I was talking with someone at Malice Domestic a couple weeks back about the use of MacGuffins in mystery novels and films and afterwards got curious about the origin of the term—and the literary device, itself.

So down the research rabbit hole I went.

First, I wondered, what exactly is a “MacGuffin”?

Basically, it’s an object, person, or secret in a story that drives the plot and motivates characters, but is generally irrelevant in and of itself. The audience rarely cares about the object per se; they’re far more interested in the chase, and they may very well never even learn the true nature of the item or what eventually comes of it.

Probably the most famous example of a MacGuffin is the Maltese falcon statuette in the book and movie of the same name. The black bird isn’t particularly important to the actual story, but it’s what drives the characters to act as they do.

Here I am with the Maltese falcon award I received last February for being Toastmaster at Left Coast Crime: California Schemin’:

Other examples are the $40 grand that drives the plot of Hitchcock’s 39 Steps, the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, or the ark of the covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Substitute any other valuable or desirable object and the story would remain essentially the same. George Lucas once even said that R2-D2 in the original Star Wars movie was essentially just a MacGuffin.

And if you go farther back in time, other MacGuffins include the golden fleece of Greek mythology.

some folks are more interested in the soccer score than the golden fleece

And also the Holy Grail in the Arthurian cycle: a desired object essential to initiate and advance the plot, but the final disposition of which is never revealed, suggesting that the grail itself is of little significance.

So, where did the term “MacGuffin” come from?

It was apparently first coined by the the screenwriter/script doctor Angus MacPhail, and it has been suggested that “guff,” meaning anything trivial or worthless, may lie at the word’s root. (I’m guessing the first part of the word came from his own name)

But it was Alfred Hitchcock, with whom MacPhail worked, who popularized the term, frequently referring to devices in his and others’ films as “MacGuffins.” He explained its use with the story of two men on a train: One asks about a package in the rack; the other calls it a “MacGuffin” for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands. When told there are no lions there, the response is, “Well then, that’s no MacGuffin!”—meaning the object is effectively nothing.

Personally, I think MacGuffin would be a great name for a Golden Retriever, don’t you?

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Readers: What are some of your favorite MacGuffins in books or movies?