- character, symbol, act and reality -

One of the important aspects of the character element in film or drama is the fact that either because of contradictory action or incomplete description the character cannot be viewed as an individual, or the reader is left confused about the character. Every character is, therefore, some sort of Golem, incomplete being.

One method of reconciling this would be to consider characters to be flat, or type-caste, instead of round. This would mean that most of the information about the character centers around one main quality or viewpoint. Comparable to the flat character option, the reader could also view the character as a symbol. 

Another aspect is that there is a component of language, character, and action, and the interactions of these three components; these are fused together throughout the film or a play. Action normally determines the major means of characterization. Another principle is the importance of these three components’ effect on each other; the important repercussion of this being character’s impact on action.

This is the mark of the act: a basic rupture in the weave of reality that opens up new possibilities and creates the space for a reconfiguration of reality itself. Like the miracle, the act is ultimately unsustainable - it cannot be reduced to, or incorporated directly within, the symbolic order. Yet it is through the act that we touch (and are touched by) the Real in such a way that the bonds of our symbolic universe are broken and that an alternative construction is enabled; reality is transformed in a Real sense. (Zizek)