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.
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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:
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]
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.
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.
J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is laden with Chekhov's guns. 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 one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Likewise Arabella Figg is casually mentioned in the first several books in the series as a neighbor who occasionally babysits Harry. In Order of the Phoenix it is revealed that she was positioned by Albus Dumbledore to watch over Harry.
In the video game Fallout 3 the player is only briefly shown a large but ultimately nonfunctional robot, "Liberty Prime," halfway through the game. It is later revealed as a major plot device, and it leads a major military part of the main quest. In like fashion, despite its initial portrayal as worthless scrap, white materia plays a critical role in the latter stages of the video game Final Fantasy VII.
The book series A Series of Unfortunate Events utilises this method several times in the last four books, mentioning or including several past characters and guardians which before appear to have had no importance. An example of this is when Carmelita Spats is shown again in The Slippery Slope from her previous appearance in The Austere Academy. This method is usually used to show a connection between characters that were not shown before.
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.
Parodied in Wayne's World When Wayne and Garth learn about the specifics of record executive Frankie Sharp's tour by automobile of the country, only to need the information at the climax. Wayne thoughtfully muses, "Wow. Aren't we lucky we were there to get all that information? It seemed extraneous at the time."
In the episode Training Day of the FX television series Archer, Sterling Archer gives a gun from the brand Chekhov to Cyrill Figiss and adds that it tends to go off for no reason. Later, nothing happens with the Chekhov gun, but a poison pen does become a Chekhov's Gun. The following conversation takes place; Cyrill: "but I just assumed that if anything bad happened, it would've been.." Archer: "Do not say the Chekhov gun, Cyril. That, sir, is a facile argument."
   | More detail from The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library - Quotations by Berlin |
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