Written by: Aayotrie Chaudhary - 27019, Grade X
Posted on: 10 May, 2024
The term ‘red herring’ is a saying used mainly in mystery whodunit novels to refer to a false and/or misleading clue intending to divert attention to a different path in order to build up a shocking and unexpected plot twist later on. Red herrings have been used in many famous novels for example, ‘How to Train Your Dragon - How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel’ by Cressida Cowell, ‘And Then There Were None’ by Agatha Christie, The Nancy Drew series by Caroline Keene etc.
Red herrings are a very popularly used plot device and rightfully so as they create more tension and suspicion in a story leading to more intriguing storylines. Nowadays red herrings could work into any kind of story or genre to distract the audience from a big reveal or revelation. Red herrings can be just about anything such as people, paintings, and small details. Red herrings also can both be intentional as well as unintentional.
The term ‘red herring’ began to be used in a figurative sense back in the early 1800s. Though the actual term refers to a smoked fish, the use of these fish is actually tied to how ‘red herring’ was able to get a new meaning! Red herrings were often used in the training of dogs to pick up scent for hunting, that being said there are also stories of people using red herring to sabotage hunts by using the scent of the fish to lure the dogs onto the wrong path or direction.
The first direct and credited use of the term ‘red herring’ was by a man named William Cobbett who was a journalist using the term in an 1807 article. William may have been the first to be credited to use this term yet the idea behind the term, to create false leads to throw the audience off guard, has likely been used for years before by other authors or storytellers.
Though technically classified as an idiom the term ‘red herring’ has also been used in a metaphorical sense many times even in the original journal article by Mr Cobbett. It truly depends on the way the author chooses to portray it.
One of the most currently famous instances of red herrings, specifically in movies, is in the 2013 movie titled ‘Frozen’. In this movie the original love interest, Hans, of one of the main characters, Anna, is later revealed to be a villain. To explain the red herring in this instance, we were originally led to believe that if Anna made it back to her love interest Hans in time she would be saved, however things took a turn when an unexpected plot twist was revealed (Hans being the true villain of the story).
Red herrings can also be used to not only divert the audience from the correct path of the story but it can also be used in representing that the main character of the novel is also taking the wrong path along with the readers. This can be shown in one of my favorite books that include a red herring, ‘How to Train Your Dragon - How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel’ by Cressida Cowell.
In conclusion, red herrings are very useful tools for building the plot for many genres but most remarkably, Mystery. This term has been used in many variations throughout time and is often used in novels or movies to sway the audience onto a different path.
