Through examples and tips, we will deep dive into what is a flat character and what is a round character. In this article, we’ll learn key differences between flat vs round character. The main character (Harry) has many dimensions to their personality, he undergoes personal growth and has motivations behind his actions – this makes the story more engaging since the reader can feel more invested in their journey. As we learn more about them, we see how different events are affecting them as a person. Their feelings, personality, and history are slowly revealed. The characters of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Professor Snape, Malfoy, and Voldemort are developed over the course of many books. We still know Tiana’s mother loves her and wants the best for her, but her mother’s thoughts/desires are not revealed to us.Do you know what makes Harry Potter one of the most popular fictional characters? One can argue between the ‘magical world’ or ‘fight between good and evil.’īut the most important reasons why people love the Harry Potter series is the presence of round characters. Her interactions with Tiana actually reveal more about Tiana than her mother. Her mother is a great character but we do not see much of her. In contrast, a flat character would have to be Tiana’ mother. We can easily identify this because we can see how complex Tiana’s overall character is. We’re able to see her inner thoughts, with lots of variety. An example of a round character would have to be Tiana from the Princess and the Frog. I believe I even learned about flat and “round characters when I was in grade school. I think this metaphor helps me explain what I would use to identify a flat character and it also gave me a new way of thinking about how to identify them. I love that Forster includes on the first page “One great advantage of flat characters is that they are easily recognized whenever they come in-recognized by the reader’s emotional eye, not by the visual eye, which merely notes the recurrence of a proper name.” I really like the distinction of the “visual” and “emotional” eye. I would think flat characters are simple and, like Forster said, easy to identify. Regarding round characters, phrases like “they have already been defined by implication and no more need be said.” are helpful when I try to identify them on my own.

Honestly, I was not familiar with all of the examples Forster used but I was able to understand the majority of the point. I liked that Forster gave us examples throughout the text about different authors using “flat” and “round” characters. Forster, “Character” was insightful and pretty straightforward.

Round or flat characters