What Makes a Character Memorable? Look No Further than Truman Capote’s Fiction

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

“A wiry little girl in a starched, lemon-colored party dress, she sassed along with a grownup mince, one hand on her hip, the other supporting a spinsterish umbrella.” In this line, Truman Capote gives us his initial portrait of the character of ten-year-old Miss Bobbit in his story, “Children on their Birthdays.” The line sets a precedent for the paradoxical imagery and subsequent actions belonging to Miss Bobbit: her portrayal contains both child-like and adult attributes. “Lemon-colored party dress” and “sassed” denotes the look and behavior of a child, while the details accompanying the latter part of the sentence, “one hand on her hip” and “spinsterish umbrella” signal the opposite. Capote’s juxtaposition of contrasting details contributes to the paradoxical nature of Miss Bobbit, capturing her essence at certain key junctures, when she is facing obstacles that define her character. Through these details her personal history and motivations are revealed, and by the story’s resolution, her physical depiction has altered to match the outcome of her character arc.

Yet another facet Capote observes about Miss Bobbit in the first scene and notes repeatedly for the rest of the story is her stare. This creates a third dimension to her character, a masculine one, in the language Capote uses: “…what is more, she looked you in the eye with manlike directness.” This description is most prevalent in her interactions with the boys who constantly try and get her attention: “Most of the time she simply looked through them, even when they tomcatted up and down the street trying to get her eye.” In Miss Bobbit’s depiction as a paradoxical figure, at once part child, part lady and even part male in her directness, Capote creates a character set apart from the rest of the town and further illustrates Miss Bobbit’s distinctive physical qualities with her actions. She sits on her porch, and keeps away from not only the boys but the girls: “Miss Bobbit did not show any interest in them, either.” Capote revisits this aspect of her character again, much later, in her statement, “I don’t want a sweetheart.” For all her outspokenness and going out of the way for others, she casts off attention and sexual advances. With the story’s progression the effect of Miss Bobbit’s paradoxical, even super-human qualities, is…