Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The use of a MacGuffin as a plot device predates the name MacGuffin. The Holy Grail of Arthurian legend has been cited as an early example of a MacGuffin. The Holy Grail is the desired object that is essential to initiate and advance the plot, but the final disposition of the Grail is never revealed, suggesting that the object is not of significance in itself. [8]
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. [1] When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist ending or surprise ending . [ 2 ]
A common misconception is that the reveal itself is a Chekhov's gun plot element. There are however exceptions in the James Bond films; in Licence to Kill for example, Bond gets an instant camera with a built-in laser gun that takes X-ray pictures, but is immediately used for comedic effect and makes no further appearance in the film.
Deus ex machina in Euripides' Medea, performed in 2009 in Syracuse, Italy; the sun god sends a golden chariot to rescue Medea.. Deus ex machina (/ ˌ d eɪ ə s ɛ k s ˈ m æ k ɪ n ə, ˈ m ɑː k-/ DAY-əs ex-MA(H)K-in-ə, [1] Latin: [ˈdɛ.ʊs ɛks ˈmaːkʰɪnaː]; plural: dei ex machina; 'God from the machine') [2] [3] is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is ...
A false protagonist is presented at the start of the fictional work as the main character, but then is eradicated, often by killing them (usually for shock value or as a plot twist) or changed in terms of their role in the story (i.e. making them a lesser character, a character who leaves the story, or revealing them to actually be the antagonist).
It is often an ironic twist. Good uses of Peripeteia are those that especially are parts of a complex plot, so that they are defined by their changes of fortune being accompanied by reversal, recognition, or both" (Smithson). Peripeteia includes changes of character, but also more external changes. A character who becomes rich and famous from ...
The Idiot (pre-reform Russian: Идіотъ; post-reform Russian: Идиот, romanized: Idiót) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky.It was first published serially in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1868–1869.
State secrets of various kinds serve as MacGuffins in several of the spy films, especially his earlier British films The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, and The Lady Vanishes. Hitchcock has stated that the best MacGuffin, or as he put it, "the emptiest," was the one used in North By Northwest , which was referred to as "Government secrets".