Character Motivation
She’s a detective, right? She has to solve the murder, it’s her job. Maybe the writer gives her a dysfunctional marriage or a problem teenager to make things more interesting, or a bad dress sense to juxtapose her intelligence. Halfway through the story, she may even say over a drink why she became a detective, what’s driving her to keep going; but maybe not. In the end, it’s her job to solve crime. The consumer, knowing this early on in the book or movie, can turn the page or dip into the popcorn and look forward to the unfolding of HOW.
Or the superhero complaining about why he has to be the one to save the world (yet again). In the end we all know it’s his job, even without pay or OH&S. A four-year-old gets that.
What if there’s no such obvious matchup between a story and its protagonist? The writer must put more consideration into constructing or ascertaining an ‘inner why’; the inner motivation.
Which brings me to the main question of this post: How much of a character’s actions should be attributed to what is considered intrinsic to them and what needs to be explained through causation, such as a past event, treatment by a parent, child trauma, an inner fear … etc.
This question rang through my head a while ago when enjoying the antics of a well formed, complex movie character – until over a wine she disclosed that an incident in their past explained why she acted the way she did. It had me poised between two urges; bending over a bucket and screaming out to the street ‘Why couldn’t she just be.!?’
The dramatic effect was ‘I would be a normal person if it wasn’t for this thing happening.’ A modular approach to character building. We are messy! Perhaps an interesting or intriguing character is where some traits are explained, others not, and we lie in bed afterwards wondering.
The reality is, we often don’t know the motivations behind people in real life, even ourselves. When I was kid, I loved ships and my brother planes. We used to have arguments about which were best. As we got older, my brother dreamt of being a pilot; I considered joining the navy. I don’t believe there were any reasons; including childhood experiences that drew us to either one. Or head bumps in different places. Eventually, a greater passion stopped me going to sea – music. I don’t think there was any reason for that either.
One memorable protagonist of the 20th century was Rick Blaine from the movie Casablanca (which was based on an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison called ‘Everybody Comes to Rick’s). Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, was an American involved with the French Resistance in the Second World War who escaped ahead of the Nazis from Paris, and wound up in Casablanca running a bar. Apart from the love plot, the ‘job’ of the story was to turn Rick back from a jaded, cynic to his freedom fighting, idealistic self via the reappearance of love interest Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman).
We learn that Rick had fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and ran guns for the Ethiopians against the Italian fascists, all because of his belief in fighting injustice and oppression. But the movie never attempts to explain why Rick had this sensibility in the first place. We also learn that Rick can’t return to America and although the reason is not revealed, it’s hinted that it’s because of a dark, perhaps criminal past.
Through explaining some things but leaving others to the audiences’ imagination, the writers created a character with both inner drive and mystery; a character which was recognisably and enigmatically ‘Rick’.
Completing his transformation at the climax, Rick says to Ilsa to persuade her to get on the plane: ‘ … it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world …’
Which brings us to the popular myth that it was Ronald Reagan who was originally cast for the role of Rick. As the American president, he also had a saying involving beans: ‘You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans.’
Perhaps that’s another way of building character!
Photo by mahdi rezaei on Unsplash