Deus Ex Machina

So I was like standing in a grocery store line when a guy started talking to me. He said, "yo dude what do you think of the ending of the James Joyce story called, 'Araby' and the repetition of the word 'Vanity'"?

To this I replied, "I don't know, bro, I figure it has something to do with the book of Job- you know, vanities of vanities and all that."

He stared at me for a second and spit some Copenhagen into an empty beer can he was holding. Scratching his crotch he said, "Dude, what the hell are you talking about?"

I shrugged and he went along his way and so did I. I bought some hot pockets and later, my marriage was saved, my dog's cancer went away, and Saddam Hussein was out of power. It was probably the old man with the beer can who fixed everything.

A Deus Ex Machina is a literary device where a sudden appearance of a character that suddenly resolves the conflict of a story. It often undermines the internal logic already established by the narrative. For instance, say a group of talking animals is walking through a forest looking for a lost child when all of a sudden the forest deity, Pan, appears out of nowhere, plays a charming ditty, freaks the crap out of the animals, and directs them to the youngling. The suddenly appearing deity solves the conflict, robbing the characters of their agency to solve the plot. The Deus Ex is a device oft reviled ever since Horace coined the term (Horace was an Italian who wrote poetry about caring).

Deus Ex Machina means "God out of the machine". It implies a divine appearance from a corporeal object such as a poet's pen. The criticisms leveled against it seem legitimate. Shouldn't a plot resolve from premises originally set down in its beginning? What good is a story if the story itself is simply coattails for this divine intervention? Are characters even necessary if their exterior turmoils and inter-character dialogue don't serve a larger literary end?

These criticisms are mostly based from a classical convention of storytelling. In "Poetics" Aristotle writes that,

"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."

(NOTE: I pulled this from Wikipedia. I did not read Poetics. It's too big for a PlayStation addict like myself to touch.)

For this class, the Deus Ex Machina is important, as a concept, because it represents a mode of narrative that, though largely disliked, appears in many works of both modern canonical literature and general pop culture. Most everyone sighs at the appearance of the guy in an airplane who saves the day, however, it is in consideration of this class, to address literature from a different perspective, where we need to retool our notions of quality.

I am no judge of what is good. However, it is safe to assume that the works that Doctor Sexson has picked for us deserve the consideration we give them. We do this because the man is both older than us and more better well educated. Also, James Joyce and T.S. Eliot and Virginia Wolfe are all names that people who don't even like literacy know, which makes them not just part of the canon but also makes them contributers to society in more ways than we can de-construct. This being said, it seems to me that parts of this class are the searching out of Deus Ex Machina, or the searching out of so-called "bad" qualities in a work of art. This intrigues me, this makes me reconsider my sense of "bad". If we actively search out this plot device, this Deus Ex, does it diminish what we are reading in every other context? I suspect not, this stuff is multifaceted, it contains multitudes, as we all know, there are many ways to skin T.S. Eliot's cat.

More obviously, the Deus Ex Machina relates to this class because it invokes a cliche. The sudden appearance of a being holding great power granting a solution to the protagonist is a piece of storytelling so ingrained in the way people resolve stories that it has become disliked. This repeating form is found in many stories then if it is so magnanimous. In fact, I think it's possible that all stories have some sort of Deus Ex Machina in them. Because all stories are slices of reality siphoned through the way people perceive their own narratives. In this sense, because storytelling is manufactured from the raw material of experience, there will always be elements of contrivance in the rendering of scenes. So even if a character is weaving their own tapestry through a narrative, their materials have been granted to them by the author. Their existence is granted by a fleeting thought of their purpose by the author. Their purpose is to uphold the narrative.

In old stories, myths, there was always an epiphanic mode. The heart of many primal stories is the crossing of boundaries into a new realm. Upon reaching the new realm, the characters in the story would encounter a divine being who would enact either karmic justice or teach a lesson. Either way, it would leave a mark on its beholders that effected the future of not just those directly involved but those who descended from them as well. Is there a way for this metaphor to extend into the flesh world?

I think so.

I think within our narrative forms are the remnants of the primal. This includes the epiphany-speak of the oral tales. These remnants manifest in the narrative forms that were used before them. Parataxis, metonymy, repetition, and metaphor are the tools of the ancient myth tellers. These modes come from the base communication forms humans used at their beginning. Their oral tradition. The Deus Ex is not just a cliche, it's one of these narrative forms. I partially tie it with the notion of Epiphany because of its striking similarity to one of the word's definitions. Likewise, I think there are many layers left untouched here. Regardless of oversights, the epiphany, like so many other modes of thought and writing, is a product and enacter of primal ways. This makes it a mode of the perceived divine. Once again the name obliges.

The concept, "God from the machine" or when re-translated, "God from the hands of man" seems to ape this notion that the deus ex is an attempt at creating god from text. This attempt was rebuked by Aristotle as he believed that the Ex Machina had to occur in a naturalistic fashion. However, all writing has an element of the natural in it if these forms have been passed from a primal sense of things. In the primal is God. If God is primal than an epiphany is the stripping away of anything that is not God. The epiphany, although requiring the naturalistic hand of the divine, is just as much a function of human endeavor, human hands. Human hands create god therefore human hands must be divine. From a literary standpoint we created God from our primal narrative forms that have been passed through time. The Deus Ex Machina becomes less a hamfist and more a force of divinity.

In this sense, the Deus Ex Machina is a part of all story. Because all story, in some sense, at least I think this, is a quest for understanding and understanding is built from revelations. Just like parataxis or repetition or any other mode of orality, the things which laid the foundations for our creation of words have been relegated into the back alleys of the vulgate and so-called kidspeak. There was a time when the appearance of the deity was not considered weak to a story but absolutely essential. Perhaps the Deus Ex Machina, the narrative formula for epiphany, isn't a weakness of plot, but an attempt at storytelling to draw upon its metaphorical and primal roots.

Michael Furey

A child buries his head into his pillow to shelter himself from the hollering of his parents. A crash and the vivid screams of his mother quickly fade out the front door. The deep billowing sobs of his father punch into the boy's room. Somewhere, the door reopens and the fight starts again. The police will be here soon.

The two James Joyce stories from Dubliners offer glimpses into a new side of Epiphany. With the introduction of new perspective comes change. With all change comes a time of great uncertainty and discomfort. Epiphany is the recognition of change it seems in Joyce. This is an interior perspective: less divination, more inclination. Subtle glances breech insecurities and realizations are revealed.

Standing outside of a gym, the child waits for his father's SUV. He sits and waits, watching as the cars passing on the road in front of him turn on their headlights with the fading day. After a few hours, his mother shows up to pick him up.

A name holds power to Joyce. In a way, it holds all the power. 'Araby' signifies all things great, Michael Furey is the name which melts the fantasies of an effete mind. The epiphany is the melding of word and reality. The word, once supporter of the delusions that propelled the character, becomes like a hammer through a stained glass. Behind the falling glass is all the badness and inner fears realized. There's some good there too. The viewers in these stories are shown their true nature through this manner of revelation. An identical tool for both construction and destruction.

The family is at a picnic. The father eats a second hotdog with his fourth beer. The mother glares at him with disdain. She quickly hides it under a mask of smile. The boy notices it though. And for a moment, he is filled with terror.

The manners of people in The Dead are words spoken for pacifying effect. The protagonist exposes his own furious lusts little-by-little until he comes upon his figure of control, Gretta. She diffuses him with story, redefining for him what love means. She is a divine creature. A single shot Scheherazade. Gabriel, ironically named, heralds the snow with his new friend, Michael Furey. What is that thing that is said in Zombie movies? 'When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth'? I think they got it wrong, or, at least the timing part of it.

The boy, now a student, tries to reflect on his experiences in the context of the class material. He tries all sorts of renderings where one thing from his story is related to a later part in a different one. He fails and it comes out jarring and misleading. Not cartoony though. That's something. He gives up and turns off the computer. Misery and epiphany, word.

English Major Beginning

So there I was, baking in the open Zocalo, gulping at my Corona Familiar, trying to draw a church in front of me. My sketchbook, covered in condensation rings was mostly empty. After a week in Mexico I had maybe ten pages of imagery. The assignment was to have one-hundred pages of sketches portraying the surrounding town. With only a few days left until my first fifty were due, I was halfheartedly sketching anything I could find- the equivalent, I thought, of artistic bullshitting.

During my sophomore year at MSU I had impulsively signed up for a two week trip to a city in the heart of Mexico called Oaxaca (pronounced WAH-HAH-KAH). I was never very dedicated to my art degree and my wandering attitude reflected this. So when I walked on that plane boarding for Oaxaca, it was just as accidental as a sky falling on a chicken.

Packed with shops and churches, the town has a liveliness that feels like those moments at the end of a wedding where everyone is drunk and dancing and no one has a care in the world. It also shows its age. Rusted edges appear on all the metal surfaces, and a thin layer of dust has settled on the rusted siding of the shanties that sit between the 50's coke machines and open-air shops. Aged but not tired, Oaxaca's people walked with high chins and seemed to all have something to sell. There were half-a-dozen carts on each block selling anything from mayonnaise covered corn cobs to Hunter S. Thompson hats and clay cigarette holders.

Oaxaca spread across a wide valley; in one direction, groups of shanties were stacked up a hill. In another, the town opened up into neighborhoods and small businesses, exposing areas where the ground was a hard bed of dry clay. In these parts, the high sun had leeched all the moisture from the ground.

The city owed its artistic soul to this soil. When mixed with water, the clay became easily malleable but still resistant to separation. This made it perfect for sculpting into all manner of practical containers and expressive art pieces. These ceramic works were the reason a bunch of MSU students had been flown to Oaxaca.

Exploring numerous studios belonging to Oaxaceno artisans, we saw techniques that had been fashioned by hundreds of years of tradition and pots that still sold for top peso. Switching between sculpture and drawing, the professors urged us to cultivate a sensitivity to our rich surroundings.

At night, We would dine in Oaxaca's restaurants, enjoying Gorgonzola on Wraps filled with chicken marinaded in bittersweet oils. Afterward, the group would head to local bars and take shots of a Mexican liquor called Mescal. Drawing, dining, eating, and Sculpting: It seemed like an excellent way to spend a few weeks.

However, something seemed off. I couldn't get into the sketching, the art of the whole thing.

After the first five days, during the weekend our professors gave us, I started taking afternoon walks through the city. Just letting myself get lost, probably looking like a tourist begging to be mugged. That may have been a cool story. I found my eye picking things up but my feet felt no need to stop. There was no urge to draw. I wanted to just walk around my surroundings, take it all in.

Carrying a sketchbook around is a necessary part of artistic lives. It is the physical manifestation of the memory, less restrictive than notebooks, a collection of blank pages, each page constructed for easy scribing, woven in such a way to collect ink easier than the usual college ruled dross.

So there I was, baking in the open Zocalo, gulping at my Corona Familiar, trying to draw a church in front of me. I dropped my hand to the paper and stared at the building in front of me. My hand began tracing the crude shape of a contour sketch. It wasn't doing anything for me. I didn't care. I was wasting graphite and ink. My picture came out looking like a melting grizzly bear being beaten to death by the Pope. This could have been compelling if it had been my intent.

Stopping out of frustration, I topped off my drink and stared at the church. Its focal point, a white faced clock with gold Roman Numerals and hash marks, was housed in a rectangular box structure outlined by white columns. From here, the edges of the tower converged into a sharp tip about six stories above the street level. Frustrated with the drawing, I began writing down my observations. Where words didn't suffice, I drew. My sketchbook quickly went from being a collection of pictures to a visual journal of my experiences. Fifty pages became one-hundred became two full books. I kept it in the trunk of my car for those times when I was on the road, sitting in n a roadside diner overlooking the highway, eating a lonely meal. I left it in a Jamestown ND Applebee's during a trip to Minneapolis.

On a hot day in Mexico, I realized that I liked to use words to describe things as much as lines and colors and tones. At one point, the group visited a ceramicist named Dorras Porras (sp?) who was legendary in the area for her handmade mezcal pots. I drew her and wrote down what she did. When one of my peers saw this he tore the book from my hands and read what I had written. He liked it. More importantly, he understood it. That was a neat moment when I realized that I could write in a semi-sensical way.

I figure with surroundings as rich as Oaxaca it's only a matter of time before someone figures out something about being creative. Anyway, now it's just a matter of trying to perceive my world such that everywhere becomes as alive and dynamic as Oaxaca.

The professor complained in the comments that I didn't draw enough in the book. I started to realize that I was in the wrong major.

I suppose this isn't really an epiphany. This is when the seed for my English Major epiphany was planted. I suspect that the actual epiphany occurred sometime during a sleepless night over a muddy canvas or in an advisor's office in Bozeman. I figure that this one is more fun since it takes place in Mexico and involves alcohol.

Mole's house

Mole's "homely" revelation has caused me to look at my evening walks differently.

Now, for something completely irrelevant...

The human brain is the fattiest muscle in the human body. Depending on LSD usage, the brain contains billions of neurons dedicated to doing things from breathing to hunting down a wildebeest and cutting out its heart. Unlike a muscle, it has no direct physical ability to move bone or flesh. However, akin to muscle, it requires exercise and repetition to function properly.

Even more akin to a gluteus maximus, the brain grows and changes with usage. If a body builder does few reps with a lot of weight, the muscles will grow bulbous and large; however, if many reps are done with little weight, they will become lean. Likewise, if a brain is used in conjunction with technology, its capacity for memory will fade, however, its ability to process large amounts of information from many sources expands. Regardless, the brain expands with usage, and usage dictates how it expands.

Revelation seems like a type of thought, an exercise, in this case. Like memory and recall, it is a psychological mode which exists, albeit shortly, in response to exterior influences. However, unlike memory and recall, an epiphany happens involuntarily. This places it in a similar category as the functions of a muscle like the heart or the lungs. Muscle memory, the recall of muscle after repetitious action, is the mode of involuntary knowing; it is a mode like emotion, feeling, often irrational, the mode of instinct.

In the Wind in the Willows, Mole falls into a trance as he approaches his old dwelling place. His underground home, a signifier for his old life, enacts a kind of hypnotic influence on the creature. When Rat, enthralled by adventure and change, unwittingly pulls Mole from his trance, the subterranean lad experiences fits of sadness. Mole illustrates an instinctual connection with his old life and is drawn back to it.

I have always thought of revelation as a thing which changes. In its definition it is a function of the new. However, the new can be old again. Just as Mole was pulled, involuntarily, towards his home, seemingly away from the newness of the outside world, he felt a crushing need to go home. This is an epiphany in and of itself. Also, it is irrational and thoughtless.

Are epiphanies a type of thought that happens outside of our traditional conceptions of thought? If so, it is a blending of emotion and thought that occurs suddenly and without control- at least in the case of Mole. In this scene, it is all consuming and extremely intense.

Traditionally, emotion is considered subordinate to thought. "Control your emotions" we are told. As though thought and analysis are the end-all of perception. For mole, however, the forest was dark, there was no easy way to know this was his home, but something told him that this was it. And it dominated his thoughts. It dominated him. As irrational as it was, a return to that which was lost and forgotten, was just what he needed.

Epiphany, here, seems like a convergence: where the ability for rational thought combines with the emotional instinct of the creature. If one stops subordinating emotion to thought, they simply become two means of interpreting the outside world. One definition of epiphany is the realization of things as they truly are. In order to realize the truth, shouldn't a creature have to use all its capacity for perception?

If trained, can the instinct to realize the truth of the new become a type which constantly immerses the viewer in newness? Is newness a function of environment or a function of perception?

As Mole returns to his home, he does as he always has. He talks with Rat and humbly maligns his surroundings. Like a good friend, Rat assures his companion that the environment is dynamic and exciting. Invigorated by his friend's optimism, Mole once again becomes enthralled by his home. The revisiting of the old in a new way makes the old new. All it took was some observation and empathy. The first is a tool of the rational, the second is an emotional instinct of the kind.

In this case, the rat is a guide for Mole. Similarly, Mole becomes a guide to the little mice who visit. Nothing is mundane if one has someone or something to give new perspective. Mole's visit to his home is a type of rebirth. In this case, Rat is the doctor who just had to slap the baby's ass to get it going in its new surroundings.

So just like the middle ground that the act of Epiphany occupies between emotion and rationality, the path to revelation must be a practiced sensitivity to ones surroundings while also a guided social experience brought upon by someone who simply has a different perspective. Furthermore I wouldn't consider Rat all that terribly wise, he's just has a different experience from his friend.

Also, in the chapter "The piper at the Gates of Dawn", Pan manifests himself to the companions during a mission of mercy. And then they forget about it. That was pretty cool. But that didn't make me smile and jump around as much as Mole's house. Maybe revelation from the mundane is just what excites me. It seems like Mole agrees.

Views on Epiphanies

"Is that an Epiphany in your pocket? Or are you just happy so see me?"

It's a cliche to open a piece of writing with a dictionary definition. John Grisham told me this once while he and I were eating foie gras on the Titanic with Darth Vader. Seriously, I'm not making this up. Grisham turned to me and said, "Tai, if you ever use a dictionary definition as an opener to a piece of writing I will give you a noogie."

In response to this, I said, "I object to that!" Which I thought was funny because John Grisham is a lawyer and lawyers say, "I object to things!" all the time. Anyway that must just be in the movies or something because he sighed and walked away. At least he didn't give me a noogie.

A middle aged part-time lawyer slash writer walking away from you is the paradigm opposite to one of the definitions of 'Epiphany'. The dictionaty-dot-com secondarily defines Epiphany as: an appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity.

If God suddenly manifested to me, I would probably be very startled. That is, if I recognized the thing in front of me as God. I suppose it would depend on what the all powerful was wearing. If he was wearing a nice suit I would probably assume he was a lawyer or a businessman, and those are people you only really want to deal with when you're in trouble (there is an irony here somewhere). Should God wear a Nickelback shirt I would ignore the piss out of him, however, if he were to wear a Metallica shirt, I would probably stop and say, "Hey, nice shirt." And then go on my way.

The point is that there is a certain amount of responsibility on the deity's part when it comes to epiphanic (HAHA! Adjective Apocrypha, fuck it) things. Wear a suit of armor or start something on fire or make a loud proclamation or something. If a deity just walks into my garden and I tell it to water my azaleas because I mistaken it for my gardener, Max, than the whole thing just becomes very embarrassing to me. I become the guy who told the son of God to water my Azaleas. You don't live that kind of stuff down. But allow me to regress. Epiphanies require a kind of awareness. That's the key: awareness. Maybe that goat-touting sign-prophet on the corner of 3rd and Williamsburg telling you that the world is ending is really telling the truth. Maybe the world is ending.

It's the apocalypse! Grab your shotgun, eat the kids! The sky is falling.

ah ha! Another thought!

This is another cliche: "An ending is just a beginning."

A woman in a knit scarf once told me this shortly before asking me to try rubbing gold bond on my genitals. She said it would feel great. She was right about the latter, so I figure the former must have some truth. That's what cliches are: little snippets of prudential wisdoms that have been repeated so many times that most people have internalized them such that the sentences themselves don't resonate on any Saussure-ish linguistic level.

A Cliche is something we have been told to avoid. However, just like Gold Bond, drugs, and alcohol, the most fun is to be had with things that they tell us are bad. If you have enough cliches in your head, you are called gregarious. Entire conversations have happened over a good cliche. In fact, the only people who hate cliches are writers.

A writer is someone who doesn't have any friends and hates spending time with others. They also are fond of giving noogies to people. I don't know why.

People who like cliches are known as 'Speed Daters'. All people fall into one of these two categories. Speed Daters and Writers. Your usual Speed Dater is good at being happy and is quick to mate and likes to drink chai tea. Most Speed Daters will do many good things and live long productive lives. Writers smoke cigarettes and kill themselves. There is not grey here, these are the only two types of people, this is just how it is.

Speed Daters Speed Date. Speed Date is the act of trading cliches until someone decides they want to snog the other or go on a second speed date with the other. The former leads to happiness because snogging is good. The second will probably lead to something called a 'relationship' and those always end in disappointment. Wow, let me pause here. That seems harsh.

I am speaking metaphorically here. A metaphor is a symbol or image that writers use to seem smart about things that no one has the right to understand. We use metaphors in cliches. Hell, language is a metaphor. Words symbolize things that exist without actually enacting the thing itself, however the signifier augments experience similarly to the actual witnessing of the thing. If this is not the case you are Harry Potter. And if you are Harry Potter you need to have rocks piled on you until you die because wizards would render English Majors obsolete and I need a Job, Goddammit.

In the erasure of words is the true nature of the thing. Metaphors, cliches, wisdoms; these are threads which make up the veil that covers our perceptions of the true essences of things. An Epiphany by another definition is the lifting of this veil. The Dictionary-dot-com defines Epiphany in the third as, "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience." and in the fourth as, "a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight."

Insight.
Revelation.
Homely.

These things, just like the deity thing requires a certain awareness to understand. The funny thing is that this awareness is often built from the very tools that keep us from it. See? Tools, funny things, these are double metaphors. You're not supposed to do that. But Supposed is different than obligated than inclined. I think revelations require more inclination than supposition. It's the will that is never denied, even those fucking deconstruction types kind of agree here (or do they? Shrug) and I think we can all agree that Epiphany takes a kind of effort.

But let's not forget,

In the first, The good old Dick defines Epiphany as "a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; Twelfth-day." It's a party people. Have fun. The world is ending, let's get drunk. Metaphorically speaking.

SIDE NOTE: Never figured out how that lady knew how it felt to rub Gold Bond on balls. There's an epiphany here. Oh yeah! Almost forgot! A song by Roger Alan Wade called, "The Chicken Song" starts off with the lyric, "A chicken wakes up to a new day every day." I think this is how revelatory things work too. You wake up one way, have some daily epiphanies, and then go to sleep different and then it's a new day. And then a farmer cuts your head off.

#1

One time I sat on a pen. I was in fourth grade and I had been wandering around the classroom staring at things as kids are wont to do when suddenly I had the compulsion to sit down. An impulsive child, I met this compulsion with full compliance and went back to my desk. While sitting down, I noticed a slight prick behind my knees as I leaned towards the back of the chair.

The pen had been sitting half on my seat and half off. As I sat down, it was pushed forward by my ass into my calf. I felt the pen stab into my leg and a small drop of warm blood ran into my sock. Pausing for a moment, I tried to figure out whether it hurt enough to cry. Being an attention starved only-child, I let out a scream.

Later that month my Ferret would die.

And that's the story about how I sat on a pen and then later my Ferret died.

I really hope I don't fail this capstone. I mean 425. What a big number. Good luck Y'all. Let's all hit-up specs one O' these nights.