Characterization, Point of View, and Foreshadowing

Characterization: The process by which a writer makes a character seem real to the reader. Authors have two major methods of presenting characters: showing and telling. Showing allows the author to present a character talking and acting, and lets the reader infer what kind of person the character is. In telling, the author intervenes to describe and sometimes evaluate the character for the reader. Motivated action: the audience is offered reasons for how the character behaves. 

"Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger" (Doyle, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," 267).  

"He stepped swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands" (Doyle, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," 274).

Point of View: Refers to who tells the story and how it is told. What we know and how we feel about the events in a work are shaped by the author's choice of point of view. The teller of the story, the narrator, inevitably affects our understanding of the characters' actions by filtering what is told through his or her own perspective.

• Person- A story can be narrated in the first person singular ("I saw what happened") or first person plural ("We saw what happened"). It can also be narrated in the second person ("You saw what happened"). The story can also be told in the third person ("He saw what happened").
• Perspective- In the single perspective, only the actions of one character are followed; only what occurs in that person's presence is narrated. From the multiple perspective what occurs in the presence of two or more characters is narrated. From the omnipresent perspective, the narrator has access to actions everywhere in the story. 
• Access- The narrator might have only objective access to occurrences, being able to narrate only actions seen or heard, or the narrator might have subjective access, being able to narrate not only actions and words but the thoughts and emotions of characters as well. 

Foreshadowing: The introduction early in a story of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later.  

"Upon closer and more concentrated perusal, I at length concluded to be no more than a single 'S', but an 'S' whose writhing curls seemed almost to grin presumptuously at one, an 'S' which seemed to be constructed of little else than these grins" (Russell, "Sardonicus" 435). 

"True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell" (Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart").