Round and Flat

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Ivan Karamazov is a character who's both flat and round.   I think Dostoevsky meant him as a flat character: the type of cynical, atheistic, liberal intellectual that D loathed, introduced as a counterpoint to Alyosha, the simple, truly good Christian.  Fortunately, D couldn't help but be honest.  Ivan is a fully rounded character: tortured, smug, guilty, pompous, self-loathing, sensuous, honest, and dishonest -- clearly more representative of D than the comparatively flat character of Alyosha. 

Laura

>From: bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>


>Well,  I guess even E.M. Forster  couldn't really "pin it down" to a 
>long term useful definition.   It's really a range between the 
>flatness of Miss Haversham and the roundness of Tolstoy's Levin. 
>What Forster said was (see "Aspects of the Novel"  (1927) - Chapter 4 
>- an old but sometimes helpful book):
>
>Flat characters have one idea behind them.
>Flat characters are easily recognized emotionally,
>Flat characters are easily memorable.
>Flat characters don't change much - their permanence is comforting. 
>(according to Forster)
>
>He said that most of Dickens' characters are flat and most characters 
>in Russian novels are round (and they really are!).    I think this 
>distinction is rather too simplistic for contemporary literature, 
>but it can still useful or at least interesting.
>