【正文】 at is character but he det ermi nati on of incident ? What is i ncident but he il ustration of character?‖ (The Art of Ficti on‖) When we read a novel, we read about our felow beings, and that i s one of t he moti ves in readi ng at al l. The “felow beings” in t he novel is termed charact er s. By “felow beings” is meant not only “human bei ngs” but also “other beings,” such as ani mal s. Geor ge Or wel l uses ani mal s t o represent human bei ngs in his novel Animal Farm. Lewis Car rol cr eates many lovel y animals in his Ali ce’s Advent ures i n Wonderland that appeal to bot h chil dr en and adults. Orwel does not i nt end to convince the reader t hat animals can speak human language or t hat he i s a t ranslator between animals and humans. No sensibl e reader, aft er readi ng Orwel l‘s Animal Farm, would go to the pigst y to look for a t al ki ng boar . This proves the agr ed on ficti onalit y of char acters in novels. So broadl y, a character is an invented personal it y to resembl e but never t o equal a real person in l ife. I t is not di f icul t o see that characters in novels r esemble people in r eal li fe in many ways. They have names used in t he same way our s ar e used, they have hat red and l ove, and t hey have desires and f ears. Above al , t hey act the way we act or t he way we can understand ( like or di sli ke) . But we must bear in mi nd t hat the char acter s are not r eal persons, but m er el y invent ions, however i ngeni ous. Compare t he physical l ife and spir itual ife of the charact ers and ours. We have to answer the nat ure‘s cal several ti mes a day, but charact ers eldom do t hi s, even in the most realisti c or nat ur al istic novels. We have t o live our li fe hour by hour and day by day, but characters never do this. They choose to li ve some t ime more f ul ly than ot hers, and ar e able t o skip over per iods on ten mont hs or twent y year s without seming wei rd, a feat which we can never at tempt . In our li fe, our m i nds ar e a gr ay mat er even to sci enti st s. We can not know what i s going on i n other‘s mind. But in novel s, the minds of the charact ers are open or can be made open to t he reader if t he novelist so chooses. The r eader does not onl y see thei r clothes, but also see t heir mi nds. One charact er may be enemy to othe r char acters, but he i s fri end to t he reader, before whom he can t hi nk aloud, t o borrow Emerson‘s words. Charact ers do not l ive, but act . When we wat ch act or s speak aloud t o themsel ves on the stage as if t hey wer e al one, we know they are act ing and they ar e di f er ent from what hey represent i n real li fe. The charac。 how wri ters, t hr ough thei r creative impulses, convey to us t heir i nsights into human desti ny and human lif e。I nt r oduction I. Why do we have such course? English li terature is one of the pulsor y and most impor tant cour ses. However , t he English li ter ature courses off er ed are merely t aught at he l evel of lear ni ng general informati on and developing li teral understanding. Admit tedl y, such courses hel p them/ you a lot in t heir /your acqui si tion of t he English language. But the functi on of Engli sh l iterature r eaches far beyond that . I n reading Engl ish lit er at ur e, a st udent should have the power to discern how human beings translate t heir experience i nt o ar tisti c expresion and represent at ion。 P, ‖ and the mot ivat ion of a character i n a st or y—one of t he answers to t he questi on ―why‖—is of fundamental impor tance. I. What is Charact er? Closely r elat ed wi th t he story is t he char acter. Henry James sai d, “What is character but he det ermi nati on of incident ? What is i ncident but he il ustration of character?‖ (The Art of Ficti on‖) When we read a novel, we read about our felow beings, and that i s one of t he moti ves in readi ng at al l. The “felow beings” in t he novel is termed charact er s. By “felow beings” is meant not only “human bei ngs” but also “other beings,” such as ani mal s. Geor ge Or wel l uses ani mal s t o represent human bei ngs in his novel Animal Farm. Lewis Car rol cr eates many lovel y animals in his Ali ce’s Advent ures i n Wonderland that appeal to bot h chil dr en and adults. Orwel does not i nt end to convince the reader t hat animals can speak human language or t hat he i s a t ranslator between animals and humans. No sensibl e reader, aft er readi ng Orwel l‘s Animal Farm, would go to the pigst y to look for a t al ki ng boar . This proves the agr ed on ficti onalit y of char acters in novels. So broadl y, a character is an invented personal it y to resembl e but never t o equal a real person in l ife. I t is not di f icul t o see that characters in novels r esemble people in r eal li fe in many ways. They have names used in t he same way our s ar e used, they have hat red and l ove, and t hey have desires and f ears. Above al , t hey act the way we act or t he way we can understand ( like or di sli ke) . But we must bear in mi nd t hat the char acter s are not r eal persons, but m er el y invent ions, however i ngeni ous. Compare t he physical l ife and spir itual ife of the charact ers and ours. We have to answer the nat ure‘s cal several ti mes a day, but charact ers eldom do t hi s, even in the most realisti c or nat ur al istic novels. We have t o live our li fe hour by hour and day by day, but characters never do this. They choose to li ve some t ime more f ul ly than ot hers, and ar e able t o skip over per iods on ten mont hs or twent y year s without seming wei rd, a feat which we can never at tempt . In our li fe, our m i nds ar e a gr ay mat er even to sci enti st s. We can not know what i s going on i n other‘s mind. But in novel s, the minds of the charact ers are open or can be made open to t he reader if t he novelist so chooses. The r eader does not onl