 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008) |
Chekhov's gun is the literary technique whereby an element is introduced early in the story, but its significance does not become clear until later on. For example, a character may find a mysterious object that eventually becomes crucial to the plot, but at the time the object is found it does not seem to be important.
Although many people consider the phrase "Chekhov's gun" to be the equivalent of foreshadowing, the statements (below) the eponymous author made about it can be more properly interpreted as meaning "do not include any unnecessary elements in a story." Because of the common misconception about the meaning, failure to observe "Chekhov's gun" may be cited by critics when discussing plot holes.
Contents |
Statements of Chekhov's principle of drama
The name Chekhov's gun comes from Anton Chekhov himself, who stated that any object introduced in a story must be used later on, else it ought not to feature in the first place:
- "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.
- "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." From Gurlyand's Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No. 28, 11 July, p. 521.’[1]
- "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." From S. Shchukin, Memoirs (1911)
Repetitive designation
The earliest form of "Chekhov's gun" was repetitive designation. This foreshadowing technique dates back to the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which contains "repeated references to some character or object which appears insignificant when first mentioned but which reappears later to intrude suddenly in the narrative".[2]
A notable example is in the tale of "The Three Apples", a murder mystery narrated in the Arabian Nights. At the beginning of the story, a fisherman discovers a heavy locked chest along the Tigris river and he sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, who then has the chest broken open to see what is inside. The story describes multiple layers of shawls and carpets in great detail until a dead body of a young woman who was cut into pieces is revealed underneath it all. He then orders his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to investigate the crime.[3][4] The shawls and carpets described in the beginning appear to play no part in the story until two men, one young and one old, claiming to be the murderer reveal themselves near the middle of the story. Both men argue and call each other liars as each attempts to confess to the crime.[5] This continues until the young man proves that he is the murderer by accurately describing the contents of the chest in which the young woman was found, including the multiple layers of shawls and carpets. He then narrates his reasons for the murder as a flashback of events leading up to the body's discovery at the beginning of the story.[6]
Other examples
An example in which Chekhov himself makes use of this principle is in Uncle Vanya, in which a pistol is introduced early on as a seemingly irrelevant prop and, towards the end of the play, becomes much more important as Uncle Vanya, in a rage, grabs it and tries to commit homicide.[citation needed]
Many examples of the device exist in the television series Babylon 5. For instance, well before the Rangers were acknowledged verbally in the script, extras in the background would occasionally appear dressed in the Ranger costume. Over the course of season one, Delenn constructed what appeared to be modern art, and little more than a useful device for blocking of scenes, but at the conclusion of the season, viewers finally discovered what the sculpture was actually for. Other examples include the Triluminary, the "hole" in Sinclair's mind, Zathras, Morden, the Icarus, the fate of Babylon 4, and the alien healing device. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski was an advocate of the device and mentioned it often on Usenet.[7]
In the film What Lies Beneath, there is a seemingly irrelevant car accident that is repeatedly mentioned (but never shown) in the red-herring laden first half of the movie, that only becomes significant in the second half. Other instances of Chekhov's gun exist in the film as well.[citation needed]
Bilbo Baggins finds a ring by chance when exchanging riddles with Gollum, but does not know the ring is Sauron's. The history of the One Ring is explained in The Fellowship of the Ring.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the characters are cleaning a house and find a locket which they cannot open along with several other bits of junk and trash. This is seemingly a throwaway bit of information until it is revealed two books later that it was in fact one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Likewise Arabella Figg is casually mentioned in the first several books in the series as a batty neighbor who occasionally babysits Harry. In Order of the Phoenix it is revealed that she has actually been positioned by Albus Dumbledore to watch over Harry and make sure that he is safe. Also in a illustration in Book 5 another Horcrux is seen, on a bust the diadem of Ravenclaw is visible.
In the video game Fallout 3 the large robot "Liberty Prime" is introduced to you halfway through the game as not working but then happens to serve as a major plot device, leading a major military part of the main quest.
It also appears in the episode "Flood" of the comedy series The Young Ones. The device is parodied when Vyvian makes a chemical that will turn the drinker into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac, and leaves it in the fridge in a Coca-Cola can, at which Neil comments “I just bet later on someone drinks that and turns into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac”. Then, after ten minutes and some frenetic activity, when someone (Balovsky) does drink the mixture, it comes as a surprise.
See also
References
- ^ In 1889, twenty-four-year old Ilia Gurliand noted these words down from Chekhov's conversation: "If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act". Donald Rayfield, Anton Chekhov: A Life, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997, ISBN 0-8050-5747-1, 203. Ernest.J.Simmons says that Chekhov repeated the point later (which may account for the variations). Ernest J. Simmons, Chekhov: A Biography, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1962, ISBN 0-226-75805-2, 190.
- ^ Heath, Peter (May 1994), "Reviewed work(s): Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights by David Pinault", International Journal of Middle East Studies (Cambridge University Press) 26 (2): 358–360 [359]
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 86–91, ISBN 9004095306
- ^ Marzolph, Ulrich (2006), The Arabian Nights Reader, Wayne State University Press, pp. 241–2, ISBN 0814332595
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 92–3, ISBN 9004095306
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 93–4, ISBN 9004095306
- ^ JMS Genie Message on Aug 09 1994
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
