character study

American  

noun

1. a work of fiction in which the delineation of the central character's personality is more important than the plot.

---

Example Sentences

“Giant” is a probing character study that raises the discomfiting question of how a man of intelligence and imagination could hold such atavistic and pernicious views.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 24, 2026

He stars in Blue Moon - a character study of Lorenz Hart, a formerly successful songwriter struggling with the huge hit his former partner Richard Rogers is having with the musical Oklahoma!

From BBC • Feb. 11, 2026

Instead, it has all the hallmarks of both a black comedy comprising carefully crafted scenes and a deft character study made up of painstakingly applied warts-and-all detail.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 2, 2026

Together, the two craft a self-aware, though no less banal, character study, examining the life of an artist who’s too famous to get off the ride — or perhaps, just too damn charming.

From Salon • Oct. 2, 2025

Peggy's character study of Audrey, the country wench, showed such an amusing combination of stupidity and common sense that in spite of the unimportance of the part, she won a real triumph.

From The Camp Fire Girls Behind the Lines by Vandercook, Margaret O'Bannon Womack