Stock Character

Historical Overview

Stock characters can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. Comic playwright Aristophanes is considered the first to have posited the construction of stock characters in his work in Old Comedy. His plays are the only surviving examples of this genre. Aristophanes's work tended to focus on political satire. His plays often employed three character types: the alazon/imposter, the eiron/opponent, and the bomolochos/buffoon. Each character used a dialect and donned individual costume pieces to suggest characterization. However, in Aristophanes's writings is found the emergence of other stock characters who later figured greatly into the stock [Page 792]character type. For example, in The Clouds, the character Socrates functions similarly to the mad scientist.

The notion of character type was expounded by Greek philosopher Aristotle who in the Nichomachean Ethics, his text on virtue and moral character, is said to have drafted the basis for specific character types through the development of traits, which he termed virtues. He lists the following virtues: liberality, prodigality, magnanimity, modesty, amiability, sincerity, wit, and magnificence. These traits provided ancient Greeks terminology to assist them in the creation of characters with a variety of virtues and flaws that could be introduced into storylines. For example, one may have found the presence of the magnificent man who went out of his way to show off his wealth contrasted with the liberal man who would give all his belongings for the sake of the noble and just.

However, not until Aristotle's student and successor Theophrastus used his observations from Athenian life to create the text The Characters, sometimes translated as Ethical Characters, were the beginnings of contemporary explorations of the stock character seen. Some argue that Theophrastus borrowed from Aristotle's theories and used them to more specifically define character types who would later serve as the basis for all stock characters. With his work that is now classified as New Comedy, Theophrastus was able to identify the following character types: the ironical man, the flatterer, the garrulous man, the boor, the complaisant man, the reckless man, the chatty man, the gossip, the shameless man, the penurious man, the gross man, the unseasonable man, the stupid man, the surly man, the superstitious man, the grumbler, the distrustful man, the offensive man, the unpleasant man, the man of petty ambition, the mean man, the boastful man, the arrogant man, the coward, the oligarch, the late learner, the evil speaker, the patron of rascals, and the avaricious man.

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