Etopeia

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• Examples from ethopeia

The etopeia It is a rhetorical figure that consists of the description of the moral and psychological traits of a person. For example: He always sat in the back of the class. He was quiet, shy, but much more intelligent than the rest, although he took care to go unnoticed. The few times he participated in class, with his weak voice, which he struggled to lift, he said things that left us all speechless. You could tell he was cultured, thoughtful and memorable, as well as creative.

With the passage of time, other traits were added that allow the understanding of the character such as his personality, customs, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and worldview.

The ethopeia differs from prosopography (the description of the physical appearance of the characters) and the portrait (literary device that combines external and internal features in the description of the characters).

Typically, the Ethiopian happens when a character is given a voice to express himself through his specific terms, speech mode, and imagery. In this sense, it is about letting the character speak for himself, using dialogue, monologue or interior monologue.

The etopeia is considered a theatrical resource, since it forces the reader to enter the character's psyche and represents a psychic degree of the description.

• See also: Rhetorical figures

Examples from ethopeia

1. Their routines were so rigorous that neighbors used them to adjust their watches. This was Kant, a philosopher who, perhaps because of his sickly complexion, clung to punctuality and predictability until his death. Every day, he got up at five in the morning, from eight to ten or from seven to nine, depending on the day, he gave his private lessons. He was a lover of after-meals, which could last for up to three hours and, later, always at the same time, he would take a walk through his town from which he never left - and then dedicate himself to reading and meditation. At 10, religiously, he went to sleep.
2. His only god was money. Always attentive to how to sell, even the unsaleable, to some naive that he ran into at the station, whom with words and demonstrations he managed to enchant even with a button. For him, everything was worth when it came to selling. The truth was never his north. Hence, he was nicknamed the sophist.
3. In his smile you could see his sad past. Still, she was determined to leave it there, in the past. Always ready to give everything for others. Even what I didn't have. This is how he lived his life, striving that the pain he had gone through did not translate into revenge, resentment or resentment.
4. Those who did know my father highlight his passion for work, family and friends. Duty and responsibility never limited his sense of humor; he also had no itch to show his affection in front of others. Religion, in him, was always an obligation, never a conviction.
5. Work was never his thing. The routine, either. He slept until any hour and bathed by chance. Even so, everyone in the neighborhood loved him, he always helped us to change the little horn on the taps or the burned out light bulbs. Also, when he saw us arrive laden with things, he was the first to offer to help. We are going to miss it.
6. He was an artist, even in his way of looking. Attentive to details, he found a work in every corner. Each sound, for him, could be a song, and each sentence, the fragment of some poem that nobody wrote. His effort and dedication can be seen in each of the songs he left behind.
7. My neighbor Manuelito is a special being. Every morning at six, she takes that grotesque dog she has for a walk. He plays drums, or so he claims to do. So, from 9 until you know what time, the building rumbles because of his hobby. In the evenings, the whole building stinks with the preparation of unknown recipes that his grandmother once taught him. Despite the noise, the smells and the barking of his puppy, Manuelito makes himself loved. He is always ready to help others.
8. Apparently his wife had abandoned him. And since then her life had fallen apart. Every night, he was seen in the neighborhood patio with a bottle of the cheapest wine and an unwashed glass. His gaze always lost.
9. He never touched a microwave. Slow fire and patience were, for her, my grandmother, the key to any recipe. She was always waiting for us leaning at the door, with our favorite dishes already laid out on the table, and she watched us attentively as we enjoyed each bite, with an uninterrupted smile. Every Saturday at 7, we were to accompany her to mass. It was the only time of day when she was serious and quiet. The rest of the day he talked non-stop and every time he laughed, everything around him shook. Plants were another of his passions. She took care of each one of them as if they were her children: she watered them, sang to them and spoke to them as if they could hear her.
10. Words were never his thing, he was always silent: from the time he arrived at the office, in his always impeccable suit, until the clock struck six, when he left without making a sound. When his forehead was glistening with sweat, it was because of concern that he was awakened that some number would not close him. His pencils, with which he did endless calculations, were always bitten. Now that he is retired, we reproach ourselves for not having heard more about him.
11. His life resembles, in his tireless walk, an evangelist of civility, whose immense fall of proselytes he saw for six decades feeding crowds, freeing galley slaves, envisioning distances, fascinating harvests of passion, smelling the strange as his own store with the precious sandalwood of goodness and ingenuity. (Guillermo Leon Valencia)
12. Horrible red flowers bloom under their peaceful faces. They are the flowers cultivated by my hand, the hand of a mother. I have given life, now I also take it away, and no magic can restore the spirit to these innocents. They will never put their tiny arms around my neck again, their laughter will never bring the music of the spheres to my ears. That revenge is sweet is a lie. (Medea, according to Sophocles)
13. But alas! I suffer a fate similar to that of my father. I am the daughter of Tantalus, who lived with the divinities, but, after the banquet, was expelled from the company of the gods, and since I come from Tantalus, I confirm my lineage with misfortunes. (Níobe, according to Euripides)
14. Daughter of the most illustrious citizen, Metellus Scipio, wife of Pompey, prince of enormous power, mother of the most precious of children, I find myself shaken in all directions by such a mass of calamities that I can assume them in my head or in the silence of my thoughts, I have no words or phrases with which to express them. (Cornelia, according to Plutarco)
15. Don Gumersindo […] was affable […] helpful. Compassionate […] and went out of his way to please and be useful to everyone even though it cost work, sleeplessness, fatigue, as long as it didn't cost him a real one […] Cheerful and friend of jokes and ridicule […] and rejoiced them with the amenity of his treatment [...] and with his discreet, although little attic conversation (In Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera)

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