THE TYPOLOGICAL SIMILARITY OF CHARACTER-BUILDING TECHNIQUES IN THE NOVELS OF CH. DICKENS, V. HUGO, AND G. FREYTAG

Abstract

In this article a comparative-typological analysis, the character-creating methods of three great nineteenth-century English, French and German realist novelists - Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and Gustav Freytag - are investigated. The comparison of selected passages from the novels of the three authors is done at the level of portraiture, speech and personal names. The findings demonstrate that the works of the three writers were written independently of each other and that they did not directly influence one another's literature, but that nevertheless, the techniques that they used to build their characters reveal typological similarities, explained with the theory of typological convergence.