: Literary criticism term for character espousing author's ideas? Is there a term in literary criticism for a character who espouses the points of view of the author? Especially, but not necessarily,

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A mouthpiece is a person who speaks on behalf of another person, often used in a derogatory fashion. John Galt, for instance, who monologues on the subject at extreme length could be considered a mouthpiece for Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

There's also the possibly less apt raisonneur, which Lewis Turco defines as

a "chorus character," one who performs the function of a Greek chorus in that he or she comments on the action of play, sometimes speaking as a surrogate (stand-in, mouthpiece) for the author and acting like the omniscient or ironicalnarrator of a Victorian novel

which also gives surrogate and stand-in as alternatives.

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