Static Characters in Literature

Static Characters in Literature

In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the characters of Ben Button, Nikolai, and the Grandmother, respectively, are essentially static characters, whose changes are reactionary and inevitable rather than the effect of an epiphany or by taking voluntary action. They are affected by dynamic circumstances yet, at their core, remain the same static character. The authors invite the reader to have their own realization based upon the static qualities in the face of the characters dynamic circumstances.

At first, one may think that the story of Benjamin Button is inherently dynamic. After all, the story as a whole is about a man aging backwards – certainly a catalyst for protagonist to question nature and, within it, human nature. However, Fitzgerald seems to focus more on using reverse aging as a story device, a high concept idea seemingly meant to force the reader to look closely at his or her own life and question their understanding of age. Benjamin is essentially experiencing the basics of life in reverse. However, this does not seem to have a cataclysmic soul searching affect on him. It becomes a problem in practicality: how does one dress and old man when his actually a baby? How does he dress after birth when the nurse points out that ‘babies always wear’ swaddling blankets out of the hospital. Oddly enough, despite his abnormality, he responds to each age naturally and reaches every stage of development with a coherent reaction, as do the people around him: ‘so strong is the force of custom that they no longer felt that he was different from any other child’. Upon understanding he is getting younger, he uses the discovery as a catalyst for putting on adult clothes. Though the feels uneasy at the thought of getting younger, and outgrowing his wife in a perverse way, his anti maturity dissipates any wise understanding of his predicament. He comes to terms with his disinterest in her in a very immature, but...