Aristotle describes anagnorisis as a movement from ignorance to knowledge. When a character realises the truth of a situation they are in, or the truth of their own identity or someone else’s, the world of the text becomes momentarily intelligible to the protagonist and thus also to the audience. It’s anagnorisis when Darth Vader says to Luke Skywalker: ‘I am your father.’ It’s anagnorisis when the coffin opens and Holly Martins sees the face not of Orson Welles but of another, third man. The mysteries clarify. Everything we thought we knew has been turned on its head, and yet it all makes
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