Making Sense of Mise-en-Scène in Literature with Examples

Imagine that you’re sitting on a breezy, brick terrace outside of a cafe in the English countryside. A smiling server places two scones and a small glass jar of strawberry jelly on the table in front of you. As you break one of the scones apart, a cloud of steam that smells like toasted flour escapes into the blue sky above you. 

What sort of people would you imagine meeting in this setting? If you were to guess, what would happen after eating your scone? It’s more likely that you would picture yourself pulling a novel out of your bag or going on a stroll through a nearby meadow than experiencing an alien invasion. This is all because of a literary term called mise-en-scène. 

Mise-en-scène comes from French and literally means “putting on stage.” The term was originally used in theater to describe how props, scenery, costumes, lighting, and characters are arranged and visible on stage. In literature, mise-en-scène is used to verbally set the environment, feeling, and scenery for specific story, interaction or chapter. Authors often use mise-en-scène to describe their characters and setting.

Mise-en-scène is often used to prepare the reader for what is to come. Enjoying a scone in the English countryside will prime the reader for a very different experience than stumbling around the deck of a sailboat in the middle of a thunder ridden storm. 

In the same way, encountering a character with two braids, a sundress, and a pair of round glasses will produce different assumptions compared to a character with a full leather suit, short, dark hair, and a pair of opaque sunglasses. 

Everyday you are constantly taking in new information on your surroundings based on things you believe to be true. Writers use these shared belief systems to get you in a certain headspace about a specific character, plot or event. 

Mise-en-scène can come through in multiple different elements in order to cultivate a certain atmosphere, set the mood, and build character. This can be done by:

It is rare to find a piece of literature without mise-en-scène because usually knowing more about the characters, background, and setting is key to understanding the plot. 

If you’ve read Jane Austen’s Emma, you’ll know that Austen wants readers to have a very specific impression of her main character, Emma. From the first paragraph, it becomes clear what type of person Emma might be.

Take a peek and see what you think of Emma:

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection. (Austen 1815, 1)

From this mise-en-scène in Emma, readers might take away a few assumptions about this character. Take a minute and jot down a few things you might expect of Emma based on this description. Then, if you have a chance, watch the trailer from the film based on Emma and see if your assumptions were correct. 

In the opposite vein, doing very little mise-en-scène can provide a completely different experience for a reader. In Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, a couple sits at a train station discussing a topic unknown to the reader. The story begins like this:

The hills across the valley of the Ebro’ were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went on to Madrid. (Hemingway, 1927, 1)

Here the mise-en-scène focuses heavily on the surrounding environment with the “long and white” neighboring hills and a curtain made of “strings of bamboo beads.” The readers can picture the setting and have a general sense of where the story takes place, but very little is said about “The American and the girl” in the train station. 

The story continues to be almost ninety five percent dialogue between the two characters. Usually, it would make sense to know more about the characters if they are so pivotal to the story. In this case, Hemingway purposefully leaves the mystery in order to emphasize the conversation happening between the man and the woman. 

Since they never specifically reveal the topic they are talking about, each word of conversation is meant to be heavily analyzed for deeper meaning. By focusing on the conversation rather than an in depth mise-en-scène, Hemingway pushes readers to get to that deeper conversational meaning. 

As seen with Austen and Hemingway, mise-en-scène can be used to embellish or to accentuate a specific part of a story. The next time you read a new story see how the author uses mise-en-scène to create a certain context for their story. The better you are able to identify mise-en-scène, the better you’ll be able to use it in your own writing. Soon enough you’ll be an expert at crafting mise-en-scène of your own.