Chekhov's gun
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Chekhov's Gun is the literary technique whereby an element is introduced early in the story, but whose 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 of finding the object does not seem to be important. In all cases, the introduced element is so conspicuous that it raises unanswered questions for the reader or audience. These questions are then answered as the story continues.
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.
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[edit] 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." Anton 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)
- See also: "Three Uses of the Knife", by David Mamet.
An example in which Chekhov himself makes use of this principle is 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.
[edit] Usage in modern literature
- 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.
- 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. Other Chekovian guns include Harry's eyes, which result in a key character divulging important information late in the series because they remind people of Harry's mother. Within books, Rowling uses Chekhov's guns frequently. In Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid's love of dragons, Harry's flying skills, Ron's chess playing and Hermione's book-worm all are very important in the end. In Chamber of Secrets, a fight between Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy, Fawkes the Phoenix, Ron's broken wand and the Flying car all are important in the end.
- Author Lemony Snicket foreshadows a quite literal use of Chekhov's gun in The Penultimate Peril, the twelfth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
- Dan Brown's novel Angels and Demons includes a Chekhov's gun such that the main character learns that "one square yard of drag will slow a falling body almost twenty percent" - information that later saves his life. Conversely, the immediate mention within the text that this information will save his life is a glaring example of foreshadowing.
[edit] Usage in comics
- 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).
- Other example is found in Starslip Crisis: when Mr. Jinx first stated that Cirbozoids are incapable of understanding art, it appeared to be a minor tidbit used for a one-time gag. When the Spine of The Cosmos was introduced, this fact suddenly became a key part of the comic's storyline, since it makes Cirbozoids capable of finding the Spine's "context" and being immune to its effects. In another strip, when Vanderbeam discovers that the Sai Kan is apparently better than the Fuseli in every way, one of the Sai Kan's characteristics is it having three (later two) Cirbozoids aboard. While this first appeared to have been used purely for comedic effect, it was eventually hinted that it was these Cirbozoids that supplied Katarakis with the Spine's context under the direction of President Ishizaki.
- The Japanese manga One Piece uses the technique of Chekhov's Gun several times, often in combination with plot twists.
[edit] Usage in cinema and television
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.
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.
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 1985 movie Back to the Future, the protagonist, Marty McFly, is handed a sheet of paper that asks support to save the town's clock tower. From the clock tower, he is able to generate the necessary wattage (1.21 jigawatts) to travel back to 1985
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.
Wayne's World parodied this device by deliberately noting when future information important for the plot "seem[s] extraneous at the time".
The short comedy "Checkhov's Gun", written and directed by Matt Nix, features self-aware characters who realize they are in a drama. When a gun suddenly appears on a table, they realize that at least one of them will be shot before the story ends.
In the television series Beavis and Butt-head, Butt-head expresses his own version of Chekhov's Gun as follows: Any time you see a cake and a baseball bat in the same video, the cake's gonna get its ass kicked.
The 1997 thriller Funny Games eschews many popular narrative devices, including Chekov's Gun. An early scene clearly shows a knife being dropped into a boat by one of the main characters, Georg. Later in the film, another character ends up bound and gagged on the same boat. Expectedly, this character tries to use the knife to cut the bonds but is prevented from doing so by the antagonist. In this way, the filmmakers throw the audience off-balance by introducing a Chekov's Gun device, only to render it unimportant at a crucial juncture.
[edit] Usage in Popular Music
The song "Frankenstein" by singer Aimee Mann contains the line, "I won't find it fantastic or think it absurd / When the gun in the first act goes off in the third."
[edit] See also
[edit] 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.
