A Chekhov's Gun is a Literary technique in which a fictional element (object, character, place, etc.) is introduced early and in which the author expects the reader to invest. That investment must 'pay off' later in the story even if the element disappears offstage for a long interval.

"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Anton Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." From Gurlyand's Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No 28, 11 July, p. 521.’

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." From S. Shchukin, Memoirs (1911)

External links

• More detail from The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library