Disclosed are an apparatus and a method capable of expressing use state of a portable terminal by using a character image. The apparatus includes an emotion value memory for storing emotion variance values allocated to events occurring in the portable terminal in order to express an emotion of the portable terminal, a character memory for storing character images which express emotion states of the portable terminal, a controller for confirming an event variance value corresponding to an event when the event occurs in the portable terminal, changing an emotion value of the portable terminal by using the event variance value, confirming an emotion state corresponding to the emotion value, and selecting a character image corresponding to the confirmed emotional state from the character memory; and a display unit for displaying the selected character image as the emotional state of the portable terminal.