Abstract

The basic tenures of postmodernism do not favour the liberal self. Nonetheless, many contemporary novelists seem to be highly interested in the creation of character. Using extracts from novels by Peter Carey, Zoë Heller, Jonathan Franzen, P. D. James and Rose Tremain I demonstrate that character is alive and well in many varieties: the comic narrator in Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America and Heller's Notes on a Scandal; traditional character conveyed through omniscient narration in Franzen's Freedom and James's Death in Holy Orders; and the liberal empathic character where ethical engagement is demanded. This latter shows the continuing influence of the philosophy of Iris Murdoch and the later ethical turn on contemporary fiction. I conclude with a reading of Zadie Smith's On Beauty, arguing that this novel unites some of the previously discussed forms of characterization, and adds a successful use of comic secondary characters, to become one of the most successful contemporary novels of character. Despite apparent rejections of traditional character by some postmodern critics, the art of characterization unites realist and postmodern fiction and breaks the boundaries between them; it remains a vital part of literary art.

Keywords

character, contemporary, ethics, realism

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