Element of Fiction Essay, Character Use
             In every story, plot and character go hand in hand, both playing equal roles in creating good fiction. But as fiction moves from escape to interpretive, the character end is likely to become more elaborate. Thus, making reading for character more difficult than reading for plot, and also making it one of the most complex and important elements of fiction.
             Any one can repeat what a person has done in a story, but it is much harder to describe what a person is. This is where the difficulty in interpreting a main character comes from. You have to not only, take into account the character's actions, but their inner feelings as well, in order to distinguish what kind of person they really are. Those who indulge in escape literature almost always prefer the character to be an attractive one. If the character is male, he doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, but he must be decent, honest, virtuous, and preferably good looking. He may also defy law, but only if his intentions are good and if he is really good at heart. These type of readers look for qualities like these in order to escape from reality and loose themselves in a dream character, unfortunately the world isn't like that. One example of a main character that in many aspects is not of the perfect nature is Neddy from John Cheever's "The Swimmer".
             The author showed the nature of Neddy through indirect presentation. The reader interprets his disposition through his actions and how you infer them. Neddy could be described as a round character. He is complex and many sided, and could not be summed up in only one sentence. Neddy has several sides to him and characterizes the vitality that good interpretive fiction demands. He also satisfies the three principles of characterization. First, Consistency, Neddy is consistent with his behavior
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