Characterization is an important element in almost every literary work, whether it is a short story, a novel, or anywhere in between. Character personalities in novels,prose, or any other literary work are represented to the audience by either indirect or directcharacterization. Throughdirect characterization, the author tells the reader about those characteristic traits. In contrast, indirect characterization shows the reader those characteristics.In our report we will focus our attention on the last one. Our task is to identify the implied methods of characterization used by the authors in short stories in order create various types of characters. We have to achieve the following objectives at the end of our research essay: To identify the implied methods of characterization; To analyze the excerpts that denote indirect characterization; To state the function of the implied methods of characterization;While writing the essay we will apply different methods of investigation such as selection many examples of implied methods of characterization will be selected from various literary works, classification further will be classified according to the types of implied methods of characterization and analysis - the examples will be analyzed in order to state their contribution to the development of the characters.Implied methods of characterization are generally accomplished through characters behavior, motivation for actions, manner of speech, philosophical outlook, physical surrounding, attitude towards other character, others opinion about the character, conflicts and emotional state of the character. The above mentioned implied methods of characterization will be investigated on the basis of the following short stories: Mr. Know-All by W. Somerset Maugham and The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.The main character of the short story Mr. Know-All is Mr. Kelada is very well developed by the use of the implied methods of characterization. From his behavior we can deduce that he is an intelligent person.e.g. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics.For this quality the passengers call Mr. Kelada "Mr. Know-All" because he knows everything better than anybody else.e.g. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. But he does not like anyone to disagree with him. He believes that he is an authority on every subject and that he is always right. This behavior characterize him as a strong-minded person.e.g. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He is pushy; for example, he interferes with the narrator's card game, telling him where to put the cards or insistently follows him everywhere.e.g. Oh, thats all right, he said. Ive already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same stateroom we might just as well sit at the same table. I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him.Also form his actions we can assert that he is an active person and responsible one. He takes responsibility for organizing all the social events on board, and in this way he becomes the most well-known passenger on the ship. e.g. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert, and arranged the fancydress ball. He was everywhere and always.From his attitude towards the others characters we denote that Mr. Kelada is a friendly,sociable and generous person who wants to feel important and needed.e.g. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. His manner of speech proves that besides being chatty, intelligent he was a boastful man.e.g. Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if youve got any friends on board, you tell them youve got a pal whos got all the liquor in the world.His physical surroundings characterize him as a fashionable person, with good tastes and well-ordered.e.g. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washingstand his scent, his hairwash, and his brilliantine. Mr Keladas brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub.When the narrator says that there are too many labels on Mr. Kelada's luggage it has a double meaning: First, Mr. Kelada travels a lot so there are labels from different ports on his suitcases. Second, people put labels on him so they are prejudiced and they stereotype about him.e.g. I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big.He is also dogmatic and argues endlessly with Mr. Ramsay at mealtimes. Because he behaves in this way with everyone on board ship, he earns the title Mr. Know-All. The name Mr. Know-All is not meant as a compliment - it is a criticism of his behavior. However, Mr. Kelada takes it as a compliment.e.g. We called him Mr. KnowAll, even to his face. He took it as a compliment.This shows that he is a little bit nave because he does not understand the ironical meaning of his nickname.We identify two types of conflict that are related to the main character Mr. Kelada, an exterior and interior one.The exterior conflict takes place between Mr. Kelada and Mr. Ramsay. They argue about the pearls. Ramsay challenged Mr. Kelada to the bet because he was certain that the pearls were fake and he wanted to prove Kelada wrong. Ramsay hoped that by proving Kelada wrong, he would learn his lesson, be less sure of himself and not act like a know-all all the time.e.g. Thats a pretty chain of Mrs Ramsays, isnt it?I noticed it at once, answered Mr Kelada. Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right.I didnt buy it myself, of course. Id be interested to know how much you think it cost.Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldnt be surprised to hear that anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it.Ramsay smiled grimly.Youll be surprised to hear that Mrs Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars. Mr Kelada flushed.Rot. Its not only real, but its as fine a string for its size as Ive ever seen.Will you bet on it? Ill bet you a hundred dollars its imitation.Done.The interior one takes place between his reputation and the possibility of saving a marriage. Kelada wanted to tell the truth but changed his mind because he saw the terror on Mrs. Ramsay's face. While he knew the real value of the pearls, he understood that Ramsay did not, and that Mrs. Ramsay was scared to death that her husband would find out. Since her husband could not have afforded to buy them, Ramsay would understand that she had received them from a lover in New York.So, in order to protect Mrs. Ramsay's secret, he said that he was mistaken. It was not easy for Kelada to do this. He was used to winning every argument. Kelada had a reputation for knowing everything, and it would ruin his reputation if he admitted he had made a "mistake" .e.g. Mr Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.I was mistaken, he said. Its a very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasnt real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned things worth.He took out his pocketbook and from it a hundreddollar note. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.The fact that he sacrificed his reputation for the sake of Ramsays marriage shows him as a good and hearty person.Others opinion about the character are narrators ones. He repeats the expression I disliked Mr. Kelada a number of times. In spite of the fact that Mr. Kelada is jovial, hearty and sociable, the writer criticizes him for being talkative, boring and obnoxious. But at the end, the narrator says At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr Kelada because Mr. Kelada behaved like a gentleman. Kelada could have given away Mrs. Ramsay's secret, which could have been disastrous. Instead he decided to say he had made a mistake, knowing that this would ruin his reputation. When the narrator says he doesn't entirely dislike Kelada, he is inferring that his opinion has changed.Mr. Ramsay sees Mr.Kelada as an arrogant person because of his self-confidence.e.g. Perhaps thatll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend, said Ramsay as he took the note.Characters philosophical outlook is revealed through the following words:e.g. No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool, he said.In conclusion to the first character, we may state that the author used all the implied methods of characterization when creating the main character Mr. Kelada. The character traits were mostly deduced form Mr. Keladas behavior. So , we may assert that this method of implied characterization prevails in the short story Mr. All-Know.Another character under analysis is Della from the short story The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry .From Della's physical surroundings we deduce that she is financially poor. She spends all of her days in a cramped flat, as "mistress of the home"e.g. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.As we might gather from her behaviour, Della throws just about every bit of energy she has into being good to Jim. She's been saving for months just to round up money for a Christmas present. She has even endured the humiliation of pinching pennies at stores. e.g. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling - something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.These actions shows her as loving and caring wife.Also through her behavior we find out that she was a religious person. e.g. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please, God, make him think I am still pretty."Her manner of speech denotes her as a decided person that does not hesitate in taking a decision. E.g. "I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it." Down rippled the brown cascade. "Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand. "Give it to me quick" said Della.Also she appears like a sweet and sensible woman which treats her husband with kindness. She is demonstrative with her feelings and generous in her love.e.g. "Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way.Della passes through a strong interior conflict, she has to sacrifice her beautiful and precious hair for the sake of her husbands happiness. Even she lost her hair she is very optimistic , selfless and does not regret her dids.e.g. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again - you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast.Della is unrealistically emotional. The very first thing we see her do is collapse into a sobbing fit on the couch. e.g. There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it.And once she gets Jim's present, she shrieks in ecstasy only to burst into tears almost immediately afterwards:e.g. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.With respect to Della, as one of the main characters, the author delivered her traits to the readers through her behavior , physical surrounding, conflicts, emotional state.In conclusion, we may assert that the implied methods of characterization are indispensable tools in a literary work. They reveal important personality traits which cannot be achieved through the direct method of characterization. Our research demonstrates that the implied methods of characterization are widely used in short stories. We identified all the methods of characterization in the short stories under analysis, we analyzed them and stated their contribution to the characters development. The proposed objectives of our research essay were achieved.

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