You’re supposed to offset my character, damnit.

For my last post in this characterization series, I’m going to talk a little about foils. An important part of developing characterization is in comparing your characters to each other and seeing how they play off each other’s qualities. Taking Pride and Prejudice as an example (what, like you didn’t know I’d do that?):

Jane Bennet exhibits the classic definition of ladylike behavior – soft-spoken, mild-mannered, keeps her opinions and emotions invisible from the public eye. Elizabeth Bennet, though she’s still ladylike, is vivacious and doesn’t keep her opinions and feelings under such careful check. However, she’s a far cry from her mother and youngest sister Lydia, who are always being tactless and vulgar. Later in the novel, Lady Catherine serves as a foil for Elizabeth’s good breeding when she behaves condescendingly to her guests. Elizabeth is the true lady, while Catherine merely holds the title.

These subtle and not-so-subtle differences in behavior engage issues of propriety and breeding throughout the novel without Jane Austen having to butt in all the time with comments like, “See, this is what you shouldn’t do and that is what you should.” Otherwise it would read like an etiquette pamphlet. Casablanca also makes good use of foils for characterization:

On the scale of virtue and vice, Victor, resistance leader and bona fide hero, ranks highest in virtue, while Nazi Maj. Strasser is evil villain par excellence. That’s a given. But in between them you have Rick and Capt. Renault – Rick more toward the virtue and Renault more toward the vice, the difference being determined by Renault using his position of power to get vulnerable women to sleep with him. Rick isn’t the type of guy to do that kind of thing, so even though he “sticks his neck out for nobody,” he’s not in the same category with Renault.

Also note that between the four of them, Victor, Renault, and Strasser have polished manners whereas Rick is the common man with an edge, distinctly American. Victor’s overt heroism is a foil to Rick’s latent heroism. Victor’s the kind of guy who gets people to sing the French national anthem to stick it to the Nazi soldiers, while Rick sticks it to them by having as little to do with them as possible – until you really push him, that is. Even when Rick becomes overtly heroic by shooting Strasser, you’re not sure that Victor would have done the same thing. By the end, the distinctly American Rick has jumped into the fray and “rearranges” the Europeans by saving Victor, bringing Renault over to the good guys, and killing Strasser.

Good use of foils is especially helpful in a fast-paced, plot-driven movie like Casablanca. You get the differences between the characters without having to stop to think about it. No one has to actually say, “Rick isn’t the kind of guy who uses his connections to get women.” Very often we rely on explaining things by narration or characters’ direct remarks, but setting up a scene to demonstrate difference in attitude or reaction can also work very nicely. (I know you might as well say “show, don’t tell” but personally I think “telling” isn’t necessarily something to be gotten rid of. It all depends on how you do it. But that’s another subject.)

You should try to isolate specific qualities in each character and highlight the differences. Jane and Elizabeth manage to be ladylike but not identical. Let’s say Darcy had proposed to an Elizabeth with Jane’s more reserved manners: she probably would have refused him politely and not let him have it about her sister or Wickham. (Now I think I should stop before this post turns into science-fiction...) The point is characters don’t have to relate to each other in a purely functional way, as in “protagonist = good” and “antagonist = evil.” If “good ≠ evil,” then “protagonist ≠ antagonist.”

Next time on Technical Saturday... Writer’s Block, why you may have it and how you can get over it.