A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious situation, facing a difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction or before a commercial break in a television programme. A cliffhanger is intended to incentivize the audience to return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma.
Some serials end with the caveat, "To Be Continued" or "The End?" In serial films and television series, the following episode sometimes begins with a recap sequence.
Cliffhangers were used as literary devices in several works of the Middle Ages with One Thousand and One Nights ending on a cliffhanger each night.[1] Cliffhangers appeared as an element of the Victorian era serial novel that emerged in the 1840s, with many associating the form with Charles Dickens, a pioneer of the serial publication of narrative fiction.[2][3] Following the enormous success of Dickens, by the 1860s cliffhanger endings had become a staple part of the sensation serials.[4]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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- ^ Grossman, Jonathan H. (2012). Charles Dickens's Networks: Public Transport and the Novel. p. 54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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