In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall plot. The most common type of MacGuffin is a person, place, or thing (such as money or an object of value). Other more abstract types include victory, glory, survival, power, love, or some unexplained driving force.
Contents
The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It may reappear at the climax of the story but sometimes is actually forgotten by the end of the story. Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.
History and use
As noted by Marjory Ward, "the use of a MacGuffin as a plot device far predates this modern nickname. For example, the Holy Grail of Arthurian Legend could be considered an early MacGuffin, doing for the plot all that a good MacGuffin should do".
Objects that serve as MacGuffins are familiar in narrative fiction. For example, a small statuette provides both the eponymous title and the motive for intrigue in The Maltese Falcon. The name "MacGuffin" was coined by the English screenwriter Angus MacPhail, although it was popularised by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930s, but the concept pre-dates the term. The World War I–era actress Pearl White used weenie to identify whatever object (a roll of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds, etc.) impelled the heroes, and often the villains as well, to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of Pauline and the other silent film serials in which she starred.
Alfred Hitchcock
The director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term "MacGuffin" and the technique with his 1935 film The 39 Steps, an early example of the concept. Hitchcock explained the term "MacGuffin" in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University in New York:
It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train. One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin". The first one asks, "What's a MacGuffin?" "Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands." The first man says, "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands," and the other one answers, "Well then, that's no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all.
Interviewed in 1966 by François Truffaut, Hitchcock explained the term "MacGuffin" using the same story.
Hitchcock's term "MacGuffin" helped him to assert that his films were in fact not what they appeared to be on the surface. Hitchcock also related this anecdote in a television interview for Richard Schickel's documentary The Men Who Made the Movies, and in an interview with Dick Cavett.
Screenwriter Angus MacPhail, a friend of Hitchcock, may have originally coined the term according to author Ken Mogg.
George Lucas
On the commentary soundtrack to the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, writer and director George Lucas describes R2-D2 as "the main driving force of the movie … what you say in the movie business is the MacGuffin … the object of everybody's search". In TV interviews, Hitchcock defined a MacGuffin as the object around which the plot revolves, but as to what that object specifically is, he declared, "The audience don't care". In contrast, Lucas believes that the MacGuffin should be powerful and that "the audience should care about it almost as much as the dueling heroes and villains on screen".
Yves Lavandier
For filmmaker and drama writing theorist Yves Lavandier, in the strictly Hitchcockian sense, a MacGuffin is a secret that motivates the villains. North by Northwest's supposed MacGuffin is nothing that motivates the protagonist; Roger Thornhill's objective is to extricate himself from the predicament that the mistaken identity has created, and what matters to Vandamm and the CIA is of little importance to Thornhill. A similar lack of motivating power applies to the alleged MacGuffins of The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, and Foreign Correspondent. In a broader sense, says Lavandier, a MacGuffin denotes any justification for the external conflictual premises of a work.
Examples
Examples in film include the Maltese Falcon in the film of the same name; the meaning of "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane (1941); the Rabbit's Foot in Mission: Impossible III (2006); the Heart of the Ocean necklace in Titanic.; The Briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994 film) In both film and literature, the Holy Grail is often used as a MacGuffin. The cult classic surreal comedic film Monty Python and the Holy Grail is loosely structured around a knightly quest for the sacred relic.
Examples in television include various Rambaldi artifacts in Alias; the orb in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.; and Krieger Waves in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Perspective". Carl Macek created protoculture as a MacGuffin to unite the storylines of the three separate anime that composed Robotech, while the Hellmouth in Buffy the Vampire Slayer has been described as a kind of topological MacGuffin - "a shortcut, in lieu of scientific explanation" as Joss Whedon put it.
Examples in literature include the television set in Wu Ming's novel 54; and the container in William Gibson's Spook Country.
In the online game, The Kingdom of Loathing, the player's character must eventually complete a long and convoluted quest named player name and The Quest for the Holy MacGuffin. It involves going to several locations while following clues from the character's father's diary and collecting various items. Eventually it ends in a boss battle and the MacGuffin is returned to the council. The game never reveals what exactly it is or how it will aid in saving the kingdom.
In discussing the mixed critical reception of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in which a primary criticism was that the crystal skull in the film was seen as an unsatisfying MacGuffin, Steven Spielberg said, "I sympathize with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin".