Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
Ghosts are particularly interesting characters; ghosts who appear in novels or short stories exist in a way that they do not exist in the real world outside of fiction. We might expect to encounter ghosts only in fantasy novels, where they can participate in the action just as any other character can; however, they do appear from time to time in much more realistic literary fiction, in which case we have to account for their presence.
In mainstream fiction, ghosts take on one of two roles: they are either symbolic or they are imagined by other characters. In both instances, they are very often manifestations of the memory or guilt of another character. Some famous examples of literary novels with ghosts are: Beloved by Toni Morrison, Lincoln at the Bardo by George Saunders and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
If you encounter a ghost, then your job is to figure out whether the ghost is intended to be a literal character, or if the author is using the ghost to reveal something important about other characters’ feelings and experiences. If the ghost appears to be an actual character, then treat it as you would any other character; try to figure out what its motivations are and check to see whether the character of the ghost changes in any way from the beginning of the story to the end. In either case, you can evaluate the other characters’ reactions to the ghost, and that will tell you a great deal about their frame of mind. Changes in a ghost which a character has been carrying with him or her will also indicate a change in that character’s mental or emotional state.