deus ex machina

Posted by Jim on January 26, 2005

Reading, or rather listening since I get really read a Stephen King novel, a mention is made to deus ex machina.

Always a taste for Latin in my head, I wondered what was the correct pronunciation of this often quoted phrase - heck it is used in the 2nd greatest Christmas moive, “Olive the Other Reindeer”.

And this is the reference I find:

Deus ex machina is Latin for “god from the machine” and is a calque from the Greek “ap? Ã‚Âµ??a??? ?e??”, (pronounced ‘apo mekhanes theos’). It originated with Greek and Roman theater, when a mechane would lower a god or gods onstage to resolve a hopeless situation. Thus, “god comes from the machine”. The phrase deus ex machina has been extended to refer to any resolution to a story which does not pay due regard to the story’s internal logic and is so unlikely it challenges suspension of disbelief, and presumably allows the author to end it in the way he or she wanted.

The pronunciation of the phrase is a problem in English. Traditional ways of saying Latin would have it something like DAY-us ex MAK-in-a, while more modern ways of pronouncing Latin would give perhaps DAY-oos ex MAH-kin-ah, but many people naturally bring in the modern English m’SHEEN, resulting in a mixed pronunciation.

The Greek tragedian Euripides was notorious for using this plot device.

And the following line comes next….

Examples of Deus Ex machina

Stephen King’s novel The Stand would arguably be an example: a minor character who has gone insane in the desert returns to Las Vegas with an atomic bomb, which is set off by an electrical charge taking the shape of a hand and destroying the city. The characters in Boulder believe the charge to have been the “Hand of God.” Many of King’s novels have a “deus ex” ending. In the Peter Straub/Stephen King novel The Talisman, one of the characters is said to be driving a Deus ex machina.

If you are reading The Dark Tower, this event would seem very interesting to you.