Chekhov's gun
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A Chekhov's Gun is a literary technique in which a fictional element (object, character, place, etc.) is introduced early and in which the author expects the reader to invest. That investment must 'pay off' later in the story even if the element disappears offstage for a long interval. Every detail, object and character must have significance to the conflict.
The history of devices supplied to the Hero in a classic quest, by beings who seem to have some foreknowledge of what will be needed in the quest, is very old. For example, when Perseus sets out to kill Medusa, Athena and Hermes first supply him with winged sandals, a cap of invisibility, a sickle for removing heads, and a mirrored shield. He needs them all.
An excellent dramatic example can be found in the twin pistols of the title character in Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler, which make an appearance in the first act, but are not used to important effect until the last act.
In many of our modern classical tales of the hero, the same plot device is used. As an example from the mid-20th century, in The Lord of the Rings stories, when Bilbo gives Frodo his mithril chainmail shirt, and Galadriel gives him a magic phial, we know both of them will be needed eventually to complete the story, in this case to save his life.
A now-famous example of this narrative device is the obligatory scene in the James Bond film series, which has refined it in purer form from the books. In most of the films, Q, Bond's gadget maker, presents in detail the various special equipment the spy will be using for his mission. Thus introduced, each item typically proves a lifesaver for Bond in the field. This effectively links the Bond tales with the classic style of Hero narrative.
Another example is a plotline in the TV series 24, first mentioned in its first few episodes: Agent Jack Bauer's finding evidence that three of his co-workers, including the man who first recruited him and also the current Special Agent in Charge, Christopher Henderson, were accepting bribes. This is not mentioned again until much, much later; part of the way into Season 5, when Christopher Henderson is revealed to be one of the main villains of the season.
Similarly, early in the first season of The West Wing, President Jed Bartlet tells his daughter his worst nightmare: her being kidnapped. His description of her being gagged while in the bathroom and whisked away before anyone realises she is gone, in addition to her Secret Service bodyguards being shot in the head, describes exactly what does happen to her at the end of the fourth season.
The Gremlins series contains some Chekov's Gun items, like a set of ceremonial swords, which act as a weapon later, and Murray Futterman's snowplow, which is used to attack him later, in the first film, and Gremlins 2, where the Electric Gremlin is trapped in the phone system, only to be later used in the climax.
A counterexample of this can be found in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope with Chewbacca's bowcaster. Chewbacca is the only character using this particular weapon, which due to its uniqueness attracts the viewer's attention. However, Chewbacca does not shoot the bowcaster in all the movie (although one can assume that he shoots it off-screen while fighting at the Death Star), as opposed to Han Solo's gun or Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber (Notice that Luke Skywalker did not even carry his father's lightsaber during the Death Star sequence). However, this was caused because of the prop design, not due to the script specifying that it was an important weapon. Chewbacca was able to use it to down a fleeing scout trooper in the later film, Return of the Jedi.
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[edit] Statements of Chekhov's principle of drama
- "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Anton Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889. [verification needed]
- "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.’
- "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)
- See also: "Three Uses of the Knife", by David Mamet.
[edit] Chekhov's guns in Modern Literature
- In the Harry Potter series, several objects and characters play such a role. Many small-time referenced characters have been mentioned in earlier books of the series only to be fully materialized in the later volumes. Such characters include Sirius Black, Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher.
- Author Lemony Snicket foreshadows a quite literal use of Checkhov's gun in The Penultimate Peril, the twelfth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
- The webcomic Questionable Content occasionally uses this technique by having characters discussing certain off-screen events that initially seem insignificant background occurrences, but later on are revealed to have been caused by recently introduced characters (such as Hannelore and the VespAvenger).
- In the movie Paycheck, the protagonist is a reverse engineer who, according to the terms of his non disclosure contracts, has his memory of the job erased when it ends. One of his projects is to help a government scientist complete his work on a future viewing machine. The protagonist must use the machine to predict which everyday items he needs to leave the secure corporate campus with after he leaves the project without his memory. He needs these items in order to survive, infiltrate the building, and destroy the machine. (The plot of the short story on which the movie was based is similar.)
- In the 1984 Comedy Ghostbusters, the first sequence showing the Ghostbusters using their proton packs yields the famous speech from Egon Spengler saying not to "Cross the Streams." It sets up crossing the streams as both 'bad' and something that will be used later in the film. In the climax, all four Ghostbusters cross the streams to create a nuclear explosion thus closing the dimensional gate in the final showdown with Gozer.
