What's a character study?

[Jabrosky]

Earlier this year I took a creative writing class in which our final assignment was to write a type of short story called a "character study". Unfortunately the professor never did explain exactly what a character study was, and to this day I'm still unclear on the concept. I'm guessing it's some type of vignette or written sketch which focuses on one character's point of view, am I right?

 

[Feo Takahari]

The idea is to demonstrate an aspect of a character's personality. The term is typically used for stories in which that personality is static or changes slowly--that is to say, there's no larger event that triggers a rapid psychological transition. For instance, one character study might follow a poor gardener at a rich man's house, exploring his unfulfilled desire to be able to buy such rare and exotic plants for his own garden.