Character (arts)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A fictional character is any person, persona, identity, or entity whose existence originates from a fictional work or performance. Such existence is presumed by those participating in the performance as audience, readers, or otherwise. In addition to people, characters can be aliens, animals, gods, an artificial intelligence or, occasionally, inanimate objects.
Characters are widely considered an essential element of fictional works, especially novels and plays. Nevertheless, some works have attempted to portray a story without the use of characters (James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is one of the most famous examples). Even in works that do not expressly convey the existence of characters, such as in poetry, they are presumed in the form of a narrator or an imagined listener.
In various forms of theatre, performance arts and cinema, fictional characters are portrayed by actors, dancers and singers.
The process of creating and developing characters in a work of fiction is called characterization.
A non-fictional character is a character that actually exists or existed in history, though their exploits in the story may differ from their historical activities.
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