ghost character

English

Noun

ghost character (plural ghost characters)

1. (drama, literature) A character who is mentioned as appearing on stage, but who does not do anything, and who seems to have no purpose.
   • 2003, Catherine M. S. Alexander, The Cambridge Shakespeare Library, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 231:

     Beside this detailed information which Hall provides about Matthew Gough, Shakespeare's Gough is a ghost character. There is, indeed, no way in which an audience could pick up who he is when he appears only to be killed immediately.

   • 2010, David Coleman, John Webster, Renaissance Dramatist, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 68:

     A ‘ghost’ character is one who is marked as present on stage, but given no lines to speak: many editors consider the inclusion of these characters to be an oversight on the part of the writer or printer, and so remove them from modern stage directions; […]

   • 2014, Lena Cowen Orlin, Othello, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 277:

     Joseph A. Porter's discussion of the ‘ghost character’ of Valentine in Romeo and Juliet is also illuminating: Porter describes Valentine as a ‘symptom or by-product of Mercutio's transformation’ from rival lover (in Shakespeare's source) to friend […]

2. (computing) Kanji included in JIS X 0208 of unknown origin.

Further reading

• ghost character on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• ghost characters on Wikipedia.Wikipedia