Check out our posts on character development , character profiles , and our one-of-a-kind character questionnaire. In this post, we reveal the seven essential story elements and show you how they work together.
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Click to tweet! Free course: Character Development Create fascinating characters that your readers will love Continue reading Recommended posts from the Reedsy Blog. Join a community of over 1 million authors Reedsy is more than just a blog. A literary foil character serves the purpose of drawing attention to the qualities of another character, frequently the protagonist. This is effective as a means of developing a deeper understanding of a character by emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses.
In addition, a literary foil allows writers to create a counterpart for the protagonist that puts their actions and choices in context. For example, in Frankenstein , Mary Shelley utilizes the creature as a foil for his creator, Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein isolates himself from others to pursue his obsession for creating a living being and then he abandons his creation and all responsibility. Literary foils often reveal traits that motivate certain characters through comparison and contrast.
Here are some common examples of foil traits that, when compared and contrasted, reflect the inner motivations of characters:. The use of foil characters in film is effective as a means of entertaining the audience through humor , drama , and empathy.
In addition, foils create a greater understanding of who the characters are and reasons for the actions they take. Here are some examples of foil characters in popular movies:. As a literary device, foil can create character pairs that would perhaps be less memorable for readers without each other. Here are some famous examples of foil in literary character pairs:.
Writers often develop characters in literary works to create conflict or showcase differences between them. Foil and antagonist are often considered interchangeable as labels for literary characters. Many readers believe a foil character to be one that is opposite or even an enemy of the main character in a story. One reason I enjoy utilizing foil characters is that you can use them to develop your theme very well while still being subtle, thus avoiding the preaching that too often happens in Christian fiction.
Another reason is that they add a good bit of beauty to the literary text through the use of parallel. Essentially, a foil character is someone who an author sets in contrast to another character normally the main character in order to highlight certain virtues or flaws of one or both of the characters. Foil characters are essentially a paradox of similarity and dissimilarity.
They are made to be direct comparisons to the other character in order to make their differences clear to the reader. Both characters look almost exactly alike: a fact that features prominently in the beginning of the book and sets the two of them up as foil characters.
They also both love the same woman: Lucie Manette. But at that point, the similarities end: Carton is a drunkard and allows himself to be used by others, and Darnay is successful and strong-willed. By creating parallels and contrasts like this, Dickens brings both of these characters to the forefront of the book and uses their opposites as a way of deepening both characters.
Foil characters are also often seen in superhero films, as the antagonist is often a foil of the main character. To look at some examples briefly, in Captain America: The First Avenger , both Captain America and Red Skull have immense physical prowess due to the serum, but one uses his power to preserve life while the other uses it to take life. In Man of Steel , both Superman and Zod have the same Kryptonian powers, but Superman uses it to preserve humanity while Zod tries to use it to preserve Krypton.
The different routes they take then define their characters. Hopefully, all these examples have begun to make it somewhat-clear what foil characters are and how they tend to be used in fiction. However, there is a distinction that needs to be drawn between minor characters when they act as foils and villains when they act the part. Some writers argue that only minor characters can really be foils, and that villains are a separate category.
I personally think the designation can be used for both: however, both do need to be considered somewhat-separately. When the hero and the villain are both acting as foils, the purpose of making the villain a foil is often to drive the story conflict. However, when the hero and a minor character are both acting as foils, then the foil often serves as a way of shedding light on what type of person the main character is.
However, you may still have a question, namely:. One method is to set two foil characters against each other. My current work-in-progress, Empyrean Vengeance draws rather heavily on this principle as I set up my two protagonists as twin brothers in order to then showcase their differences—differences which end up driving most of the story.
Essentially, to follow this method of foil characters, you take two semi-important characters, and then set them up as parallels and contrasts to each other in order to bring about your intended effect. Another method is to create a web of foil characters. As a negative example, Gollum represents the worst possibility of what the Ring ends up turning everyone into if they give in to its power. Bilbo also acts like a foil by reminding Frodo and the reader that this change can happen to anyone.
Boromir is slightly-less-corrupt than these, as he represents the temptation to use the Ring pragmatically to try and achieve peace. On the positive side, however, Gandalf and Galadriel both represent the healthy fear that Frodo ought to have concerning the Ring. Tom Bombadil also possibly shows the freedom that the righteous ought to have, even with instruments of great destruction. However, his character is kind of complicated, so this interpretation is more speculative than my other examples.
Basically, what you have in the end is a whole web of characters acting as foils around each other based on the common interest of the Ring. Frodo is presented with many different possibilities for what he will become, and is tempted by each one of them in turn.
But he is still able to make the right choice of which possibility to follow. Other stories like Crime and Punishment or even a story as simple as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feature similar webs for a similar effect. As you can probably see, this method of utilizing foil characters puts more of the focus on the main character and who he is in the story. There are a lot of different ways that foil characters can be used.
But hopefully, this article has done its job of describing what they are, providing some examples, and sparking your imaginations. Foil characters have a lot of potential, both in terms of writing a good story and in terms of executing a powerful theme. By showing different possibilities of how the main character can turn out, they provide the reader with a lot of case studies to look at. And by providing these sorts of positive and negative character examples, a writer can effectively develop and advance a theme without preaching.
Examples are important to developing moral character. Scripture warns us many times about who we associate with and also encourages us to imitate those who are worthy of imitation. By using these kinds of examples in your book, as an author, you can subtly encourage your readers to imitate the righteous and shun the wicked, and foil characters are a great way of doing this. So write subtle yet effective foil characters into your story. And then use those foils to bring about your point.
November 8,
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