Character, motivation, and point of view: inferring traits and motivations from a character's words, actions, thoughts, and others' reactions (indirect characterization), tracking how a character changes, and identifying the narrative point of view (first person, third limited, third omniscient) and how it shapes the reader's access to a Virginia EOC Reading literary passage.

What this skill is asking

Literary passages are driven by characters, and the Virginia EOC Reading test asks you to do two things: infer what a character is like and why they act, and recognize the point of view the story is told from and how it shapes what you can know. Most characterization on the test is indirect: the narrator does not announce a trait, so you read it from speech, action, thought, and how others respond. The test also asks you to identify the narrator (first person, third-person limited, third-person omniscient, third-person objective) and to reason about the effect of that choice. It tests this with multiple-choice questions, hot-text items ("click the line that best shows his determination"), and evidence questions. This page covers inferring traits and motivation, tracking change, and reading point of view.

Indirect characterization: infer from behavior

The reliable EOC move is to read a trait off an action rather than wait for the narrator to name it.

Every trait you claim must attach to evidence. "He is determined" is an assertion; "he is determined, shown when he runs the final lap on an injured ankle" is an inference grounded in the text. On a hot-text item, this is exactly what you click: the line that demonstrates the trait. On a multiple-choice item, the right option is the trait the specific detail actually shows, while distractors over-read or invent traits the action does not support.

Tracking how a character changes

Not every character changes, and the test sometimes asks which character changes most or whether a character changes at all. Anchor the answer in two points in the text: how the character is before, how they are after, and the event between them that explains it. This connects characterization to plot, the change is usually driven by the conflict.

Point of view controls what you can know

Try this

Q1. What is the difference between direct and indirect characterization? [Recall]

• Cue. Direct characterization states a trait outright ("she was brave"); indirect characterization reveals it through speech, action, thought, and others' reactions, leaving you to infer it.

Q2. A story is told with "he" and reports only the main character's thoughts, never anyone else's. Name the point of view and one effect. [Short explanation]

• Cue. Third-person limited: it uses third-person pronouns but restricts access to one character's mind. The effect is closeness to that character while keeping other characters' inner lives hidden, so we share his limited knowledge.