The ICUF: A Surrealist Approach to Character Mystery Narratives
Introduction
Stories typically follow a structure of beginning, middle, and end, where characters move from their known world into a challenge, and then either overcome or fail it, leading to change. Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (2008) highlights this structure's universality, but exploring alternatives to traditional narrative patterns can lead to unique storytelling approaches. The narrative of mystery, according to Knobloch-Westerwick et al shows that the balance between suspense and resolution enhances audience satisfaction. The Interpretive Character Unravelling Framework (ICUF) builds on these ideas by applying the mystery genre’s principles and concepts of surrealism to character development, engaging the audience in unravelling characters themselves through interpretation rather than direct exposition. This narrative experience reflects how we come to understand people in our lives, where at first, we know nothing of a person. As we interact with them, we come to learn bits and pieces that don't quite create a complete person, but provide just enough information to create a feeling of understanding. As you continue the relationship and learn more about a person, suddenly, all the information comes together like puzzle pieces, and that person makes sense. How they think, who they are, what they believe in, all of it comes together, creating full understanding of a person. That experience is the ICUF’s goal, creating a unique approach to narratives that help contribute to the overall discussion of storytelling.
The ICUF Concept
The ICUF seeks to generate intrigue around characters through ambiguity. Muth et al. found that participants enjoy artworks with higher levels of ambiguity, and the ICUF leverages this by layering character actions with interpretative elements rather than offering clear explanations. As more layers are understood, a deeper insight into the characters is gained. Surrealism, an art movement originating in the 1920s under André Breton, further informs the ICUF, using dream-like and abstract elements to express the subconscious, conveying the complexity and irrationality of existence. Through these aspects of surrealism, the characters can be approached in a puzzle-like method, providing interpretive information until a final piece is given to create complete understanding of a character.
What is Surrealism?
Surrealism is an art movement that seeks to unlock the unconscious mind and tap into the irrational, dream-like elements of human experience. It emphasised the use of unexpected juxtapositions, free association, and dream imagery to challenge rational thought, conventions, and the boundaries of reality. Through surrealism, characters can be viewed as real people with an underlying subconscious, which can then inform visual and narrative execution. The three concepts of surrealism that are applied to the ICUF as outlined by André Breton (1992) are as follows:
- Automatism: Breton champions the practice of automatism, where artists and writers create without conscious control, allowing the subconscious to express itself freely. This process is intended to bypass rational thought and tap into deeper layers of the mind.
- Rejection of Traditional Art: Breton critiques traditional forms of art and literature, which he views as limited and tied to the rational. Surrealism aims to create new forms that reflect the complexity of human experience and the irrational nature of existence.
- Integration of Art and Life: Surrealism seeks to blur the boundaries between art and life, believing that art should not be a separate entity but should engage with and reflect the complexities of everyday life.
Developing ICUF Principles
Narrative structure has long been categorised, with Joanne Diaz and Janet E. Gardner (2016) identifying key elements such as characters, plot, and setting. In the ICUF, characters take centre stage, and all other narrative elements serve to enhance characterisation. Four principles developed from surrealist concepts and mystery narratives guide this framework:
Principle 1:
Avoidance of objective statements on character thoughts and emotions. As the mystery is the characters themselves, how information about them is revealed should be approached as if uncovering a mystery. A study conducted by Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick and Caterina Keplinger (2006, 193-212) tested various levels of uncertainty on a short mystery story to see its effects on the participant’s enjoyment. The results revealed that greater uncertainty resulted in more enjoyment. This approach was inspired by the surrealist concept: Rejection of Traditional Art. This concept works to subvert the traditional to create new forms that reflect human complexity. In place of the traditional is the concept of conveying emotions and thoughts directly. By using an indirect approach, it creates a more complex layering of uncertainty through creating information that requires interpretation, mirroring the experience of getting to know someone.
The next two principles were made to create an interpretable narrative that aligned with the solvability of a mystery. Analysis of mystery by Alan H. Goldman (2011, 261-272) resulted in a theory called the theory of interpretation. Interpretation is defined as the explanation of the elements that make up a narrative. Experiential value is created through cognitive engagement, where the audience must actively engage in interpretation to make sense of the work. This enjoyment from interpretation must then reach a complete resolution to the mystery or it could end in an unsatisfactory conclusion.
Principle 2:
Characters are explored through Information provided from the world. The world of the story plays a significant role in how a character is understood and developed. If a world lacks the coherence to understand what took place in the past, the audience will not be able to decipher what the characters have experienced.
Principle 3:
Constraints on character’s manipulation of the world. As the characters are the mystery, characters should have constraints on how they can manipulate the world. Without constraints, it creates a feeling of pointlessness in trying to piece information together as it can be rendered meaningless through a random unpredictable act.
The last principle focuses on representation of character elements using surrealist principles. Mystery is what makes a lack of information interesting, and through surrealism, information that is not directly said and be interpreted can be given. Hemaadri Singh Rana (2022) describes how surrealism taps into the unconscious mind of a person and reveals inner thoughts, inviting interpretation from its viewers. Surrealist art forms are consumed in a way that it invites the audience to want to understand. This makes surrealism not only a conceptual framework, but also an experiential framework, giving mutual support to mystery’s driving force, the formation of interpretations.
Principle 4:
Abstract representations of character thoughts and emotions. This principle was formed through the two surrealist concepts of Automatism, and Integration of Art and Life. Automatism is used for characters to express deeper layers of their mind through interpretive imagery and descriptions. These abstractions are then blended into the story’s world through Integration of Art and Life which seeks to blur the boundaries between art and life. Through visual and narrative implications, information that would otherwise be unknown can be given. Surreal imagery and descriptions can be used to distort the world to represent internal thoughts and feelings of characters, distorting both the character’s design and the environment.
The Interpretive Character Unravelling Framework (ICUF)
Stage 1: Contextless Experiences
This stage reveals characters and their pasts indirectly through environmental hints, avoiding direct statements about their emotions or thoughts (Principle 1). By leaving room for interpretation, this aligns with the mystery approach, enhancing audience enjoyment through uncertainty. The surrealist influence—rejecting direct portrayal—ensures that characters’ emotions are discovered gradually, akin to solving a mystery.
Stage 2: Repeating Developments
This flexible stage includes several subcomponents where the order of events does not impact the narrative. It builds character understanding by encouraging cognitive engagement and interpretation. Here, characters’ personalities and motivations are revealed through everyday actions (Principle 2), surreal imagery (Principle 4), and confrontations, which are designed to provide context without explicitly stating emotions (Principle 1). Constraints on the characters' influence over the world keep the mystery grounded and meaningful (Principle 3).
a) Everyday Lives
Characters reveal their personalities through daily routines using their environment and behaviour. Surreal imagery can be used for further insight, encouraging interpretation.
b) Motivation to Meet
Past events from Stage 1 lead characters toward each other, creating tension and revealing motivations. This acts as a small climax as characters become involved with each other.
c) Character Confrontation
Characters clash over beliefs and identities, providing context for past events through their interactions. While emotions are interpreted rather than explicitly stated, rare moments of direct expression add impact.
d) Unravelling Identities
Characters’ true selves are revealed through their encounters, with surreal visuals amplifying their inner experiences during conversations.
Stage 3: Defining Decisions
The final stage offers a resolution to the mystery through a pivotal character decision(s). This moment ties together the layered interpretations built throughout the narrative, providing the solution to the mystery, usually in the form of a twist or missing puzzle piece, that brings our understanding of the characters into completion.
Fig. 1 - A compilation of scenes of the Widow’s childbirth (Cymebelle 2024).
ICUF Application: Cymebelle
Cymebelle, a 2D black-and-white animation, was produced to explore the ICUF. The story centres on a Widow, a Doctor, and a Chief in a village, focusing on the Widow’s unsettling behaviour after a miscarriage. The Widow keeps her stillborn child as if alive, leading the Chief to task the Doctor with intervening.
The animation begins with a song and montage from the Doctor’s perspective, avoiding objective statements to create interpretations. Through surreal imagery, such as the Doctor’s hair growing unnaturally to represent her isolation, the audience is invited to interpret character emotions rather than being directly told.
The Widow’s house, full of strange trinkets, contrasts with the Doctor’s plain environment, offering insight into their differing personalities. The environment works to provide context to the characters, acting as hints to solving each of their mysteries.
Fig. 2 - The Widow’s and the Doctor’s home (Cymebelle 2024).
Throughout Cymebelle, surreal imagery represents characters’ internal states, aligning with the ICUF’s principle of using abstract representation to convey character emotions. The lack of objective emotional expression heightens the mystery surrounding the characters, driving the audience to actively engage in interpretation.
Fig. 3 - Two surrealist scenes (Cymebelle 2024).
In the ending, the Doctor has a friendly conversation with the Widow, but the Widow’s behaviour suddenly shifts after becoming suspicious of the Doctor’s intentions. The Widow asks a direct and confrontational question, “Why are you here?”. The Widow’s sudden shift from being hospitable to aggression acts as the narrative’s twist, revealing her awareness and unpredictability. This moment provides the final ‘puzzle piece’ to the mystery of her character, calling into question how rational and sane the Widow truly is.
Figure 4: How the ICUF presents characters and unravels them through the narrative.
At the start, characters are complex and ambiguous, represented by a complex shape. As the narrative progresses, elements of the characters are gradually revealed and extracted from the shape, leading to character understanding. Figure 4 aligns with Figure 5 underneath, as character revelations unfold in sync with the narrative stages.
Figure 5: How the ICUF interacts with unanswered questions within a narrative.
Interpretation through Unanswered Questions
Through Figure 5, the ICUF’s interpretative infromation and how they are interacted with is visualised. Mystery can be simply understood as a question being posed, and answers being given at the end. By creating unanswered questions, interpretive information is generated (as Goldman [2011] notes). The stages of the ICUF caters the experience of these questions, manipulating how interpretations are formed to build towards a strong climax.
Stage 1:
Introduce many unanswered questions about past events, creating interpretative information for the audience to process and form an understanding.
Stage 2:
Gradually reveal answers, building expectations as aspects of the characters are unravelled, allowing for evolving interpretations of who they are.
Stage 3:
Introduce a twist or missing piece that recontextualizes previous interpretations, creating temporary confusion that resolves as past events are reflected upon, leading to a conclusive understanding. This technique of recontextualisation is often used in mystery to leave a lasting impression on the audience (see Santiago 2021).
The black-and-white animation, Cymebelle.
Conclusion
Cymebelle exemplifies the ICUF’s focus on character-driven mystery narratives, blending surrealist principles with mystery genre techniques to encourage audience interpretation. By avoiding direct emotional exposition, constraining character actions, and using surreal imagery, the ICUF creates a narrative where characters are mysteries to be solved, adding to the discussion of how character mysteries can be approached. The full animation of Cymebelle can be seen on YouTube (see right).
**Article published: April 25, 2025**
References
Breton, André. 1992. ”Manifesto of Surrealism.” In Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison & Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), 87‐88.
Campbell, Joseph. 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. California: New World Library.
Diaz, Joanne, and Janet E. Gardner. 2016. Reading and Writing about Literature. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Goldman, Alan H. 2011. “The Appeal of the Mystery.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 3: 261-272.
Knobloch-Westerwick, Silvia, and Caterina Keplinger. 2006. “Mystery appeal: Effects of uncertainty and resolution on the enjoyment of mystery.” Media Psychology 8, no. 3: 193-212.
Rana, Hemaadri Singh. 2022. “The Surreal Landscape as An Invitation to Imagine." NeuroQuantology 20, no. 4: 1379.
Santiago, Gabrielle. 2021. Crime/Mystery: Reinventing Tropes. Honors Undergraduate Thesis. Available here.
Biography
Linn is a Melbourne-based 2D animator. His work often employs a high-contrast and textured aesthetic to explore and convey the ideas surrounding 'self' and the struggles that come with it. After completing his Bachelor of Animation and Interactive Media at RMIT University, Linn accrued years of experience as a professional animator, contributing to projects such as the upcoming short film, “They All Fell Down” by Simon Christopher Cabello, and feature film, “Perfect Birth” by Matthew Rich. In 2024, Linn completed his Masters of Animation, Games, and Interactivity at RMIT University.