Basic Comic Characters & Plot

Ingénue

The ingénue is a stock character in literature; generally a girl or a

young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome.

Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid

“Rue” in The Hunger Games movie

Anne Hathaway

“Hero” in movie of Much Ado About Nothing

An Ingénue can also be male

(aka -- really cute guy)

John Cusak in Say Anything

Jaden Smith

Justin Bieber

“Claudio” in film of Much Ado About Nothing

Ingénue & Really Cute Guy

As an archetype, they represent Spring, with all its frivolity and fertility

“What normally happens is that a young man wants a young woman, that his desire is resisted by some opposition, usually paternal, and that near the end of the play some twist in the plot enables the hero to have his will.”

Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism (1957): Theory of Myths: The Mythos of Spring: Comedy (p.163)

“some opposition, usually paternal”

In Much Ado a little opposition is provided by Leonato, Hero’s Dad, so he’s a “blocking character”

The Blocking Character

--A father figure--Set in his ways--Traditionalist-- He blocks the young

people’s path to marriage and happiness

The Blocking Character (cont’d)

Frank (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Michael Scott (The Office) more or less fit into the same category.

The Blocking Character as an Archetype

. . . is Old Man Winter, opposed to love and all that is green and growing.

Comic Villains:

The Blocking Character on Steroids, with

Eyeshadow and a Sneer

Scar

Ursula

Cruella de Ville,who doesn’t really love those

puppies.

The Comic Villain inMuch Ado About Nothing

Keanu Reeves as Don John, the BASTARD brother of Don Pedro.