Character Identification

                I read something recently describing character identification in fiction and I’m going to try to figure out some things about the concept. People often say that they identified with a certain character when reading a novel, but it is difficult to describe what they really mean. To say that one identifies with a character it seems like they mean they become one with that character at least on an emotional level. It sounds like they take on the identity of the character. One of the definitions of identification on Princeton.edu is the attribution to yourself the characteristics of another person. If this is the case, character identification does not seem valid to describe what happens when we read. People often feel emotions that the character does not when they read. For example, the audience may know that the protagonist is in danger before they do so we feel fear while the character feels content. A character might also lose a family member and we feel sympathetic, but we do not grieve with them. People cannot be in the same emotional state as characters for much of the time that we spend reading and even if we feel something similar, our feelings are tempered by knowing the source is not an actual person. No matter how terrifying a description of a monster is, we are not going to respond the same way as a character because we never believe one is attacking us. Wikipedia has a brief section on character identification that says it is when “readers or spectators see themselves in the fictional character.” I’m not sure that we can really see ourselves in another character, we can relate to their emotional reactions and responses, but we never think we are part of that character. What I think we do is relate strongly to the character. We think if I were in that situation I would probably do the same thing or this situation the character is facing reminds me of something in my own life. I do not think that in everything we read we have to be able to relate in this way. We can enjoy reading about someone acting in a way we would not, like a text from the perspective of a vampire hunter, or be surprised by someone’s emotional reaction. We always see the characters as someone reacting to the context of the story, but we maintain our perspective as outside the action. There is never a point where we become so caught up in a novel that we think we become the character.

                Does this make sense? What do you think it means to identify with a character?