When a story about one thing is really saying something about a character’s emotion.
Objective correlative: The tangible manifestation of an intangible, created and used by the author to help the reader grasp the intangible concept. Most literature is about emotions or ideals — things that you cannot see or touch. So the objective correlative becomes a focus, a tangible surrogate. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the painting becomes the objective correlative of Dorian Gray’s soul — it shows the invisible rot. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester’s child is the objective correlative of her sinful passions.
An important characteristic of objective correlatives is that they are usually vested with attributes which tilt the reader toward the emotion the author wants [them] to feel in relation to the intangible being staged.
Glossary of Terms Useful In Critiquing Science Fiction
A BRIEF HISTORY OF OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE
Apparently it wasn’t T.S. Eliot who came up with the term objective correlative. That was poet Washington Allston, who I’ve never heard of.
However, it was definitely Eliot who made the concept take off, in a 1919 essay on how much Eliot did not like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. T.S. Eliot then tried to take it back. He didn’t really mean it to become a whole big thing.
Too late! Other commentators took the term and ran with it. These days, many papers you read credit T.S. Eliot for coming up with the term. Let’s just say Eliot was one of the many commentators who ‘developed’ it.
Eliot may have apologized for coining the phrase “objective correlative”, but had he visited the Grand Ole Opry, he would have found his term, or what his term described, alive and well. Had he gotten to Nashville, he would never have had to take back his critical device so useful in defining “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of a particular emotion, such that when the external facts […] are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.”
The term is slippery, but […] I want to call the objective correlative a means of revealing the emotional content of one subject while discussing another. It distances the emotion and prevents sentimentality. The emotion is not lessened but brought to us indirectly, to some extent left for our discovery. The objective correlative, then, can function as a symbol of emotion. I hope Eliot would agree. He did tell us something of Prufrock’s passive state by describing the evening “spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherised…” And he said much about Prufrock’s fear of society by mentioning “a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
Tammy Wynette and the Objective Correlative by George William Koon, 1983, Studies in Popular Culture
EXAMPLES THE OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE IN POPULAR MUSIC
Koon offers as example of an old country song called “Drinking and Driving” by Johnny Paycheck.
“Drinking And Driving”
Five Dollars worth of Regular, Three Dollars worth of wine
Just hand me a road map, show me the state line
I got the blues on my bumper, Lord, I gotta leave ’em behind
Yeah, I’m gonna drink and drive that woman right off of my mindShe bought a ticket for Texas, left me late last night
I got a ticket this morning for a D.U.I.
10-4 Ten Dollars is my very last dime
I’m gonna take it and drink and drive that woman right off of my mindBreaker, Breaker, this is Heartache, now hear me loud and clear
I got a memory on my tailgate, Hey-hey, and old smokey’s on my rear
I’m gonna chase my headlights till I can drink me blind
I’m gonna be drinkin’ and drivin’ that woman right off of my mindShe took my Grandma’s picture and everything I had
I’m half tanked on misery, I’ve never felt so bad
My walls are filled with nothin’ I can’t face ’em tonight
So I’m-a gonna keep drinkin’ and drivin’ that woman right off of my mindBreaker, Breaker, this is Heartache, now hear me loud and clear
I got a memory on my tailgate, Lord, and old smokey’s on my rear
I’m gonna chase my headlights till I can drink me blind
I’m gonna be drinkin’ and drivin’ that woman right off of my mindI’m gonna be drinkin’ and drivin’ that woman right off of my mind
“Drinking and Driving” lyrics, sung by Johnny Paycheck
Basic plot: A rejected male lover pulls off the highway into a combo gas-station/beer join and orders five dollars worth of regular, three dollars worth of white. By drinking all of this, and also by using gas at the gas station to put many miles between himself and the woman who rejected him, he aims to get all memory of out of his head. He will be drinking and driving, against recommendations from the authorities. He’s on a path of self-destruction.
What’s the example of objective correlative here, then? Well, as Koon defines the term, the singer’s purchase of gas and alcohol becomes the objective correlative for a lost love and a meaningless life.
It makes sense that the objective correlative would be used by male country singers when complaining about rejection because to show emotion as a direct result of being jilted by a woman is an injury to his masculinity. It is a convenient psychological trick to have a long whinge about rejection while seeming to reclaim power by telling the narratees about your specific and concrete plans henceforth.
Koon next offers another Paycheck song, explaining that “Take This Job And Shove It” is regularly misinterpreted (unsurprisingly) as ‘a credo to the working man who is telling management to shove off’. Koon reads it as a love song.
“Take This Job And Shove It”
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t working here no more
My woman done left and took all the reason
I was working for
You better not try to stand in my way
As I’m a-walkin’ out the door
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t working here no moreI’ve been workin’ in this factory
For now on fifteen years
All this time I watched my woman
Drownin’ in a pool of tears
And I’ve seen a lot of good folk die
That had a lot of bills to pay
I’d give the shirt right offa’ my back
If I had the guts to sayTake this job and shove it
I ain’t working here no more
My woman done left and took all the reason
I was workin’ for
You better not try to stand in my way
As I’m a-walkin’ out the door
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin’ here no moreWell that foreman, he’s a regular dog
The line boss, he’s a fool
Got a brand new flattop haircut
Lord, he thinks he’s coolOne of these days I’m gonna’ blow my top
And that sucker, he’s gonna’ pay
Lord, I can’t wait to see their faces
When I get the nerve to sayTake this job and shove it
I ain’t working here no more
My woman done left and took all the reason
I was workin’ for
You better not try to stand in my way
As I’m a-walkin’ out the door
Take this job and shove it
I ain’t workin’ here no moreTake this job and shove it
Johnny Paycheck
The only thing that made this guy get up in the morning and go to work was love for a woman. But once she left, he threw the job in. The man’s job was a testimony of love or, using Eliot’s terminology, the objective correlative for his affection. In turn, quitting his job is the objective correlative for his great despair. As Koon explains, ‘the employer is not so much the villain; lost love is’.
(Feminists might say — without hyperbole — that women — especially mothers and lovers — get the blame for everything.)
Psychologists no doubt have their own term to describe what is ultimately a psychological adaptation. Author and psychotherapist Esther Perel, for instance, tells us that affairs are not about sex but “way more about desire”: Desire to be desired, desire to be seen, to feel important, to have someone’s attention, for someone who cares about you, desire to feel alive, desire to reconnect with lost parts of yourself. “The kiss you can only imagine giving can be just as powerful as hours of actual love making.” Extending out to other forms of relationship (not just romantic ones), Esther Perel has also said that big arguments tend to be about one of three main things: Power and Control, Care and Closeness, Respect and Recognition. But the fight may look, on the surface, to be about something else entirely.
As the peak example of the objective correlative in Country Music, Koon offers “Golden Ring” by Tammy Wynette.
“Golden Ring”
In a pawn shop in Chicago
On a sunny summer day
A couple gazes at the
Wedding rings there on display
She smiles and nods her head
As he says, “Honey that’s for you
It’s not much but it’s the best that I can do”Golden ring
With one tiny little stone
Waiting there
For someone to take it home
By itself
It’s just a cold metallic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ringIn a little wedding chapel
Later on that afternoon
An old upright piano
Plays that old familiar tune
Tears roll down her cheeks
And happy thoughts run through her head
As he whispers low, “With this ring I thee wed”Golden ring
With one tiny little stone
Shining ring
Now at last it’s found a home
By itself
It’s just a cold metallic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ringIn a small two room apartment
As they fight their final round
He says, “You won’t admit it
But I know you’re leavin’ town”
She says, “One thing’s for certain
I don’t love you anymore”
And throws down the ring
As she walks out the doorGolden ring
With one tiny little stone
Cast aside
Like the love that’s dead and gone
By itself
It’s just a cold metallic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ringIn a pawn shop in Chicago
On a sunny summer day
A couple gazes at the
Wedding rings there on displayGolden ring
“Golden Ring” as sung by Tammy Wynette
Can you work out at this point how this song is an example of the objective correlative? What is the objective correlative of what?
The answer: The song is ostensibly the history of a wedding ring — almost an example of chremamorphism — but is actually the tragic story of a relationship.
In “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”, another Tammy Wynette song, the ‘song develops an effective correlative as it focuses not on the husband and wife who are splitting but on the child who is caught in the divorce, a device which Kramer vs. Kramer used to some effect. I will add that Henry James’s “What Maisie Knew” is another excellent example, but then I ask the question: Is a story told from the point of view of a semi-detached viewpoint character always an example of the objective correlative? Doesn’t Maisie have her own story which is separate from that of her parents? Perhaps it’s a matter of balance. We knew nothing about the golden ring in its own right. (After all, how much is there to know about an object?)
But let’s take a look at the lyrics of “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”.
“D-I-V-O-R-C-E”
Our little boy is four years old and quite a little man
So we spell out the words we don’t want him to understand
Like T-O-Y or maybe S-U-R P-R-I-S-E
But the words we’re hiding from him now
Tear the heart right out of me.lovOur D-I-V-O-R-C-E; becomes final today
Me and little J-O-E will be goin’ away
I love you both and this will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.Watch him smile, he thinks it Christmas
Or his 5th Birthday
And he thinks C-U-S-T-O-D-Y spells fun or play
I spell out all the hurtin’ words
And turn my head when I speak
‘Cause I can’t spell away this hurt
That’s drippin’ down my cheek.Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E; becomes final today
“D-I-V-O-R-C-E” as sung by Tammy Wynette
Me and little J-O-E will be goin’ away
I love you both and this will be pure H-E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
This is a clear example of a storyteller-singer telling us about one thing (her son) while appearing to tell us about another (her divorce). As Koon says, ‘drama comes from the well-developed objective correlative of a spelling game, a game in this case designed to protect a child who, ironically, is about to be hurt by the very people trying to shelter him’.
USES OF THE OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE
CREATING A UNIFIED THREAD OF EMOTION
Regardless of narration style (first person, third person or whatever), the objective correlative is supposed to convey a storyteller’s detachment from the character (even if it’s themself, as first person narrator) and unite the emotion of the work. (This is where T.S. Eliot thought Hamlet failed. Suck it, Shakespeare!) Literature experts sometimes talk about an ‘imagistic pattern’ which runs through a work uniting theme. The objective correlative also runs through a work, but unites emotions.
IRONY
Setting up an objective correlative can help illuminate any irony. In “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”, the irony via juxtaposition is clear: The misery of break-up is played off against erstwhile happiness. The “little man” son will be forced to grow up fast because he’s living in a household full of conflict. The story of the boy suggests beginnings (leaving toys behind for adulthood) but the song is really about an end.
MAKING DIFFICULT EMOTIONS PALATABLE
An objective correlative allows storytellers to express the character’s emotions by showing rather than describing their feelings. It’s a classic case of ‘show don’t tell’. The question is, why show and not tell?
There may be a few reasons to show and not tell. Setting up an objective correlative can avoid the topic of hard topics. In the example of the country songs above, the objective correlative avoids a character talking about their divorce head-on. In this way, a song avoids being too miserable and therefore unsuited for repeat, popular playback. Tammy Wynette songs weren’t supposed to be truly miserable a la the truly heartbreaking lyrics of Tracy Chapman or Sinead O’Connor (with the exception of “Fast Car” and “Nothing Compares To You”, which were just not-miserable enough to enjoy repeat radio play throughout the 1980s and 90s).
REALISTICALLY CONVEY THE FEELINGS OF EMOTIONALLY STUNTED CHARACTERS
Psychotherapists would have a field day with the men of Johnny Paycheck’s country music world. These guys displace their anger onto their women rather than deal with whatever’s really bothering them.
A criticism of some kinds of stories: Characters talk like they’ve benefitted from years of psychotherapy. But that’s not the reality for most people. Storytellers can set up an objective correlative as a way of avoiding false, unrealistic, emotionally astute characterisation.
DEFAMILIARIZATION
More broadly, the objective correlative is one tool in a large box of other tools which does what good stories most always try to do: Make the familiar seem striking. This, of course, is the entire point of fiction.
CRITICISMS OF THE OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE
When T.S. Eliot casually used the term in his essay on Hamlet he forgot about the fact that readers will interpret stories in many different ways. There’s an interaction between storyteller and audience. Audiences always make up part of the story for ourselves. In defining the term, not expecting it to take off, Eliot suggested that objective correlatives stand for one, big emotion and every member of an audience will get the same thing out of it.
The good news is, when analysing a text, you can name your own objective correlatives according to what you got out of it. (Provide evidence and you’re good to go.)
FUN EXERCISE
Describe the objective correlative in one of your favourite songs. First you need to find a song which is not about emotions on the surface. That rules out a lot of modern songs especially. There’s a reason why those examples above are from the genre of mid 20th century country music. The characters of those songs appealed to populations of listeners who were permitted to talk about their feelings directly, or even listen to people ‘talking’ about emotions in song.
Think of it like this: The objective correlative in much popular country music is the direct emotional inverse to many of the Confessional Poets of the 1950s and 1960s, and to the poets of the Romantic Movement, who were very comfortable talking about their feelings, sometimes to the point where there was no story or plot. Just feelings.
So look for something with a beginning-middle-and-end narrative to it.
THE OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE AS “STORY-LENGTH TRANSFERRED EPITHET”
To taxonomize, setting up an objective correlative is in the subcategory of tools authors and storytellers use to talk about character emotions while seeming to talk about something else. Other tools in this pack:
- Transferred epithets (a very sleepy pillow — it’s not the pillow that’s sleepy, stoopid!)
- Metonymy — the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant e.g. a kitchen for familial happiness
- Pathetic fallacy (not actually an insult)
Beware: Transferred epithets are basically out of fashion and will likely elicit an unintended snort of laughter. Pathetic fallacy remains popular, but is generally limited in its scope to a scene. (E.g. a character is sad and it is raining.)
The objective correlative is longer. It sustains an entire work. In this way, objective correlatives are to transferred epithets as allegory is to singular instances of metaphor. (By which I mean, allegory is basically story-length metaphor.)
In sum, the objective correlative is ‘a story-length version of the transferred epithet’. Unlike transferred epithets, objective correlatives are subtle and useful. Authors who use them are considered clever, not laughable.
SHORT STORY EXAMPLE OF THE OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE
In Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing“, the mother’s act of ironing functions as the objective correlative for the imperfect love she has given her eldest daughter.
