The MacGuffin in "The Maltese Falcon" #FridayReads

When a local library in Honolulu decided to close its doors for good, I snagged a hard cover copy of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, the only full-length novel in which Detective Sam Spade appears. The statuette of a falcon, an object that has been lost for centuries, is the focus of a deadly search around the world. Guns are drawn. People die.

A MacGuffin in a book is an object or event that is necessary to the plot or its characters' motivation but is irrelevant in itself. The missing falcon is the MacGuffin in The Maltese Falcon as desire for its ownership drives the plot. The ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's saga and the Philosopher's Stone in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novel are both MacGuffins that give purpose to the novels' plotlines. I would include Stephen King's Dark Tower series, a tale of a gunslinger's quest for the tower which is reported to be the nexus of all universes. The tower is the MacGuffin that drives the plot but is irrelevant in itself.

While reading Dashiell Hammett's novel again recently, I thought about current day MacGuffins and how an event such as an upcoming wedding can indirectly control current actions. Preceding a wedding, the bride-to-be nervously over-eats her way out of her wedding dress; the groom has second thoughts and leaves town; the father of the bride embezzles company funds to pay for the wedding reception; or little sister of the groom shoplifts a wedding gift for her brother.

And then there are MacGuffins in movies!

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