How does a playwright build a character on the page, and how do you analyse function, objective and relationship rather than just describing personality?
Analyse character and characterisation, including a character's function, objectives, relationships and arc, and the techniques a playwright uses to reveal character
A focused answer to the H2 Theatre Studies outcome on character. The difference between character and characterisation, dramatic function, objectives and arc, foils and relationships, the techniques playwrights use to reveal character, and how analysis turns into performance choices.
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What this dot point is asking
SEAB wants you to analyse character and characterisation: a character's dramatic function, objectives and arc, their relationships and foils, and the techniques a playwright uses to reveal them, and to connect this to how an actor would perform the role. You should be able to distinguish the character (the imagined person and their role in the design) from characterisation (the means of building them). The central insight is that strong analysis moves beyond describing personality to examining what a character wants, what they are for in the play, how they change, and how the playwright reveals all of this mainly through action and relationship, so that the analysis feeds directly into performance.
The answer
Character versus characterisation
A precise distinction. The character is the imagined person, defined above all by what they want and what they do, and by their function in the play's architecture. Characterisation is the set of techniques the playwright uses to create that impression in the audience. Confusing the two leads to flat "personality" description; separating them lets you analyse both the figure and the craft that builds them.
Dramatic function
Every character does a job in the play's design. Common functions include the protagonist (whose pursuit drives the action), the antagonist (who opposes them), the foil (who contrasts with another to make their qualities stand out), and the raisonneur or commentator (who voices a perspective on the events). Asking what a character is for often explains the playwright's choices better than asking only what they are like, and it stops minor characters from being misread as failed attempts at full personalities.
Objectives, super-objective and arc
As with acting, a character is best understood through their objectives: what they want in each scene and overall (the super-objective). The arc is how the character changes across the play, whether they grow, fall, learn or refuse to change, and that trajectory is often the spine of the drama. Tracking want and change is far more revealing than cataloguing traits, because drama is people trying to get things and being altered in the attempt.
How playwrights reveal character
Characterisation works through several techniques: a character's own actions and choices (the strongest evidence), their speech, including a distinctive idiolect or rhythm; what other characters say about them (and whether it proves reliable); stage directions describing appearance or behaviour; and contrast with a foil. A subtle playwright lets actions and the gap between what a character says and does reveal them, rather than stating their nature outright.
Relationships and status
Characters exist in relation to others, and much of who they are emerges from those relationships and the shifting status between them, who has power in a scene and how it changes. Analysing a character means analysing their network: alliances, oppositions and dependencies. This relational reading also feeds performance, because actors play wants directed at specific other people, not abstract traits.
Examples in context
Example 1. The foil in Shakespearean drama. Shakespeare repeatedly sets a contrasting figure beside his protagonists, a steady friend against a brooding hero, a blunt soldier against a subtle schemer, so the protagonist's qualities stand out by contrast. Reading such a character by function rather than personality explains why they exist and how they sharpen the audience's understanding of the lead.
Example 2. Chekhov's indirect characterisation. Chekhov reveals character less through declarations than through small actions, evasions and the gap between longing and behaviour, so the audience infers inner lives from indirect evidence. This indirect technique demonstrates how characterisation can work by implication, rewarding an actor who plays the unspoken wants beneath ordinary speech.
Try this
Q1. Explain the difference between a character and characterisation. [3 marks]
- Cue. The character is the imagined person, defined by what they want and do and their function in the play; characterisation is the set of techniques the playwright uses to create that character in the audience's mind.
Q2. Name three techniques a playwright can use to reveal a character. [3 marks]
- Cue. Any three of: the character's own actions and choices, their speech or idiolect, what other characters say about them, stage directions, or contrast with a foil.
Q3. Why is tracking a character's objectives and arc more useful than listing their traits? [4 marks]
- Cue. Because drama is people wanting things and being changed by the attempt, so analysing wants and the trajectory of change reveals the character's role in the action and gives an actor concrete things to play, whereas adjectives do neither.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of SEAB exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Original12 marksAnalyse how a playwright reveals and develops a major character in a play you have studied, and explain how an actor might use this analysis in performance.Show worked answer →
Open by distinguishing the character (the imagined person and their function in the play) from characterisation (the techniques the playwright uses to build them).
Develop the analysis. Identify the character's dramatic function (protagonist, antagonist, foil, raisonneur) and their objective and super-objective. Trace how the playwright reveals them: through their own actions and choices, their speech and idiolect, what other characters say about them, stage directions, and the contrast with a foil. Track the character's arc, how they change across the play. Then turn analysis into performance: show how an actor would use the objectives, the relationships and the arc to make specific vocal, physical and emotional choices.
Reach a judgement: strong characterisation is revealed mainly through action and relationship, and the actor's job is to play the wants and changes the text encodes. Markers reward the character-versus-characterisation distinction, attention to function and objective, the techniques of revelation, the arc, and a clear link to performance choices.
Original6 marksExplain the difference between a character's dramatic function and their personality, using the idea of a foil as one example of function.Show worked answer →
Define the terms. Personality is the bundle of traits a character seems to have; dramatic function is the job the character does in the play's design, such as driving the plot, opposing the protagonist, or illuminating a theme.
Use the foil: a foil is a character whose function is to contrast with another (often the protagonist) so that the other's qualities stand out more sharply. The foil might be defined less by a rich personality than by the contrast they provide.
Conclude: analysing function asks what a character is for, not just what they are like, which often explains the playwright's choices better than personality alone. Markers reward the function-versus-personality distinction and a correct account of how a foil works by contrast.
Related dot points
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