Writing Help 129 | - ☆ Freelance Writer
Apr 05, 2013 | #1
Terms You Need for Writing about the Novel
Continuing with our Greek inheritance, the next indispensable term for contemporary novel studies is one which, unlike many of the others, has not found a comfortable home in contemporary popular usage. Like the others, it has come to us through Latin, but unlike the others it is composed of three words, rather than a single word, and so it is more difficult to slide into English sentences. You can slip a word like nemesis into a sentence without breaking stride, but deus ex machina does not roll off the tongue the same way, and becomes the focus of the listener's attention, taking away from the thrust of the sentence.
Translated directly, deus ex machina means god from the machine, and derives from Greek tragedians' use of a mechanism to hoist an actor aloft and lower him into a given scene in his portrayal of a god. By today's standards, of course, this would be considered ridiculous, as our suspension of disbelief is far more limited. However, the term, if not the original theatrical meaning, has survived into the present day through a metonymic shift. The mechanical aspects of the deus ex machina have been excised, and the gods have been (for the most part) stricken from consideration, but the general function the device was most often used to produce has been identified with the term.
Deus ex machina now refers to the insertion of an event or series of events that helps to forward the plot and helps the protagonist overcome otherwise insurmountable difficulties. The events are usually characterized by their unconnected, unexpected, and at times random nature. For the Greeks and Romans, this was completely acceptable, since part of their worldview involved the activity of the gods that could change the course of their lives in an instant, with little explanation or apparent motivation. Today, the intentional use of deus ex machina is only really effective in comedies, or in works that are very self-consciously trying to reflect the classical form of the device. If a critic discusses the use of deus ex machina in a serious contemporary novel, she is likely pointing to it as a flaw in the work. It is widely agreed that a plot should follow in a logical manner, and that earlier elements should prepare the way for those that follow. One event is motivated by those that come before it, and anyone looking at the whole (after having read the work in its entirety) should be able to show the complex series of causes, effects, relations, and reasons for the important events. In the case of deus ex machina, however, the reader is not granted this kind of integrated connection, and the event in question seems to appear out of nowhere. It is unpredictable, unmotivated, and is most obviously inserted to solve a particular difficulty which the author was unable to get past through other means. It abruptly defuses dramatic tension, confuses catharsis, and demarcates an unnatural-feeling episode break.
A simplified example of deus ex machina occurs in a novel where the protagonist, a very poor old man, is striving against his former employer in an attempt to get the pension which should be his after having worked for the same company over the last 50 years. Things are going poorly for him, and it looks as though he is finally going to lose the struggle. The bank is threatening foreclosure on his home, and without his pension, there is no way he is going to be able to keep making payments. As he begins packing his meager belongings with a caring social worker, feeling the proceedings are going poorly, he finds in the attic his old comic and card collection which he thought his mother had sold decades earlier. He is at first delighted that this part of his youth still exists for him to reminisce about wherever he ends us, but his social worker points out that they are likely worth a lot of money now, and an appraiser confirms they are worth millions! The man sells most of them off, becomes rich, and keeps his home. Since nothing prepared us for this vital, life-altering occurrence, it is a clear example of deus ex machina.
Deus Ex Machina
Continuing with our Greek inheritance, the next indispensable term for contemporary novel studies is one which, unlike many of the others, has not found a comfortable home in contemporary popular usage. Like the others, it has come to us through Latin, but unlike the others it is composed of three words, rather than a single word, and so it is more difficult to slide into English sentences. You can slip a word like nemesis into a sentence without breaking stride, but deus ex machina does not roll off the tongue the same way, and becomes the focus of the listener's attention, taking away from the thrust of the sentence.
Translated directly, deus ex machina means god from the machine, and derives from Greek tragedians' use of a mechanism to hoist an actor aloft and lower him into a given scene in his portrayal of a god. By today's standards, of course, this would be considered ridiculous, as our suspension of disbelief is far more limited. However, the term, if not the original theatrical meaning, has survived into the present day through a metonymic shift. The mechanical aspects of the deus ex machina have been excised, and the gods have been (for the most part) stricken from consideration, but the general function the device was most often used to produce has been identified with the term.Deus ex machina now refers to the insertion of an event or series of events that helps to forward the plot and helps the protagonist overcome otherwise insurmountable difficulties. The events are usually characterized by their unconnected, unexpected, and at times random nature. For the Greeks and Romans, this was completely acceptable, since part of their worldview involved the activity of the gods that could change the course of their lives in an instant, with little explanation or apparent motivation. Today, the intentional use of deus ex machina is only really effective in comedies, or in works that are very self-consciously trying to reflect the classical form of the device. If a critic discusses the use of deus ex machina in a serious contemporary novel, she is likely pointing to it as a flaw in the work. It is widely agreed that a plot should follow in a logical manner, and that earlier elements should prepare the way for those that follow. One event is motivated by those that come before it, and anyone looking at the whole (after having read the work in its entirety) should be able to show the complex series of causes, effects, relations, and reasons for the important events. In the case of deus ex machina, however, the reader is not granted this kind of integrated connection, and the event in question seems to appear out of nowhere. It is unpredictable, unmotivated, and is most obviously inserted to solve a particular difficulty which the author was unable to get past through other means. It abruptly defuses dramatic tension, confuses catharsis, and demarcates an unnatural-feeling episode break.
A simplified example of deus ex machina occurs in a novel where the protagonist, a very poor old man, is striving against his former employer in an attempt to get the pension which should be his after having worked for the same company over the last 50 years. Things are going poorly for him, and it looks as though he is finally going to lose the struggle. The bank is threatening foreclosure on his home, and without his pension, there is no way he is going to be able to keep making payments. As he begins packing his meager belongings with a caring social worker, feeling the proceedings are going poorly, he finds in the attic his old comic and card collection which he thought his mother had sold decades earlier. He is at first delighted that this part of his youth still exists for him to reminisce about wherever he ends us, but his social worker points out that they are likely worth a lot of money now, and an appraiser confirms they are worth millions! The man sells most of them off, becomes rich, and keeps his home. Since nothing prepared us for this vital, life-altering occurrence, it is a clear example of deus ex machina.