First Take: Generally associated with the “picaresque novel” or romance, a comic literary mode in which the hero or heroine, often either an “innocent” or, conversely, a rogue or scoundrel (from Spanish, picaro or rogue), undergoes a series of loosely connected misadventures. 

Deeper: Commonly depicting the lower regions of society, or the contrast between high and low, the picaresque has also been associated with social commentary and satire, and not uncommonly with (a) a con artist or trickster figure, or (b) the depiction of social institutions in a state of decay and corruption. Some reporters, such as Tony Horwitz and Barbara Ehrenreich, have appropriated the episodic and comic ethos of the picaresque to represent the figure of the journalist; indeed, the strategy of representing the reporter as initially “innocent” or un-tutored might be viewed as a baseline convention of the trade, e.g. in immersion or undercover narratives.

Recommended Readings:  S. Ortiz Taylor, “Episodic Structure and the Picaresque Novel,” The Journal of Narrative Technique 7 (Fall 1977): 218-225; Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad (1869); Tony Horwitz, Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia (1991).