All idealistic visionaries are typified in Don Quixote, all
misers in Harpagon, all hypocrites in Tartufe, all egoists in Sir
Willoughby Patterne, all clever tricksy women in Becky Sharp, all
sentimentalists in Mr. Barrie's Tommy. But the average actual man is
not of sufficient magnitude to contain a multitude of others; he is
comparatively lacking in typical traits; he is not, to such a great
extent, illustrative of life, because only in a small measure is he
representative of his class. There are, of course, in actual life,
certain people of unusual magnitude who justify Emerson's title of
"Representative Men." Benjamin Franklin, for example, is such a man.
He is the only actual person entirely typical of eighteenth-century
America; and that is the main reason why, as an exhibition of
character, his autobiography is just as profitable a book as the
master-works of fiction. But men so representative are rare in actual
life; and the chief business of fiction is therefore to supply them.

It is mainly by supplying this need for representative men and women
that the novelist can make his characters worth the while of every
reader. But after he has made them quintessential of a class, he must
be careful also to individualize them. Unless he endows them
with certain personal traits that distinguish them from all other
representatives or members of their class, whether actual or
fictitious, he will fail to invest them with the illusion of reality.
Every great character of fiction must exhibit, therefore, an intimate
combination of typical and individual traits. It is through being
typical that the character is true; it is through being individual
that the character is convincing.

The reason why most allegorical figures are ineffective is that,
although they are typical, they are not at the same time individual.
They are abstractly representative of a class; but they are not
concretely distinguishable from other representatives or members
of the class. We know them, therefore, not as persons but merely as
ideas. We feel very little human interest nowadays in reading over
the old morality plays, whose characters are merely allegorical
abstractions. But in criticising them we must remember that they were
designed not so much to be read as to be performed upon the stage;
and that the actors who represented their abstract and merely typical
characters must necessarily have endowed them with concreteness and
with individuality