Last night I watched a video critiquing what the author thought were overly simplistic interpretations of the film Annihilation (2018.) He was specific in considering that for this movie theme and metaphor were not subtext but textual and any attempt, in his opinion, to understand the narrative without grappling with the thematic thrusts was doomed to misunderstanding the film, its point, and critically, it ambiguous ending. His analysis got me thinking about diegetic and non-diegetic elements in fiction.
Roughly speaking a diegetic element is one that exists within the fiction construction and can be experience by the characters of the narrative. The best example of this is the use of music in film. A diegetic song is one that the characters of the movie can hear and react to, such as the music playing on a radio that the character silences by switching it off. Non-diegetic music is the film’s score used to cue the audience about the scene but is unknown to the characters, such as the classic shark’s theme in Jaw (1975), which precedes the attacks but doesn’t exist in the world of the film.
All narratives have diegetic and non-diegetic elements, a novel’s narrative is usually told in a voice that is not detectable by the character’s of the story, particularly when it is a third person or omniscient narrator, and even elements such as typeface which impact the reader are examples of prose non-diegetic elements. Whenever an author chooses to ‘tell’ instead of show, and there are plenty of times when that is the correct choice, they are engaging a non-diegetic element. They are breaking away from the ‘reality’ of the world to explain a concept to the intended audience.
Another non-diegetic element, and one beyond the control of the author, is the ideas and worldviews that the audience brings to a narrative. What I bring to a story as I read it influence how that story and its themes are received. The author may have very clear intent on their part as to what their themes and sub-textual messages are but once the tale is told that have zero control over the messages that others may take from their works. John Carpenter with his film They Live (1988) intended it as a commentary on conservatism and specifically Reaganism however neo-NAZIs bring their racist worldview see the film as commenting on a idiotic concept of a global Jewish conspiracy. They take a non-diegetic theme that Carpenter never intended.
Bringing all this together when we artists are creating our works I think it is important to keep one mind on the diegetic and non-diegetic elements of the work. Select them carefully, deploy them for intended effect, and always be humble enough to understand that even a piece of flash fiction carries alternative meaning for different people.
