Necessity of a Character Arc

In most stories, the reader or audience is given an inside look into the main character or protagonist’s mind.  This means that the emotional or mental changes that the character undergoes are fully explained to the target audience and a clear character arc is shown.  Although, in some stories the audience is not given that insight into the characters mental psyche and the audience takes on the role of the second person point of view.  In these stories, a clear character arc is not shown, mostly because we are observing the character from the outside.

            I do not believe that a character arc is needed to make a compelling story come to life.  There are many cases where the main character already has preconceived ideas about life and does not undergo the mental, emotional, or even physical changes that many protagonists undergo.  Stories that are told on the subject of a criminal mind are the most likely to omit character arcs through the tale. The audience is viewing the actions of the character and in some cases the mental decisions but the character experienced no inner complications that lead him or her to make a big decision or change drastically.  In the movie The Lady Killers, Tom Hanks plays a character that, from the beginning, has a pre-conceived notion that a bank robbery would make him rich and famous.  Sure he experienced complications that set his mission back some but he never undergoes an arc of personal change or transformation that makes him reconsider his true identity.  Another example would be the movie Rampage, in which a mentally unstable young adult kills many of the members of his community out of spite and hate.  We are never given a clear explanation of why he performs this act and a clear point of transformation is never drawn for the character.  It is more the audience viewing the climax of the story and less getting to know the character during its personal transformation.

            It is true that most action or drama movies will give the audience a clear insight into the characters and allows them to follow the climax of the story through the protagonist point of view.  In these cases, it is very easy to see the clear character arc and it helps create the climax.  But the character arc is not a necessity to the action of all stories especially those that do not feature a first person point of view of the actions in the story. 

            The character arc is helpful in creating a good picture of how a person changes through the story and if the story is based on the effects of outside occurrences on the protagonist, such as a holding down a job and caring for a family in Erin Brockovich, then yes, a character arc is most defiantly needed. But to say that a strong change in character is needed to create any compelling story, is not necessarily true for all cases.   There are many good stories where we never even know the character that personally. 

Critique of the Hedgehog Story

While listening to the numerous oral stories that were presented over the last few weeks there were a few that stood out to me personally for being structurally complete and having that extra comedic factor that kept my attention. One of these stories was based on a hedgehog, told by James Wayne.  Wayne's comedic voice shone through the tragic events that unfolded as he lost a newly obtained family pet.

The way that the story was delivered held the audience’s attention through the entire three minute time period.  He was very theatrical in deliverance yet not over the top with dramatic pauses or gestures.  It was astatically pleasing to watch the deliverance as well as amusing to notice the sarcastic tone in which the story was told.

The tale started off with James as the main character telling about the numerous pets his family had accumulated over his lifetime. He did a good job of describing the setting of the story with vivid detail.  It was easy to visualize a home setting with numerous animals and chaos especially when he introduced his mother as the “artsy type”.

 Yet the introduction of the mother character and her longing for a hedgehog confused me just a bit as I could not clearly tell whom the main character of the story was anymore.  The story was being told from an omniscient third person point of view but with two main characters.  In my opinion it would have made a clearer plot line to just use one character, but I did like the depth that both characters brought to the story. 

As we approached the action of the tale suspense built as the hedgehog was taken to the vet to be treated.  The comic relief Wayne threw in there was much needed and a great way to lighted a sad situation at the time.  Also the way he delivered the part about his sister imagining that the hedgehog was wearing a tiny oxygen mask was very well done and had the audience laughing, but I felt that he stayed away from the comedy a little too quickly as he abruptly switched tones to end the story.

The ending did well in summarizing the story but I felt it was a little to inconclusive.  We were not given personal emotions of the characters and how they felt about the hedgehog passing away.  The story did a great job in building suspense but then sort of dropped off at the end with no ties back to the mother, setting, or even main character.   This may have been due to a shortage of time while telling the story, which is understandable.   If ever made into a short screenplay, I would love to see the emotional sides of the characters and maybe even how the death of the hedgehog affected the story as a whole or led to a higher meaning or teaching. 

Overall I felt the story was very well put together in balancing comedy and tragedy.  Maybe narrowing the choice of the main character and giving a little work to the ending would make it easier to develop as a short film.  But Wayne did a great job with keeping the audience attention and telling the story of a fallen family pet.

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