A deus ex machina (pronounced /ˈdeɪ.əs ɛks ˈmɑːkinə/ or /ˈdiː.əs ɛks ˈmækɨnə/, or day oos ayks makinah [1] literally "god from the machine") is a plot device in which a person or thing appears "out of the blue" to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty. Alternatively a person or object may have a property not revealed before. It is generally considered to be a poor storytelling technique. However it is popular in fairy tale and science fiction (for instance the fairy godmother in Cinderella or Doctor Who's sonic screwdriver).
Linguistic considerations
The Latin phrase "deus ex machina" comes to English usage from Horace's Ars Poetica, where he instructs poets that they must never resort to a god from the machine to solve their plots. He is referring to the conventions of Greek tragedy, where a crane (mekhane) was used to lower actors playing a God or Gods onto the stage. The machine referred to in the phrase could be either the crane employed in the task, a calque from the Greek "God from the machine" ("ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός," apò mēkhanḗs theós), or the riser that brought a god up from a trap door.
Deus ex machina is a device that came from Greek Tragedy. It was the intervention of the Gods upon the affairs of the living. Originally, they used some kind of a pulley being lowered to the stage where the God would appear during the intervention.
Ancient uses
The Greek tragedian Euripides is often criticized for his frequent use of the deus ex machina. More than half of Euripides's extant tragedies employ a deus ex machina in their resolution and some critics go so far as to claim that Euripides invented the deus ex machina.[2] For example, in Euripides' play Alcestis, the eponymous heroine agrees to give up her own life in order to spare the life of her husband, Admetus. At the end Heracles shows up and seizes Alcestis from Death, restoring her to life and to Admetus. A more frequently cited example is Euripides' Medea in which the deus ex machina is used to convey Medea, who has just committed murder and infanticide, away from her husband Jason to the safety and civilization of Athens. In Aristophanes' play Thesmophoriazusae the playwright parodies Euripides' frequent use of the crane by making Euripides himself a character in the play and bringing him on stage by way of the mekhane.
Aristotle criticized the device in his Poetics, where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play:[3]
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In the characters too, exactly as in the structure of the incidents, [the poet] ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this [incident] happen after that one.
It is obvious that the solutions of plots too should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama—either previous events which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g. that in Sophocles’ Oedipus.
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—Aristotle, Poetics (1454a33-1454b9)
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Aristotle praised Euripides, however, for generally ending his plays with bad fortune, which he viewed as correct in tragedy, and somewhat excused the intervention of a deity by suggesting that "astonishment" should be sought in tragic drama:
Irrationalities should be referred to what people say: that is one solution, and also sometimes that it is not irrational, since it is probable that improbable things will happen.[4]
Medieval uses
The earliest use of deus ex machina in a murder mystery occurs in the Arabian Nights tale of "The Three Apples", near the middle of the story. After discovering the dead body of a young woman, Harun al-Rashid orders his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days or else he will have him executed instead. Ja'far, however, fails to find the murderer before the deadline.[5] Just when Harun is about to have Ja'far executed for his failure, a deus ex machina occurs when the murderer suddenly reveals himself,[6] claiming to be the woman's husband.[7]
Modern criticism
Following on from Aristotle's example, Renaissance critics continued to view the deus ex machina as an inept plot device, although it continued to be employed by Renaissance dramatists; Shakespeare used the device in Pericles and The Winter's Tale.[8] Towards the end of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche criticised Euripides for making tragedy an optimistic genre via use of the device and was highly sceptical of the "Greek cheerfulness" this prompted and what he viewed as the plays' "blissful delight in life."[9] The deus ex machina as Nietzsche saw it was symptomatic of Socratic culture that valued knowledge over Dionysiac music and ultimately caused the death of tragedy:[10]
But the new non-Dionysiac spirit is most clearly apparent in the endings of the new dramas. At the end of the old tragedies there was a sense of metaphysical conciliation without which it is impossible to imagine our taking delight in tragedy; perhaps the conciliatory tones from another world echo most purely in Oedipus at Colonus. Now, once tragedy had lost the genius of music, tragedy in the strictest sense was dead: for where was that metaphysical consolation now to be found? Hence an earthly resolution for tragic dissonance was sought; the hero, having been adequately tormented by fate, won his well-earned reward in a stately marriage and tokens of divine honour. The hero had become a gladiator, granted freedom once he had been satisfactorily flayed and scarred. Metaphysical consolation had been ousted by the deus ex machina.[11]
Nietzsche argues that the deus ex machina creates a false sense of consolation that ought not to be sought in phenomena and this denigration of the plot device has prevailed in critical opinion.[12] Some 20th-century revisionist criticism suggests that the deus ex machina cannot be viewed in these simplified terms and argues rather that the device allows mortals to "probe" their relationship with the divine.[13] Rush Rehm in particular cites examples of Greek tragedy in which the deus ex machina serves to complicate the lives and attitudes of characters confronted by the deity whilst simultaneously bringing the drama home to its audience.[13]
Modern uses
In fiction writing, the phrase has been extended to refer to a sudden and unexpected resolution to a seemingly intractable problem in a plot-line, or what might be called an "Oh, by the way..." ending.[14] A deus ex machina is generally undesirable in writing and often implies a lack of skill on the part of the author. The reasons for this are that it does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and is often so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, allowing the author to conclude the story with an unlikely, though perhaps more palatable, ending.[15]
Sometimes the unlikeliness of the deus ex machina plot device is employed deliberately:
- An example is in Bertolt Brecht's epic musical The Threepenny Opera (1928), in which a "riding messenger of the king" appears in the last moment, stops the execution of the story's criminal anti-hero Mack the Knife and bestows an inheritable title of nobility on him. The very absurdity of this serves to underscore the great lack of generosity and selflessness in the capitalist reality that the story dramatises. But this is less of a modern example since The Threepenny Opera is based on The Beggar's Opera written in 1728 by John Gay.
- Also in the final book of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, King uses a Deus Ex Machina in the form of a note which allows Suasannah to save Roland from an emotion vampire named Dandelo. The note itself is from Stephen, who plays a fairly major role in the latter part of the series, and even acknowledges itself as a Deus Ex Machina.
- Near the end of the film Donnie Darko, Donnie is held at knife-point by Seth Devlin as a car approaches the both of them. Seth proceeds to ask "Did you call the fucking cops?" Donnie responds with "Deus ex machina...our savior."
- At the end of the movie Dodgeball: A true underdog story, when the casino brings Peter out the money he won it says "deus ex machina" on the chest
See also
Notes
- ^ Random House Dictionary
- ^ Rehm (1992, 72) and Walton (1984, 51).
- ^ Janko (1987, 20)
- ^ Poetics 11.5 Penguin, (1996, 45).
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 86-91, ISBN 9004095306 ; Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, pp. 241-2, ISBN 0814332595
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 92-3, ISBN 9004095306
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 94, ISBN 9004095306
- ^ Rehm,(1992, 70).
- ^ Nietzsche (1993, 85).
- ^ Nietzsche (1993, 86).
- ^ Nietzsche (1993, 84).
- ^ Nietzsche (2003, 80).
- ^ a b Rehm (1992, 71).
- ^ See Chambers dictionary and deus ex machina - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, which gives this pronunciation: \ˈdā-əs-ˌeks-ˈmä-ki-nə, -ˈma-, -ˌnä; -mə-ˈshē-nə\
- ^ Dr. L. Kip Wheeler. "Literary Terms and Definitions: D". http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_D.html. Retrieved 2008-07-26.
References
- Bushnell, Rebecca ed. 2005. A Companion to Tragedy. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1405107359.
- Heath, Malcolm, trans. 1996. Poetics. By Aristotle. Penguin: London. ISBN 9780140446364.
- Janko, Richard, trans. 1987. Poetics with Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II and the Fragments of the On Poets. By Aristotle. Cambridge: Hackett. ISBN 0872200337.
- Mastronarde, Donald, 1990. Actors on High: The Skene roof, the Crane and the Gods in Attic Drama. Classical Antiquity, Vol 9, October 1990, pp 247–294. University of California.
- Rehm, Rush, 1992. Greek Tragic Theatre. Routledge, London. ISBN 0415048311.
- Tanner, Michael ed. 2003. The Birth of Tragedy. By Nietzsche, Friedrich. Penguin: London. ISBN 9780140433395.
- Taplin, Oliver, 1978. Greek Tragedy in Action. Methuen, London. ISBN 0416717004.
- Walton, J Michael, trans. 2000. Euripides: Medea. Methuen, London. ISBN 0413752801.
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