History
This plot device is generally believed to have been popularized by movie serials and 19th century theatrical melodramas. A well known example is the cliché of the moustache-twirling villain leaving the heroine tied to railroad tracks. Its use in the James Bond film series and superhero stories is well known.
Read more about this topic: Deathtrap (plot Device)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a history in all mens lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends portraits hang and look thereon;
Irelands history in their lineaments trace;
Think where mans glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)