Can someone please explain a character's levels to me?

[Indian Boy]

Lately I've been hearing from many people that they particularly enjoyed a certain character's levels, or that they didn't expect that a specific character could come across on so many different levels. Can somebody please explain what that means? What levels? What are they talking about? If anybody can explain this to me I'd greatly appreciate it.

[mayneverhave]

Although I wouldn't exactly categorize "levels" as a technical term, most likely they mean that the character can appear in different manners at different times. Characters who manifest themselves differently at different points are often referred to as round characters, or characters with depth. Characters who are caricatures or one-sided lack depth (obviously). One would not, for example, say that both Hamlet and Candide (the character) have the same level of depth.

I hold to the opinion that each person - whether it be an actual human being or literary character - is the summation of his various masks, or manifestations. I am, for example, student, son, friend, lover, artist, drunk, etc. None of these particular social masks is entirely me, but rather, taken together, they all make up what you would call my personality.

Or, on a completely different reading. You could take "levels" to mean levels of meaning - which is probably more accurate. For example, Moby-Dick is famous for its myriad levels of meaning. What this means is that the novel operates on various levels of meaning - in this case, acting as a quasi-sea/adventure story, while simultaneously probing our minds on a philosophical level.

[billl]

Yes, I agree with mayneverhave. There are various social masks (and/or roles?) that might be referred to as "levels" when we are judging a written story or an actor's performance. I also think there could be explicitly symbolic levels, too, if the story is allegorical (e.g. some character might represent a typical construction worker in language and general habits around the work site, but also be a successful representation of Jesus in some larger scheme of things). EDITthis is like the level of meaning thing, and the Ahab example that mayneverhave also mentions.

I almost posted something on this myself, but didn't because my examples sort of started to seem like they were more about "storylines" more than what we might usually think of as levels. I'm going to go ahead and post now, though, having been emboldened by mayneverhave's post, and inspired by the introduction of the idea that people wear social "masks."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indian Boy,
I thought this was a good question, and I wanted to use an example when trying to answer, but searching my brain for literary examples left me with stuff that maybe a lot of people don't know, as well as classics which I know/remember embarrassingly little about, as far as details attendant to their various levels, so...

In the first Spider-man movie, we see Peter Parker as an adolescent who is sort of uncomfortable or geeky--and a lot of people might (or might not) think that portrayal was successful. We also, of course see him as a hero, saving people, which includes the "pure" action-hero thing (incredible bravery and great skill/strength), as well as another interesting level of depiction, in which we gain insights into how he copes with acquiring special powers. That angle (or those angles, if we view his struggle with the power as separate from the execution of the action scenes) also might be well-done or not--most people at the time thoguht it was pretty well-done, I'd say. We also (and especially in the second movie) see how his situation has ramifications on a romantic level. So, a viewer might find the romantic level effective or not.

It might be hard (and ultimately, unnecessary) to delineate which aspect of the character fits on which level (e.g. should we fit his relationship with his parent and his romantic life on the same level with adolescent struggle, or or keep them separate, or what?), but I think this might be a good example where someone could see how a "character" can have more than one level in a story. Of course, it is just one person, there are different "stories" (that's not the right word, so maybe the word "levels" keeps the idea that they are all part of one story...) associated with that one person.

Possible ""different levels":

Superhero
Person in love
Adolescent having trouble fitting in

[Indian Boy]

I'd like to thank you both. I think I may actually be getting it now. I hope you've read the book 'On the Road' because I'm going to attempt to use this new 'levels' analysis on one of the main characters Dean Moriarty.

So my understanding of this now is that by examining a character through levels I could say that Dean Moriarty is a character on different levels because he is in one level, a friend of Sal Paradise and acts and behaves a certain way towards him, then he is a character on a different level as a boyfriend with his girls and he definitely acts differently towards them, and finally on a third level we can examine him as just a man, not necessarily a friend or a partner but just a man, one that is selfish and impulsive and nutty. Is that right? Do I have a correct understanding of this levels thing now?

[billl]

I haven't read the book, but the thing about how he treats women v. how he treats women could be treated in this way, but I'd suggest you be careful to not make it too much about the contrast there, though. It might be OK, but would be sort of limiting, and maybe be better suited to a "compare and contrast" type of essay. You used the word "differently," and so I think you probably get it, since different doesn't necessarily mean "opposite" all of the time.

Like I said, I haven't read the book, but I'd say you have the idea down now. I really like the idea that he is nutty and impulsive, and that you'll maybe be able to find examples of that maybe even in scenes with his friends or women, at times--that is, maybe you'll be able to show more than one level happening at once, with any luck. I don't know, anyhow--yeah I think you got it!