As resistant to change as Miss Emily appears to be, there is no denying the aging process, displayed in the last section with her "gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age" (84). Faulkner is effective in allowing the reader to take his hand and see this woman from the eyes of his mind without getting too close. She is the personification of "the Old," just as her much younger counterparts-new generation of the town's representatives are are portrayed as "the New." Homer Barron is the only other character that Faulkner takes the time to sketch with some detail. Barron is described as a "big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than is face." The minor character are only described in passing with only sparse and

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