What is the definition of “characterisation”?
robertwilliam eNotes Editor Characterisation is simply the way the author paints a picture of what a certain character is like. Details of characterisation might include descriptions of what a certain character wears, looks like, does, speaks like, smells like, walks like, eats, where he/she lives… and so on. As an example, let me refer you to Dickens (a master of vivid characterisation) and “Oliver Twist” – this is the first time Fagin appears in the novel. Read the extract and consider how each carefully-chosen little detail suggests something about Fagin himself. In a frying-pan, which was on the fire, and which was secured to the mantel-shelf by a string, some sausages were cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villanous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed in a greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing his attention between the frying-p
