Characterization Through Another’s Eyes

I just started reading a couple of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books. One thing stands out: the way Stout’s narrator, Archie Goodwin, becomes the window through which we see Nero Wolfe and how effectively Stout portrays Wolfe through that window.

(For the purposes of this post, the one book I’ve finished so far was called “Might as Well Be Dead.”)

Nero does some of his own portraying; that is, Archie reports conversations and actions of Nero’s that he himself witnesses. But a lot of the characterization of Wolfe comes from Goodwin himself. Examples:

1) In this book, at one point a cardinal house rule is violated (Nero has a lot of house rules). Goodwin characterizes him by predicting three possible reactions on Nero’s part — and since Goodwin knows him very well, one presumes they’re all reactions that are steeped in likelihood. Now, Nero reacts a fourth way, and it makes sense — but Stout’s purpose of elucidating Wolfe’s character via the predictions is accomplished. Goodwin does this sort of speculation on Wolfe’s motives several times in this book, and each of the speculations reveals something about Wolfe’s character.

2) Goodwin points out when Wolfe is playing a role versus being himself. In one scene in the book (actually the same scene as the one in the above example), Wolfe buys time to think and creates anticipation in his listeners by filling pots in his orchid room. Goodwin points out that the action is totally fake: a key step in the filling has been omitted. Now, there are two dynamics at work here. The first is that he’s characterizing Wolfe by outlining both the lie and the truth in his behavior. The second deserves it’s own paragraph, thus:

3) He’s portraying himself, Goodwin, as knowing Wolfe’s habits well enough to be able to spot fakery — and if he knows him that well (the reader says to himself), well, he must know what he’s talking about and the reader should believe him. In other words, Goodwin is establishing himself as an authority on Wolfe. He does this throughout, in many ways — for example, even when Wolfe says something brilliant or surprising, Goodwin seems to expect it — he knows Wolfe well enough not to be surprised by him.

4) Goodwin makes frequent references to Wolfe’s appearance, habits, likes, dislikes, and thought processes.

5) Goodwin has set his own life up, in many ways, as an accommodation of Wolfe’s mandates and limitations — this tells the reader that Wolfe’s is a powerful personality and, also, that there must be some strong payoff for Goodwin to do this. It also keeps the reader’s eye squarely on the ball: the temptation is to think of the narrator of any work as being the main character. Well, if you want to think Archie Goodwin is the main character, fine, but Stout won’t let you lose sight of the fact that Goodwin thinks Wolfe is the main character.

6) Goodwin talks about Wolfe’s probable reactions to hypothetical situations — say, the idea of having a woman in his life. Now, Wolfe does not actually have a woman in his life — but Goodwin knows how he’d feel about it.

And so on. Now, a main method of characterizing a fictional persona is via the reactions of others to the character. Stout is a good example because it is an extreme example — the main character is seen exclusively through the eyes of the narrator, who either comments on him or reports things that occur involving him, over numerous books. Stout died more than 30 years ago and his books are still in print. He must have gotten it right.

~ by seriouswriter on January 20, 2008.