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What is a Foil? 11193 Views
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Description:
This video defines a foil and identifies foil characters in Harry Potter, Romeo and Juliet, and Return of the King. How do you identify a foil in a story? What purpose do they serve? How do they relate to the protagonist? Can a character be their own foil?
Transcript
- 00:04
What is a Foil? a la Shmoop There are dozens of roles for a fictional
- 00:09
character to fit into. Some of them can be pretty easy to spot…
- 00:13
The protagonist and antagonist are often the hero and the villain, for example.
- 00:17
And the sidekick is the one who never gets any of the glory.
- 00:21
But others are more difficult to spot, and not because they insist on wearing camo all
Full Transcript
- 00:26
the time. One of the most ambiguous literary roles is
- 00:29
the foil. How do you identity the foil in a novel?
- 00:32
If the summer Olympics are coming up, a foil is the little bendy device people poke their
- 00:37
combatants with while wearing colanders on their faces.
- 00:40
Or it’s something you wrap your baked potato in.
- 00:42
Or it’s a math method for multiplication, meaning first-outside-inside-last…
- 00:47
You know, we have a guide on that last one… But we’re focused on literature, where a
- 00:52
foil is a character whose main purpose is to offer a contrast to another character,
- 00:57
usually the protagonist. Foils set off and accentuate the main character
- 01:02
and are convenient ways to complicate and deepen the characterization of the protagonist.
- 01:07
They’re more like complementary colors than total opposites.
- 01:11
Foils are the white spaces to the protagonist’s pen-and-ink drawing, the blush to their cheekbones,
- 01:17
the frosting to their cupcake… Basically, everything the foil is, the protagonist
- 01:22
is not. The foil's differences highlight the key qualities of the main character.
- 01:27
Sure, it can be as simple as protagonist vs. antagonist.
- 01:31
Voldemort’s villainy and selfishness reminds us how good Harry Potter is, and how much
- 01:35
he values his friends. Although the antagonist is often the foil,
- 01:36
he doesn’t have to be. A foil is any character that makes the traits of another stand out
- 01:40
in sharp contrast. For instance, a character’s best friend
- 01:44
can be a foil if she’s always volunteering time at a charity and giving sandwiches and
- 01:49
blankets to homeless people… …reminding us that, despite saving that
- 01:52
turtle from a burning house, our protagonist is actually… pretty darn selfish.
- 01:59
There can be multiple foils in a novel as well.
- 02:02
In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s first love Rosaline is a foil to Juliet, and Juliet’s
- 02:08
other suitor, Paris, is a foil to Romeo. You might say Romeo has been… foiled again…
- 02:11
Finally, a character can even foil himself. And not because he’s giving himself highlights.
- 02:13
In Return of the King, Frodo can be his own worst enemy, and his bad side makes his good
- 02:18
side even, um, gooder, by comparison. So a foil isn’t just a handy sun-tanning
- 02:25
aid. It’s a way for an author to make their characters even deeper.
- 02:29
So when you’re hunting for the foil, remember the following:
- 02:32
The foil is often the person that enhances the protagonist’s attributes.
- 02:36
But the foil isn’t necessarily the antagonist. It could be a friend or a rival.
- 02:41
And supporting characters might have foils, too…
- 02:44
Score one for the little guys.
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