Esther’s Web Log

Now that I’ve got this blog I’m finding bits and pieces of random writing that I’d like to share with the world. At one point I was very interested in Alfred Hitchcock and I liked the idea of the McGuffin – a storytelling device that he used in a number (but don’t ask me which number) of films. A McGuffin is usually object or piece of information that the story’s protagonists are after, in fact, the mission to save/protect/retrieve the McGuffin is the central driving force for the story.

But more than this, the McGuffin ultimately turns out to be of no interest to us the viewer, and probably not of that much interest to the hero (see The Lady Vanishes, or one of the later versions of The 39 Steps, not quite Hitchcock, but still a great example of the McGuffin), it’s just a device to keep the action going. Often when I’m trying to explain this device, people find it difficult to understand what I’m talking about (I hope this isn’t a reflection on my descriptions), so when I was reading Matthew Riley’s book “Ice Station” (no brainer, exploding action every second page, great fun) I thought that the following was a great example of the concept the McGuffin and the way that it, in itself, is unimportant, but it is driving the action:

‘In any combat exchange,’ Barnaby had said, ‘be it a world war or an isolated two unit stand-off, the first question you always ask yourself is this: what is your opponent’s objective? What does he want? Unless you know the answer to that question, you’ll never be able to ask yourself the second question: how is he going to get it?
‘And I’ll tell you right now, ladies and gentlemen, the second question is of far greater importance to you than the first. Why? Because what he wants is unimportant insofar as strategy is concerned. What he wants is an object, that’s all. The worldwide spread of communism. A strategic foothold on foreign territory. The ark of the covenant. Who cares? Knowing of it means nothing, in and of itself. How he plans to get it, on the other hand, means everything. Because that is action. And action can be stopped.
‘So, once you have answered this second question, then you can proceed to question number 3: what are you going to do to stop him?’

This dialogue is from page 80 of Ice Station by Matthew Reilly, first published 1998. I read the Pan Macmillan Australia version published for Books Alive in 2003.

Just so that this entry isn’t any longer, this page gives some good examples of the McGuffin at work: http://sc.essortment.com/alfredhitchcoc_rvhd.htm