Literary term: Character development By: Katherine Woolever

Definition Character development is the way in which a character changes over time, or throughout the course of the story.

Why it matters Character development is important to a story because it makes the characters more believable and gives them more life like qualities. Character development is also an important part to the climax of the book. The changes a character goes through normally happens at the climax of the story.

Examples from F451 In Fahrenheit 451, Montag changes from a fireman who burns books just for the fun of it because he doesn’t know that it is wrong. Throughout the story Montag becomes aware that burning books is wrong and he should be trying to save them instead even if it means going against the beliefs of the society.

Examples from The Giver In The Giver, Jonah starts out brainwashed and gray just like everyone else in his community. Slowly throughout the book he changes into his own person and realizes that the community is not a perfect little bubble. He decides he has to runaway and save himself and baby Gabe. He changed from an immature brainwashed kid into an aware adult.

Examples from The Outsiders In The Outsiders, many people went through changes. The biggest change I think was in Dally. In the beginning, he starts out not really caring about anyone or anything and is perfectly happy roaming the streets and stealing things from local stores, but after Johnny dies he becomes depressed and is tired of being a Greaser. Johnny was Dally’s only reason to live and once he died Dally almost turned softer and basically killed himself.

From Pop Culture In the movie Miss Congeniality, Grace Hart starts out very unfeminine, dressing ugly, and unattractive. She hated beauty contests and thought that all beauty queens were stupid. By the end of the movie, after being forced to compete in a beauty pageant she turns very feminine and likes to dress nice. She turned from a FBI agent to a beauty queen.

Homework Write a short paragraph about a character in a book you have read recently or a movie you have seen recently and describe how it has developed through the story.