AH & TRP

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

The McGuffin idea is indeed provocative, but doesn't TRP take it to a whole 'nother 
level? We tend, I think (I tend, I think) to overly mistify Hitchcock's use of the term.  He 
wasn't talking about any metaphysical-edge-of-revelation or epistomological tease, just, 
ultimately, about plot devices.  But maybe he was being coy.  We do tend to inject, say, 
Kane's stupid rosebud with heavy symbolic significance, but a student of mine just wrote 
me a nice paper showing that rosebud too is a McGuffin.  Anyway, Molly Hite's IDEAS OF 
ORDER IN THE NOVELS of THOMAS PYNCHON, though not mentioning McGuffins, 
talks about those TRP *quest* objects (mostly re: CL49).

john m


>
>MantaRay suggests:
>"One must include the anticlimax of Lot 49 and The Birds like I am in the
>paper in my head. Also the female protagonist going up against a disturbing
>order within disorder that is never explained. Just fun for loser/scholars
>like myself."
>
>Actually, this is a provocative point.  To what extent are the quest-objects
>of Pynchon's novels (and there is at least one in each of them) just
>McGuffins?
>
>As you may know, Hitchcock called a "McGuffin" whatever object motivates the
>film's plot but is not terribly important in itself--the uranium in the 
>bottles in NOTORIOUS, the "government secrets" in the statue in NORTH BY
>NORTHWEST, and so on.  Without these, we would have no film, but the nature
>of the McGuffin itself is of little interest.  What *is* important is the
>characters and their relationships, as well as the sheer experience of surprise
>and suspense.
>
>So, to what degree (if any) are the Lady V., the Tristero (and/or Pierce's
>stamp collection, the "real" COURIER'S TRAGEDY ,etc), the Rockets, or even
>Frenesi (as Prairie's quest-object) McGuffins?
>
>Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>