Character Raquel Nature Woman Maria Edgeworth Wolf Person

When Martin Luther King, Jr. said he looked forward to the day when all Americans would be judged solely "by the content of their character," he was talking about a person's essential qualities.

"Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character," a guy called The Wolf advises a young woman named Raquel in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. The line illustrates three different senses of the word, which can mean "moral strength or reputation" (what Raquel lacks), "a person in a work of fiction" (what The Wolf and Raquel literally are), or, by extension, "a colorful personality" (what Raquel has). A fourth usage is "the distinctive nature of a person or thing," a meaning reflected in the word's origins. In Greek, a kharaktēr was a stamping tool, used to give something a distinctive mark.