Introduction

Look at the big word in the title!

What is diegesis?

First, the elephant in the room: what does it mean?

For the non-critics in the audience, diegesis refers to details within the universe of the story. This is in contrast to details within our universe.

For example, suppose you are reading Things Fall Apart. The character Okonkwo's exile is diegetic; it happens within the story. On the other hand, the novel's first publication year of 1958 is non-diegetic; it happens outside the story.

Note diegesis applies broadly to textual art as a whole. By textual art I mean art that presents many details in order (not necessarily chronological order): books, plays, TV shows, movies, video games, to name a few. Diegesis applies less to visual art like fashion.

Diegetic justification

When we look at textual art, we often feel an urge to interpret or justify events diegetically. Let's take a silly example.

Suppose we read a story in which the main character is revealed to have a SEVERE PHOBIA of fruits. Toward the end of the story, the main character gets hit with a banana and FREAKS OUT, like, just LOSES THEIR MIND.

An easy, and diegetic, way to interpret this scene is:

Oh, this makes sense. They were revealed to have a SEVERE PHOBIA of fruits.

Yet, on a non-diegetic level, we have to remember:

1. Someone, the author, the editor, the director, etc., chose to have the main character suffer this SEVERE PHOBIA.
2. Someone, likely that same someone, also chose to portray that SEVERE PHOBIA this way.

Let's say the author made this decision. The author could have chosen to give the main character a different phobia, perhaps of vegetables, or organza. The author could have also chosen to never make the phobia relevant in the story (which would make Chekhov unhappy). The author could even have chosen to activate the main character's SEVERE PHOBIA in a different way, perhaps passing a stray pineapple on the street.

That the main character has this SEVERE PHOBIA at all, and that it was used in this way and described in this way, all were chosen during the writing process. Perhaps the author thought it would be funny. Alternatively, perhaps the author wanted to protest banana republics in an absurd way. Whatever the reason, the point is that diegesis is a deliberate choice, and that choice has meaning.

Extreme art

In a much more serious case, consider viscerally or politically extreme art. Let's say you are watching a documentary on a genocide. You watch, in shocking detail, as a terrible number of people are killed for a violent cause.¹ You can't, or at least shouldn't just think:

Oh, this makes sense. This is historically accurate.

Once again, someone made an integrated set of choices to portray this in this way. The creator could choose to shoot unmitigated gore to channel the raw human terror of the event. On the other hand, the creator could instead juxtapose censored gore with the inaction of the international response to express frustration toward international politics. Whatever choices the creator made, they mean something, and you should think about that.

As a related point, suppose some art contains scenes that may trigger traumatic memories in a large portion of the potential audience. It is NOT enough to simply say:

That's what happens in the story, so it should be included.

That is what I mean when I say “diegesis in not an excuse.” You have to be aware that the creators had to make choices of significant consequence, and not every choice creators make will be a good one.

Conclusion

Art has meaning outside what happens in the story.