Characters Created by Cavity

Characters Created by Cavity

There are seven key techniques for creating a character in fiction, and indeed for recognizing and describing people in real life.  They include:

1.       the narrator’s description of a character, which is the fastest but in many ways the weakest technique;

2.       another character’s description of the one we are scrutinizing;

3.       details about the character’s circumstances, such as setting or clothes

4.       what the character says (key technique, in fiction and in life)

5.       what the character does (slowest technique, but generally the most reliable source of insight into the real character, getting past deception and misunderstanding

6.       what the character thinks (other techniques try to get at this, because it is generally considered to be the real identity of a character; generally unavailable in real life)

7.       use of foils, contrast with other characters – a powerful technique, but obvious impossible by itself, and must be used in conjunction with other techniques.

One of the oddities, and great strengths, of Rowling’s new book is that she sets out to describe characters – including casual vacancies.  What isn’t there that you expect, or want, or think should be there?  In discussions of morality, the idea of looking carefully at omissions is common; a formal examination of conscience is likely to include scrutiny of “thoughts, words, deeds, and omissions.”  Some moralists would consider the key to any evil to be something missing.  Her idea is related to the “banality of evil.”  But it is not common in literature.  In my limited experience, what Rowling has done is new.

The book describes a village that is badly damaged by the death of a prominent citizen.  He was the conscience of the community, or something like that.  Specifying what is missing in the damaged town is tough.  Is it Christianity?  The town lies under the ruin of an abbey; the local vicar says the right words but does not communicate them with any conviction.  Is it social conscience?  Barry did prod the parish council to care for the needy, and no one else is able to fulfill that role effectively. 

But another set of questions raised by Rowling’s approach involves the creation of characters.  The vacancies in the book may be different for each character: proud Howard simply lacks the ability to see small people, hateful Shirley shuts people out deliberately, lusty Samantha is distracted by skin but can learn to see deeper, etc.  To understand the book, the reader must think about the vacancy in the village as a whole.  But to understand each character, the reader has to take note of all the standard techniques for creating characters – but also ask, what is the vacancy in this person’s life?

I could well be wrong; my knowledge is limited.  Perhaps many other authors have explored the lacunae in life – have focused on the vacancies.  Of course many have done so to some extent.  But I think that Rowling is pioneering a new facet of fiction.

My own perspective is that of a social activist and organizer.  For much of my life, I have been aware of the problem that Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., described in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”  The obstacle to justice that he fought was not just the open racism of Bull O’Connor and other dog-bodies.  Much more important was the carelessness and passivity of fellow Christians.  Rowling has her eye on the same problem – a novelist’s eye, reporting and describing, not denouncing and fighting – but the same problem.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel said, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”  How can that be?  What is offensive about neutrality?  Rowling, it seems to me, explores this question, with her own angle, looking at a variety of people who do not or cannot or will not lift a finger to help people in need.  She pokes and prods and describes what she calls a vacancy.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about the problem of stirring the embers of humanity back to life.  He said that Russians lived with lies for decades, and could not recognize the truth.  They lived with murderous evil for decades, and could not figure out how to do good.  What then?  His job, Solzhenitsyn said, was to hold out beauty, and let it work in people’s souls.  When people began to respond to beauty, their innate love of truth and goodness would also stir from the ashes.  This, it seems to, is an aspect of what Rowling did for years with her children’s fantasies, and now has done again in her new novel.

The critics who consider the novel to be mediocre should swallow their pride and re-read the book, watching for something new, watching for the vacancies – like a probing tongue hunting for a cavity.

I admit I am somewhat ignorant.  It is possible that many other writers have done what she did, and have done it better, and that the literary critics who have read more than I did understand what she was doing and still were not impressed.  But I have not seen any hint of their firm grasp of what she has done.