A collection of ten essays that examine the techniques of characterization and the interrelationship of character with other narrative components in Mario Vargas Llosa's fiction from Los jefes to El hablador. Essays deal either with individual novels or suggest recurring patterns or modes of characterization in several works. The critical focus of the collection is eclectic, incorporating elements from reader-response theories, archetypal criticism, pointof- view theories, structuralism, semiotics, stylistics, rhetoric, onomastics, and psychology. With an introduction.