Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

Volume 15 Article 6
Issue 2 Volume 15, Issue 2 (2022) Fall

12-2022

Character FIRST: Defining and Methodizing Character Depth

Jeff Mason
Lawrence University, [email protected]

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Mason, Jeff (2022) "Character FIRST: Defining and Methodizing Character Depth," Criterion: A Journal of
Literary Criticism: Vol. 15: Iss. 2, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol15/iss2/6

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Character FIRST
Defining and Methodizing Character Depth

Jeff Mason

For many poets, writers, English majors, and

moviegoers, our first experience of mathematics entering the English
classroom came from the movie, Dead Poets Society. In one of the
movie’s most famous scenes, a prep school English class reads aloud the
introduction of a poetry textbook. he section introduces the ritchard
Scale, which asserts that a poem’s greatness can be measured by graphing
its perfection artistic ability and its importance the impact of its meaning
and then calculating the area of the graph. his gives us a simple formula
for understanding poetry, P×I=G— Excrement, as the teacher refers to this
e uation. We’re not laying pipe. We’re talking about poetry Dead Poets
Society . In one sense, presenting mathematics in the English classroom as
“PIG heory makes sense. his ineffective e uation is a classic example
of a model overstepping its boundaries. But bashing this e uation is more
harmful than good. earing this introduction out of the book suggests that
mathematics has no place at all in the English classroom. I challenge this
idea. o those who were taught to label the ritchard Scale as meaningless, I
ask this Isn’t a poem’s greatness correlated with its technical perfection and
its thematic importance, even if those values are subjective I would assert
that the ritchard Scale is far from correct, but not entirely wrong either. It
fails because of ritchard’s assertion that this is how all poetry must be read,
not due to its attempt to better understand poetry through a mathematical
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lens. ritchard’s Scale uses a mathematical formula to show the correlation

between a poem’s perfection, importance, and greatness, though it does so at
the cost of being incredibly rudimentary, and therefore suffers in its accuracy.
As statistician eorge Box famously stated, All models are wrong, but some
are useful lear .
iterary critics, English majors, teachers, and avid readers alike may be
hesitant to embrace the application of mathematics in literature. I assert that
the connections are already there. ark Danielewski, author of House of
Leaves and Only Revolutions, supports this notion when he says, “Writing
is something that’s innate . . . he way a mathematician can reach the end
of the universe without traveling there using the language of numbers,
there’s a way to reach the ends of the heart and the soul by using words
ark . Danielewski . I would argue that because storytelling is made
up of innate methods and techni ues, which are not created so much as they
are discovered, refusing to apply mathematics to them ignores a deeper
understanding inherent in these topics. Exactly how mathematics can
be applied to storytelling has yet to be fully understood, but this paper is
written as a contribution.
In this essay, I seek to advance the understanding of character depth
in readers of all proficiencies and professions literary theorists, movie
critics, avid readers, and English educators alike. I do this by discovering
a hierarchy of importance inherent within character depth and assigning
implicit levels of meaning to elements of a character’s history. I start by
exploring relevant theories of character depth, such as Baruch ochman’s
Character in Literature and Joseph ampbell’s The Hero with a Thousand
Faces, and I will use these works to demonstrate that mathematical thinking
already exists within theories of character depth and must be expanded on.
Based on this, I present a sophisticated definition for character depth that
uses mathematical principles alluded to by previous authors and theorists.
With such a definition, I also create a method called haracter FI S , which
constructs a step-by-step process any reader can apply in their analyses
of characters. Finally, I demonstrate the effectiveness of such a method by
analyzing Drive, The Catcher in the Rye, and True Grit’s central characters
and comparing the themes this techni ue arrives at to that of other literary
criticism, validating the method by its ability to discover similar meanings.

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The Roots of Character

Depth
For a basic understanding of character depth, The Oxford Learner’s
Dictionary of English presents two definitions of the word depth that
make for a solid foundation. In reference to characters, depth is defined as
ualities that give somebody something extra character and make them
it interesting. In reference to knowledge, depth is the uality of knowing
or understanding a lot of details about something the ability to provide and
explain these details The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary . We understand
character depth in literature as a combination of these definitions. It is the
complex details and rationales of a character that make them interesting. his
is a good place to start, but this basic definition provides little insight into
what makes characters deep or how we can analy e characters for deeper
meanings.
Baruch ochman’s book Character in Literature furthers our
understanding of character depth. hough he does not use mathematics
directly, he describes the analysis of character in mathematical terms.
ochman writes

W e register data, relatively raw data, involving human behavior.

Even at an early stage, such behavior falls into patterns, which we then check
against further data as they are provided to us . . . n the whole, however,
it is only late in the process of perception that we fully conceptuali e our
sense of characters, or of people, and come to re ect on the dominance or
recessiveness of certain traits or on the relationship between one pattern of
traits and another . . . he result of such re ection is a certain reductiveness
we reduce characters . . . to what we take to be their essential meaning.

his paragraph alludes to a process of understanding character that involves

the mathematical collection and analysis of data. otice also the line, the
dominance or recessiveness of certain traits, which implies a level of
importance being assigned to different types of character traits. In fact, the
word depth itself implies layers, suggesting a correlation between depth
and importance. ochman elaborates on this when he says, In reading
character in either life or literature, one moves from level to level, from

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surface to depth . . . In moving from level to level, we absorb information that

we can use to hypothesi e the whole structure of a person’s development
ochman . Character in Literature constantly references levels and
implies a hierarchy of meaning in the details of a character’s life. ochman
presents fertile ground from which a process in reading character can sprout,
but he does not uantify this theory of character levels or explain what makes
certain traits dominant or recessive. hus, to expand on ochman’s
ideas, we re uire a way of assigning meaning to character traits.
ochman’s theori ing of levels necessitates a model for understanding
character depth. When I say model, I refer to something like Joseph
ampbell’s monomyth. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
ampbell asserts that any myth can be broken down into steps by
which the hero’s journey progresses in a story. his journey, which he calls
the monomyth, can be summari ed in a circular graph, along which the
hero progresses through each of ampbell’s steps of the hero’s journey
ampbell . ontemporary culture has taken the monomyth and applied
it not just to myths, but to stories in general. he model has not always
proven effective, even in myth, which ampbell lightly acknowledges. e
states, any tales isolate and greatly enlarge upon one or two of the typical
elements of the full cycle and adds that it is inevitable that some stories
defy description since his goal is to chart every hero’s journey through
a story . he real use of a model like the monomyth is its insight into
stories as a whole. he monomyth notices traits of a hero’s journey that prove
insightful into understanding storytelling as a whole. For instance, ampbell
delves into the cyclical nature of the hero’s journey, noticing that most
stories start with the hero in a place of comfort in their common life, before
journeying into the underworld, the land of the unknown. hey complete
the story by returning a changed person, back in the land of their comfort, but
a different character because of their journey . hough it is a very general
understanding of story, and similar to though much more sophisticated
than the ritchard Scale for poetry, ampbell’s monomyth proves valuable
because of its recognition of tendencies and tropes within storytelling as
a whole. herefore, it helps us to better understand what a hero’s journey
means to a story. ritics have pointed this out as well. In the article Forget
the ero’s Journey’ and onsider the eroine’s uest Instead, critic aura
iller defends the monomyth’s value by saying, Furthermore, as ampbell
would argue, his hero’s journey is not an arbitrary storyline chosen to make

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a moral or political point, but a plot form so deeply embedded in many

cultures that we readily recogni e and respond to it iller .
ampbell’s model of the hero’s journey and ochman’s theori ing of
character levels lay the foundation of this paper. Additionally, and perhaps
most essentially, this essay re uires a mathematical lens in analy ing character
depth. Specifically, ochman and ampbell have demonstrated the need for
a type of mathematics that measures one element’s in uence on another, and
how it is in uenced by other elements. hat mathematical theory should
also be based on levels and should be able to recogni e overall tendencies
based on these elements. his is why I have chosen to apply mathematical
derivatives to character depth.
onceptually, a derivative measures the rate of change of the function it is
derived from. Basically, derivatives measure change. Imagine a function that
describes an object’s position. his function may be made up of many terms
that describe exactly where an object will be at any given point in time. But
those terms also make it very di cult to see how an object is changing—and
you want to see the deeper patterns in the object’s travel. aking the derivative
of the object’s position function gives you its velocity—the rate at which the
object’s position is changing. his derivative is also a function, which means
it can be derived as well. aking the derivative of the velocity function will
give you the acceleration function, which describes how the velocity of the
object is changing. Every time we take a derivative, we understand how the
object is changing positions on a deeper and deeper level. But, thinking of
the original position function as what’s called a polynomial an expression
with multiple terms, some more powerful or in uential to the function than
others , every time we take a derivative, the function also gets simpler—
some terms disappear while others get easier to understand.
What does this have to do with ochman and ampbell Derivatives
themselves have patterns that are insightful into depth in literature, and
their principles overlap with some of ochman’s and ampbell’s principles.
ike ampbell’s studying of plots in myths and ochman’s registering of
data to identify characters, derivatives take a lot of information terms of
the polynomial and condense that information into a general description.
he more derivatives we take, the more dense the information is—simpler,
but more powerful. In turn, this relates to ochman’s classification of
information as dominant or recessive, as less important terms in the function
will be erased while more important terms will stay. We also see a hierarchy

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of levels—acceleration tells us more about an object’s patterns of change than

velocity does, while velocity is more insightful than the function for position
is by itself.
n top of all of this, derivatives teach us that in order to achieve a deeper
understanding of what we are analy ing, we need to have a lot of data, and
we need to derive levels of meaning one by one. When we start with the raw
data, as ochman would put it, we can only understand depth by simplifying
what we know, one level at a time. oo little data and our conclusions will be
too simple. oo broad of conclusions too uickly will make those conclusions
inaccurate and easy to discredit.
ochman and ampbell likely had little interest in this field of
mathematics, but derivatives correlate with their theories nonetheless.
eaders do not need a rigorous understanding of mathematical derivatives
to comprehend this paper’s next section, where I introduce my definition
and model for character depth. ather, by studying derivatives, we can make
sense of what character depth truly is. ore studies into the connections
between mathematics and character depth can be done outside of this paper,
but in the context of ochman and ampbell’s work, we can glean from
derivatives a more grounded understanding of how to arrive at deeper
conclusions by building a hierarchy of levels out of the information we
gather. From this mathematical concept, along with ochman’s theories on
character levels and ampbell’s modeling of character tendencies across
stories, I put forth my definition of character depth and a techni ue for its
discovery.

Character FIRST
I assert that character depth is a measure of a character’s internal logic within
the story to which can be attributed a large range of complex thoughts, actions,
histories and circumstances. Within this definition are several terms which
I will elaborate on. he first word of note is measure, which evokes the
mathematical principles this definition is founded on. We must measure
depth in order to show relativity of meaning, of logic, and of complexity.
Depth is a fundamentally hierarchical theory—remember ochman’s
description of the dominance or recessiveness of certain traits. Secondly,
internal does not necessarily refer to the character’s mind. It also refers

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to the logic within the story, as a character can be deep not just for what
they convey on their own but for what they convey through the context of
the story. Finally, note the order of the final four terms, thoughts, actions,
histories and circumstances. his is a deliberate introduction of hierarchy
within the definition. houghts are more important than actions, which are
more important than histories, which are more important than a character’s
circumstances. All of these terms are less important than internal logic, the
highest level. he conglomerate of these levels of meaning and their internal
consistency is what we know as character depth.
Along with this definition comes a method of understanding character
depth. he definition lays down a structure composed of five separate layers
of meaning, starting at the most essential to the character with internal logic
and ending with circumstance. his approach for comprehension makes sense
in terms of a definition. A method, however, must come at character depth
in the opposite way. ochman and familiarity with mathematical models
both show that we must start with the raw data, the very words of the text,
and then work our way deeper by deriving a more refined understanding of
character. herefore, this method, which I call haracter FI S , starts at
the most mundane level.
With the haracter FI S process of analy ing character, we begin by
collecting the many basic facts of the character and their happenstance in
the story. Where does this character live ow old are they Where do they
work or go to school hese details do not describe how a character acts or
thinks, though the accumulation of these details will show connections from
which the character can start to become recogni able. As ochman puts it,
we identify characters in literature in terms of ualities and of constellations
of ualities . ecogni ing these constellations allows us as analysts to
dive a level deeper.
From the many facts of a character’s existence in a story come those
insights from which we can infer traits about their internal logic. ote that
this level is not the character’s insights into other people and the world
around them. We are still not situated in the mind of the character. ather, in
thinking about this level, we should ask ourselves what events and details
of this character’s existence are most linked to the character’s personality
and way of life. Do they have a missing parent Were they close to someone
who died tragically ave they ever been revered or successful in a certain
field otice this information helps us understand the character on a deeper

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level than facts, but it does so at the cost of objectivity. aving a missing
parent may affect one character greatly, while that may not be as important to
another. ikewise, different analysts may have differing opinions on which
events and details of a character’s life are most in uential or insightful to
them. We will see this give-and-take of objectivity versus understanding
continue as the levels progressively get deeper into the character’s psyche
and meaning in the story. eaning within a story is, after all, always up to
interpretation.
he third level of understanding character depth takes a step closer
to genuine character, focusing on the reactions of that character. ow does
a character act ow do they react to certain situations What does this
character tend to do he actions or emotions that could be implied from the
character’s insights will appear here. For instance, a character insight may
be that they once had a nightmare and could not sleep the rest of the night,
while a reaction is that they have fre uent, debilitating nightmares they are
traumati ed. eactions are not a singular moment, like insights are. hey
are a character’s tendency to act a certain way. endencies define characters
more than instances.
A character’s subjectivity makes up the fourth level of their depth. his
level enters into the mind of the character and explores how they see the
world, consciously and subconsciously. When analy ing this level, it can
be helpful to use the first person instead of third person. A character may
think, I must restore my honor, no matter who or what stands in my way,
or they may think, umans are not intelligent enough to be empathi ed
with. Since we are in the mind of the character, this analysis can be very
subjective. et’s say there are two analysts looking at one character. Basing
this fourth level of meaning off that character’s reactions, one analyst may
think a character’s subjectivity states, Family is the most important thing,
while another analyst may posit, ower is the only way to stop suffering.
Both can be true, and an analysis can certainly include both. But subjectivity
often reveals internal con ict, and assigning one as dominant may present
separate derivations of our fifth and final level of character depth.
n the previous level, we explored the deepest parts of the character’s
psyche. herefore, looking at our character on the deepest level re uires us
to leave our character’s mind and view them as part of a whole. We must
take a step back into the world of the narrative and judge how the text itself
views this character and their mindset. Doing so derives theme, the fifth and

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final level of character depth. his is the most subjective level of character,
but it is also the most powerful and the most philosophical. It re uires our
greatest level of interpretation. For instance, a soldier may be the heart of
the group of protagonists and believe that love con uers all family cannot
be broken, but if this character is brutally murdered in front of their family,
an interpretation of this character’s theme may be love and family have no
place in war. ontinuing with the example subjectivities from the previous
paragraph, the theme of a power-hungry character who also values their
family above all else could be interpreted as Family is all that keeps a person
sane, or ower can corrupt even the most righteous of people. otice that
the themes and the subjectivities of a character can be directly opposed to
each other, and that multiple subjectivities can contribute to one theme. his
is why it is vital that we as analysts begin with lots of first-level facts about
any given character, to ground the character in the language of the story and
prevent our analyses from becoming too speculative.
In review, we start with a character’s facts, then move a level deeper
to insights, then deeper to reactions, then subjectivity, and finally theme. his
process, haracter FI S , moves the reader through a hierarchy of meaning
to base all of their interpretations in layers of dense, thoroughly-structured
analysis. In addition to redefining how we view character depth, this method
allows audiences a concrete step-by-step guide to arriving at character
themes without ignoring the importance of subjectivity. his method, in
fact, refines our understanding of interpretation. It is a new perspective
on character depth that aligns with the way we’ve interpreted character
since the beginning of storytelling. In this method’s infancy, its measure of
accuracy has yet to be tested, but in the following section, I will demonstrate
the effectiveness of this method by using it on three works’ central characters
and interpreting their themes.

The Method in Action

In this section I will demonstrate haracter FI S ’s ability to arrive at
meaningful interpretations similar to that of other secondary works of
criticism. I’ve chosen three stories’ central characters to analy e, and though
I do not have the space to present my entire interpretation, a summary of
each will demonstrate the themes each character creates in their story. he

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first two characters I will analy e come from stories that I am already familiar
with and have chosen due to the complexity of their central characters, while
the third character I analy e comes from a novel I had not read previously
or researched in any way prior to using haracter FI S to interpret it in
this paper. I begin this demonstration of the model’s effectiveness with a
movie, Drive, directed by icholas Winding efn, in order to show some
of the more bare-bones properties of this method, as well as to display this
model’s effectiveness in other forms of storytelling beyond literature.
Surprisingly few facts are ever given about Drive’s protagonist. In fact,
this nameless character is referred to simply as Driver in the movie’s
credits. We do not know if this character has family, where he’s from, or what
he has done offscreen before the events of the plot. What we do get is his
occupation e is a mechanic and a stunt driver. But the opening scene of
the movie tells us that he is also a getaway driver who doesn’t shy away
from illegal activities. As the driver says when offered a handshake by the
film’s antagonist, y hands are a little dirty. he villain, Bernie, replies,
So are mine Drive . hroughout the movie, the audience comes to know
the driver, but only based on what he does and the violence he is surrounded
by. We also see the relationships he builds, which lead us to the next level.
he driver’s story becomes more than the typical getaway driver trope
when he builds a relationship with Irene and Benicio, the mother-son duo
down the hall from his new apartment. As the driver tells Irene, You and
Benicio were the best thing that ever happened to me Drive . his detail
in itself is an insightful moment, as are the scenes where the driver robs a
pawn shop to get Benicio’s father out of trouble, and the scene where he
finds his friend Shannon’s body. But these scenes become more complicated
when paired with the scenes of the driver interrogating other criminals, all of
which involve the driver mentioning Benicio or his parents. Another insight
we get of his violence comes in the form of his jacket, which has a scorpion
on the back, implying violent tendencies. astly, we should also make note
of the moment in which the driver and Benicio are watching , and he asks
Benicio how he can tell a certain character is a bad guy. Benicio responds,
Because he’s a shark. he driver then asks, here’s no good sharks and
becomes disheartened when Benicio says there aren’t Drive .
hese insights show a clear set of reactions. he driver is not opposed
to illegal activities, but he also will do anything including murder, though
mostly in self-defense to remove himself and those he cares about from

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crime rings. he movie’s events also demonstrate his compassion for honest
and caring people, like Benicio’s family. Despite rivaling Standard, Benicio’s
father, as a father figure, the driver goes out of his way to help Standard. But
the violence catches up with the driver, too, as shown in the scene where
he brutally murders a hitman in an elevator as Irene watches. he driver is
shown to be aware of his own relationship with violence, and he strives to be
a hero, though he questions his morality all along the way.
In terms of the driver’s subjectivity, he is a character in crisis. e uestions
himself often. e doesn’t only wonder about whether or not he can escape
more complexly, he uestions the nature of morality. e asks himself Is
morality a part of a person’s nature an sins be washed off as easily as
blood an I overcome my own aws he driver is in turmoil throughout
the movie, but what motivates him and what ultimately allows him to get
Benicio and Irene out of this situation safely is the one thing he is certain
of ood people who don’t get their hands dirty deserve to be happy and
safe. he driver believes so firmly in this that he is willing to end the movie
by driving off into the night, sacrificing his chance at a life with Irene, but
keeping her and Benicio safe.
For theme, we must look at how the movie treats the driver and what he
stands for. In this regard, the movie doesn’t come to a solid answer. ather,
this story is an exploration of complex moral dilemmas. It uestions what it
means to be, as the background music says, a real human being, and a real
hero Drive . Another theme that we can derive from this interpretation
relates to being dirty and the choice to do bad things. oticing the way
blood and injuries seem to stick around, such as on Standard’s face and the
driver’s jacket, and pairing this with the driver’s overall goal to escape the
crime world, the movie uestions the ability to move on from immorality.
ost of the characters involved in crime end up dead, and the driver survives
but sacrifices his chance at a family with Irene, so I would not disagree with
the interpretation that Drive demonstrates the corrupting power of evil.
owever, to give the driver his storybook ending with Irene would have
sullied the character’s dark and complex tone. his is about as good of a
situation as the driver could have hoped for, and his success is ambiguous.
herefore, with the driver surviving, I see this theme more as an exploration
of evil than a warning of its power.
Both of these themes show up in criticism of the film. iles Surrey points
to the motif of the driver engaging in violence, calling it a riveting descent

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into chaos a starry, neon-lit .A. curdling into a bloody but still neon-lit
nightmare. oger Ebert also recogni es the protagonist’s moral crisis, titling
his review he existential getaway driver. Ebert goes on to say, he
driver reveals deep feelings and loyalties indeed, and undergoes enormous
risk at little necessary benefit to himself. But these reviews do not provide
analysis of the driver, only assertions. Because of this, I will also compare the
model’s interpretation to video essays published through You ube. hough
none of these channels have as much acclaim as Ebert, these video essays
actively attempt to grapple with the themes of the driver as a character.
oreover, the FI S model must demonstrate its ability to provide
substantive analysis before it can be measured against the highest- uality
criticism available, so video essays provide an ade uate first comparison
to measure up against. egardless of how much value the audience puts in
video essays, the FI S model clearly arrives at similar interpretations as the
community. Drive, Joseph ampbell, Becoming A eal ero comes to
the conclusion that Drive ultimately boils down to a study of morality . . .
and the conse uences of doing right and wrong . ikewise, another video
essay, he Driver — A eal ero, claims that he driver has participated
in criminal activities, but doesn’t think those actions represent him. ther
video essays comment on similar themes see What Does Drive Say About
asculinity , demonstrating this method’s ability to arrive at sophisticated
character-based themes. Formed on fact-based analysis, haracter FI S
successfully articulates complex themes which correspond to other critics’
analyses of the driver.
While Drive shows haracter FI S ’s ability to discover themes from
a central character with very little history, a work such as The Catcher in
the Rye makes for a good demonstration of the method’s usefulness in
analy ing unreliable characters. As a novel with a large amount of criticism
surrounding it, this method’s accuracy in pointing to themes common
within literary criticism of The Catcher in the Rye will signify its usefulness.
Additionally, as a work featuring an unreliable narrator whose actions and
statements contradict throughout, The Catcher in the Rye tests the FI S
method’s ability to parse through di cult, dense layers of characteri ation,
further validating its integrity.
Some of the first things we learn about olden aulfield seem mundane
at first, but will become more important as the story progresses. At the
level of facts, we learn about olden in a very basic sense e is a tall

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black-and-gray-haired -year-old who wears a hunting hat backwards and

smokes a lot, goes to a renowned prep school, etc. We also learn about his
family and his past, which are a huge part of olden’s character. Finally, we
get a simple understanding of how he interacts with the world by noting his
repeated unking out of school, his numerous roommates, and his previous
non-familial relationships. he biggest concern of our analysis should be the
sheer mass of data we can accumulate on olden aulfield. owever, some
of the most important details of the facts level to note are olden’s hunting
hat, which he calls a people shooting hat, Salinger and olden’s gray
hair. Both of these details, though they seem mundane, are symbolic of
deeper characteristics that will surface later in the analysis.
oving on to insights, we uickly learn that olden’s lousy childhood
is more traumatic than it initially seems. is younger brother Allie died
young, and olden recounts, I slept in the garage the night he died, and
I broke all the goddamn windows with my fist, just for the hell of it .
Additionally, a classmate of his committed suicide while wearing a sweater
that olden had loaned him. hese two events are telling, and the way they
are presented will be further explored in reactions. We should also note that
olden is writing this book from a mental institution, which makes the
reader uestion olden’s sanity and further complicates his status as an
unreliable narrator. ote also olden’s status as a terrific liar and his
contradictions, suggesting a mental imbalance in olden.
Deriving his reactions from this, we see how olden behaves on a regular
basis. ne important detail to note is that his actions often contradict—for
instance, the two extremely traumatic events of his past listed in insights are
played off as part of life, while things like the ducks in entral ark make
olden sad. e seems to grieve more for the missing ducks than for his
deceased brother or his dead classmate. ne of the most telling mentions
of this comes when his little sister hoebe asks olden to name something,
anything, that he likes. olden’s response is that he likes his dead younger
brother Allie, not liked but likes, as if he is still alive, which
suggests an inability for olden to process grief. ay attention as well to the
things olden says he hates—movies, plays, phonies —and the behaviors
olden engages in, as those statements and behaviors directly contradict
each other as well. While one of his foremost reactions is to hate falseness
and the establishment, another of olden’s reactions is to shoot the bull
and be completely disingenuous.

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his leads us to olden’s subjectivity. olden is careful to never state his

true desires or fears throughout the story, as demonstrated by the opening
paragraph of the book. But by the end, we come as close as we will get to
olden explaining his truest beliefs Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If
you do, you start missing everybody . ooking back at the previous
levels that have brought us to subjectivity, we start to see what this sentiment
truly means olden does not know how to properly grieve, and he feels as if
people and events are only worth something in hindsight. e also hates the
phony society he’s grown up in, but participates in it nonetheless, which
seems to show that he wants a better and more genuine life for children but
doesn’t think himself capable of possessing this better life.
Finally, this brings us to theme. Knowing how olden thinks, we take a
step back and analy e how the novel interacts with the ideas he puts forth.
Since this is a first-person narrative, it can be di cult to parse out how the
novel interacts with olden, but Salinger does an exceptional job of letting
hidden details come across, allowing the reader to identify characteristics
about olden that he can’t even identify about himself. hough olden
talks a lot about getting out of the mental institution, the reader is made to
wonder how he will do that What will olden have to overcome to fit into
the world his phrases the thematic uestion in terms of the plot. In terms of
the themes of the story, olden’s mindset and actions as a character explore
the di culties of adolescence and trauma. hrough him, the novel explores
the death of childhood, and therefore, its significance. he main uestions
that the novel seems to explore through olden are then twofold What does
it matter if we are only able to care about people after they are gone, and can
anyone escape the phoniness of the world
ooking at literary criticism of The Catcher in the Rye, we can see that
these themes are abundant in analyses of olden aulfield. In olden
aulfield Don’t Ever ell Anybody Anything,’ Duane Edwards writes,
olden focuses on danger and potential death instead of love and a
personal relationship. Ultimately, he reveals his unreliability as the narrator
for his own life’s story. ater, Edwards continues, olden conforms to
phoniness because he wants so badly to join the human race. he haracter
FI S model and Edwards are clearly picking at the same sentiments of the
book, in that they both uantify his status as an unreliable narrator and use
olden’s ironic narration to present a theme about phoniness and conformity.
In another essay, olden aulfield’s egacy, David astronovo identifies

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Salinger’s key exploration of The Catcher in the Rye to be sentiment

and idealism, a child-like faith that life contains more than pretensions
and phoniness. ikewise, the haracter FI S model picked up on this
meaning, uestioning whether or not the world of phoniness is inescapable
and whether holding onto childhood can produce meaning or only result in
madness.
Both of these works, Drive and The Catcher in the Rye, are personal
favorites of mine. While this has allowed for me to pick and choose which
works best demonstrate the method I’ve put forward, it also allows room for
bias. o remedy this, I will also demonstrate haracter FI S ’s effectiveness
on a text which I have not researched nor read previous to the writing of this
essay. Based solely off of the genre and a personal recommendation, I have
chosen to analy e attie oss from True Grit by harles ortis through the
lens of this method.
Upon a single close reading, the facts relating to attie oss that jump
out of this text are numerous but fairly concise. he story is not too complex,
and our narrator, though not as psychoanalytical as olden aulfield,
details herself enough that we have a sturdy foundation of who she is. She
is a -year-old girl looking to avenge her father’s death by hiring a U.S.
arshal to track down his killer. As the story progresses, we see that she is
an authoritative figure when it comes to her family and her sense of morality.
She barters with many of the characters we meet. his is demonstrated
in the details we see of her writing to her lawyer, the numerous bartering
scenes, the fact that she is the oldest child, and the words of other characters
in dialogue as well. For instance, attie’s lawyer tells her in a letter, your
headstrong ways will lead you into a tight corner one day . . . You are your
mother’s strong right arm now, attie ortis .
In this text, the facts of attie oss can be di cult to separate from the
insights. attie’s narration is concise and matter-of-fact, making the events
attie is emotionally invested in not much different stylistically from the
ones that she is not. he most obvious of these insights is attie’s dead
father—that is the heart of the plot and the drive of attie’s story. We learn to
see attie as a head of a household, though she is only . his responsibility
clearly weighs on her, but she is also up to the task, as demonstrated in her
conversations with Stonehill, who sold some horses to her father shortly
before his death. After reali ing how capable attie is at striking a deal,
Stonehill says to her, y patience is wearing thin. You are an unnatural

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child . omplimenting attie’s responsibility to her family, we also

see the way she interacts with money. attie’s conversations almost always
revolve around payment and debt, whether that is putting the items of life in
terms of physical money, or putting her relationships in terms of a different
kind of value. he two values, money and emotional value, do not bleed over,
however, as demonstrated by attie’s refusal to haggle with the coroner .
What this shows is a strong set of reactions in attie. She speaks the
language of money and economy when interacting with the outside world,
but when business gets personal, she does not. We see this as well with
attie’s refusal to take om haney’s bounty into account when planning
his lawful killing. he man must pay, but not in money. As a no-nonsense
young woman, attie demonstrates her ability to command authority and
to fend for herself. But there is also something very clearly missing a sense
of deep personal connection. We can only infer attie’s sense of compassion
based on the lengths at which she is willing to go to avenge her murdered
father. At the end of the novel, when attie seeks out her comrades from
this mission who have gone their separate ways, she is unable to find those
connections. ooster ogburn is dead, and aBeouf has left no trail to be
found by.
With these reactions in mind, we come to attie’s subjectivity. er
obvious and most prominent motivation is to avenge her father’s death,
which implies a strong connection with family. She also re uires that her
two comrades bring her out west with them to allow her to see om haney
die herself, which suggests attie believes it is her responsibility to seek out
her father’s justice. But most deeply of all, if we mix these understandings of
attie with her continued economical descriptions of society and of justice,
a line from early in the novel jumps out and speaks for itself You must pay
for everything in this world one way or another .
he novel seems to view attie’s sense of the world mostly in
agreement. er and her compatriots’ success implies that this subjectivity of
personal justice is correct. What’s more, the title, True Grit, is what is used to
characteri e ooster ogburn, who is described as one of the most unforgiving
marshals there is. his title glorifies the toughness of the characters. It serves
as a reminder that without the proper toughness to stare down the evils of
the world, the heroes would not have succeeded. In fact, it is only despite
major injuries to all the characters that they end up succeeding, suggesting a
theme of the novel You must be as cold and as unforgiving as the world itself

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at least in the Wild West to claim your justice. But given that the entirety of
this novel’s plot is centered on the death of attie’s father, this theme must
also be taken in conjunction with the value of family. Family is the only thing
that supersedes the value of money. o phrase it as economically as attie
would eople pay in cash, criminals pay in blood.
iven this story’s relevance in modern society as showcased by the
oen brothers movie of the same name , the author . Baird Shuman
gives a disappointingly thin analysis of attie oss in ortis’ rue rit
Adventure Story or Entwicklungsroman ’ e comes to the conclusion that
the novel serves to chronicle attie oss’ struggle to achieve maturity, and
sums up the happenings of the novel as the most crucial days of her life
. . . her gargantuan trials. Such an interpretation is counterintuitive to what
we learn in the novel and, in some places, downright false—for instance,
Shuman incorrectly states that attie is not bitten by snakes despite this
being a major factor in the amputation of her arm. We are also shown that
attie’s ability to barter and to act with grit is not a learned trait. he lawyer’s
letter states as much when he characteri es attie as an almighty trial
with headstrong ways ortis . Shuman mistakenly interprets the
events of the story as an arc, when in reality, attie’s story is one of success
and bitter fulfillment, not growth. eanwhile, William auenberg’s True
Grit by harles ortis, recogni es the novel’s struggle with wickedness,
but dramatically oversimplifies attie oss and the themes she presents.
auenberg’s thesis, that the story shows the power of the good to con uer
evil, puts into words the most generic interpretation of any story.
In the case of True Grit, the FI S model’s interpretation of attie oss
proves to be uite effective. Its analysis of her character depth provides us
with a better understanding of her value of money and family, and helps us
to better understand the concepts of value and grit as a whole. hrough this
story, as well as Drive and The Catcher in the Rye, this method of analysis
sheds light on the impact of characters on a story and demonstrates how to
base interpretation on substantive textual evidence in order to form a concise
understanding of a character’s meaning. By pointing to themes common
among other interpretations, the haracter FI S method proves useful in
theory and applicable in practice.

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Conclusion
haracter FI S is meant to be used not only as a tool for better understanding
of character depth, but also as a springboard for further analysis founded
on factual evidence within stories. ikewise, there are further avenues of
thought to explore beyond the scope of this paper. It remains to be seen
how useful this model might be for the writing process, as is the case for
ampbell’s monomyth. haracter FI S ’s use of derivatives should be
further analy ed, and mathematics in literature as a whole is a subject with
plenty of interpretation and discovery left to be had. I expect this definition
and model to be critici ed as well specifically, though I firmly believe in the
five levels of character depth asserted in this paper, I expect the number of
character depth layers to be contested and further theori ed. evertheless,
this paper lays the groundwork for a new way of thinking about character
depth, the potential of which has yet to be fully discovered.
Analysts should be encouraged by the success these interpretations of
three major characters achieve in understanding deeper meaning in stories.
It proves successful in analy ing films and novels, favorites of literary
critics and overlooked works, first-reads and old favorites. It makes use
of mathematical ways of thinking in order to better understand what it is
that makes characters deep and to form a new, more applicable definition
of character depth. It is founded on substantive literary theory, specifically
ochman’s Character in Literature and ampbell’s monomyth from The
Hero with a Thousand Faces. ost importantly, it expands our understanding
of storytelling and the characters within. By learning this derivative-based
definition of depth and applying the haracter FI S method, readers of
all levels can discover for themselves more complex and sophisticated
interpretations of character depth.

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