A sudden reversal of fortune in a fictional story is known as peripeteia, writes Roopa Banerjee 

One has lost count of the number of times when in a film or book an unexpected event changed and/or reversed the course of a story midway. This sudden reversal of fortune in a story is known as peripeteia.

Liberally used by writers to engage readers who thought they could predict the chain of events halfway through a story, peripeteia rekindles readers’ interest. William Shakespeare, George Eliot and Sophocles were among prominent users of this literary device. Readers of the renaissance age described peripeteia as ‘fickle fate’ as more often than not, it rained misery upon a protagonist or antagonist, depending on the tale.

Peripeteia originates from the Greek verb peripiptein, i.e, “to fall around” or “to change suddenly” — peri denoting around and peteia, change. It is a turning point of a narrative, and is mostly the moment in the tale when a lead character’s world changes for the worse.

In his treatise of Greek dramatic theory Poetics, Aristotle wrote that peripeteia is essential to the plot of a tragedy and that the shift of a protagonist’s fortune from good to bad creates an engrossing tale. Thus, this literary device is often used in works of tragedy. A twist in the tale precipitates the protagonist’s fall from great height to disaster. It must be noted that minor turning points in a story are not peripetia. For example, when a villain drops a gun and the hero grabs it, and tables are turned, it’s not peripeteia.

An early example of peripeteia is in Oedipus Rex in which there’s a momentous reversal of fortunes when a shepherd tells Oedipus that he is a sinner because he killed his father and married his own mother. This transfoms him into a despondent and melancholic character.

Another example of this literary device is in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald in which the author describes Nick Carraway’s utter indifference on events happening beyond his realm of knowledge. Another example in the same book is when Tom Buchanan learns about his wife Turning point with peripeteia Myrtle Wilson’s affair with Jay Gatsby. Following this revelation, he kills his wife and attempts suicide before surviving as a hopeless alcoholic.

Shakespeare used peripeteia extensively to create drama and uncertainty in his plays. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the protagonist Hermia is punished by her father for eloping with her lover Lysander when she was supposed to marry Demetrius. However, at the end of the play, the audience learns it was Helena who was courting Lysander all along.

Peripeteia is also used frequently in pop culture. Luke Skywalker’s moment of revelation about Darth Vader in Star Wars is a classic example of new-age use of peripeteia. Ditto in The Hunger Games where Katniss Everdeen becomes the face of the rebellion against President Snow’s tyrannical dictatorship. Why is peripeteia a popular literary device for writers? Perhaps it’s because it changes readers’ perspective on life when they read/ watch unexpected events change the trajectory of people’s promising lives.

Exercise Do you know the writers of the following literary works which have used peripeteia? 1. Paradise Lost 2. Animal Farm 3. The Metamorphosis 4. Julius Caesar