Deus ex machina

The Deus ex Machina [ de ː ʊs ɛks Makhina ] (lat. God out of a / the (theater ) machine ) is a loan translation from the Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς Θεός (APO mechanés theos ) and originally referred to the emergence of a deity with the help of a stage machinery. Today, the term is also considered a proverbial - dramatic name for each by sudden, unmotivated occurring events, people or external powers, resulted in resolution of a conflict.

Origin

In the ancient tragedy, there were tragic conflicts that are not always powerful human actions, resolve ' could be. Your resolve or decision came from above ' by the surprising intervention of a deity who gave the event the final turn.

The Deus ex Machina floated in a crane- like lifting machine, the so-called theater machine, above the stage or landed on the roof of the stage house. This was intended to represent the power of the gods in the ancient idea and in fact their intervention in the action on stage were often surprising.

As an example of Deus Ex Machina Athena occurs in the Eumenides of Aeschylus and in the Iphigenia Euripides. Even in modern dramas gods can show up, but then in an ironic use (see Bertolt Brecht: The Good Person of Szechwan, where the gods are distinguished, however, also been responsible for the starting point of the piece ). Further, assume the role of deus ex machina Stage human figures, a completely hopeless situation dissolve (see the, mounted messenger of the king ' in Brecht's Threepenny Opera, an element of the epic theater ). Likewise, the President in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's play Frank the Fifth; similar, but with a turn for the worse, the prison director in his play The Physicists. In the play My friend Harvey a new character, a taxi driver, on the stage, giving the stalled action a turn for the better appear in the last 5 minutes.

Filmic examples include Shakespeare in Love, where motivated by anything appearance of Queen Elizabeth at the end unravels the seemingly unsolvable interwoven threads of intrigue, or Jurassic Park, where the protagonists are saved at the end of a looming at the last second Tyrannosaurus before the Velociraptors. In several Western a sudden, more or less sudden cavalry attack takes over the function.

Use

You will be able to assert ex Machina in the ancient seal difficult to justify the appearance of the Deus, man need the "appearance miracle" as an expression of divine or higher affection, if one takes the statement of Horace to the tragic poet into consideration: " nec deus Intersit, nisi dignus vindice notus / inciderit "(" and there is no God in the game, unless it is incurred an entanglement that requires a liberator "). This means that only in exceptional cases, namely where no man is able to untie the knot, the poet must be a God to intervene. In Greek and Roman theater of Deus ex Machina surprisingly the astonished audience appears. In the Middle Ages occur witches and demons with sulfur and smoke from the opening chasms, and particularly charismatic people appear Mary, the mother of Jesus, saints, and characters. The ( movie ) theater of modern times used Dei ex Machina, for example in the form of well-known Western clichés that the cavalry appears at the end of the film and the protagonist rescues. Further, a Deus ex Machina also used to produce a comic effect by the improbability or implausibility, such as in some skits and films of the British comedy group Monty Python.

Today's use of the term

Today we denote by Deus Ex Machina - in literature and everyday life - usually a person or an unexpected event which helps in an emergency situation or the solution brings. In entertainment media are Dei ex Machina often aids of writers to tell the story to move with simple, unexplained funds in the desired direction, which is why the term is usually used disparaging as a criticism of the writing ability of the authors and refers to the inability to maintain an action with continuously logical contexts to create. Examples can be found especially in conjunction with soaps that in constant time intervals, new motives and conflicts need for years with appropriate resolutions and inevitably lead to the use of such ex Machina Dei. Also, Grimm's fairy tales often use this style means to stand each title hero of the story aside.