1. Narrative theory
Following Propp’s character types which fit into traditional fairytales/children’s
stories, the hero of the story is the ugly duckling, as the story focuses solely on
him as a character, his progression and all of the things he is going through. The
audience are supposed to feel sorry for him because he is being discriminated for
no reason, and they want him to succeed and find happiness. So in a sense the
central character or hero takes the form of a victim of abuse.
There isn’t necessarily a traditional villain in the way you would typically expect,
as all of the characters that are against the duckling are against him because they
are scared or unfamiliar with his appearance, such as the other ducks and the
farmer. This is not the case in other traditional children’s stories such as Hansel
and Gretel, as the villain in that story is an old woman, who is just generally a bad
person as she tries to murder the children for no apparent reason and is
therefore easily defined as a villain. The ‘villain’ characters in this story (The
Ugly Duckling) are not necessarily bad or evil people; they are just discriminative
and non-understanding but you are still made to dislike them. The farmer
character could also be classed as the dispatcher as well as a villain, since he is
the one responsible for kicking the duckling off the farm and starting him on his
adventure, so without this character, there probably wouldn’t be a story or the
story would be hugely delayed. The audience are supposed to dislike these
characters for their unprovoked prejudice against the hero, which is why they
could be defined as the villains of the story in this instance.
There are two helpers in the story, the old woman and the peasant. They are not
helpers in the traditional sense of being sidekicks like Robin from batman, but
they do appear at critical times to save the duckling from danger. For example,
the old woman rescues him when he is lost in the woods, and the peasant
rescues him when he is nearly frozen in the snow. Helper characters typically
have imperfections or are of lesser intelligence than the hero and are selfless; the
old woman has a hunched back and the peasant has a bad job and is poor, yet
they still care for the duckling. Potentially these characters are also donors
because they provide the hero with temporary shelter so he can continue to
survive and go on with his quest, but again they are not donors in the traditional
sense of someone like Uncle Ben from Spiderman who gives Peter Parker the
‘with great power comes great responsibility’ speech which inspires him to use
his powers for good. The characters in The Ugly Duckling do not provide any sort
of wisdom or magical object, however, as mentioned above, they do provide the
hero with a shelter, and without this, the story wouldn’t progress.
Throughout the story, the duckling is trying to find happiness and he eventually
does so when he discovers that he is a swan when he finds a female swan. This
swan is the princess/prize, but again it is not presented in a traditional way
because he comes across her unintentionally and doesn’t deliberately seek her
out from the start of the story, nor was the princess character sought out or
captured by the villain (which typically occurs in fairytales such as Shrek). There
is no false hero or princess’ father despite the story being a traditional fairytale,
however these characters are quite hard to define anyway in most stories, as
they are sometimes not present. However, they are in things like Shrek, where
Prince Charming is presented as a false hero and the King is the princess’ father.
2. This story also follows Todorov’s theory that all stories follow the same path,
and this specific story follows the three-step version (equilibrium,
disequilibrium and new equilibrium). The story itself-starts with equilibrium on
the first page, showing the characters going about their daily lives and
everything in balance. Once the duckling is born on the second to third pages,
there is immediately disequilibrium, as the peace is broken on the farm when the
farmer attacks the duckling for his appearance and the other ducks ignore him.
This is an example of binary opposition, and is where the story begins to
properly start as two opposing sides (the duckling and the farmer, or the
duckling and everyone on the farm) come together. Binary opposition is a theory
created by French theorist Claude Levi Strauss, which essentially states that
there cannot be a story unless two different or opposing sides come together
(usually good vs. evil). You can find binary opposition in almost every story, for
example Harry Potter (muggles/magical people), Star Wars (dark side/light
side), Signs (humans/aliens) and the two conflicting sides will always be
mutually exclusive.
The story is structured through a single strand narrative, following just one
storyline and focusing only on the duckling’s progression and no one else. It is
also structured linearly, starting at the beginning and following the story through
in straight line through to the very end like most children’s stories. This is the
simplest way of structuring a story, and it is done this way because the book
appeals to a younger audience and therefore needs to be easily understood.
Towards the end of the story where the duckling eventually finds the
princess/prize, which takes the form of a female swan, there is a new
equilibrium as happiness has been restored and all of the chaos and misery has
ended. This means that the story has a closed narrative, and the story ends when
the duckling finds the prize. This is shown in the narrative with the use of the
words ‘and they lived happily ever after’. This is a typical genre convention of
fairytales and is used to bring closure to the narrative.
In terms of realism, the story is an anti-realist story because animals cannot
communicate with humans or communicate with other animals via speech;
therefore it is not a faithful representation of reality. Despite this, the story
would be realistic if it focused on a human instead of a duck, and if the other
animals were replaced with humans, as the events would be believable and there
is nothing magical such as wizards, witches etc. Most children’s stories are anti-
realist (for example Shrek, Toy Story, The Gruffalo etc), and this is probably
because realism appeals more towards adults so will not likely appeal to children
since their minds need to be constantly stimulated. To children, realism may
seem boring so anti-realist stories provide the stimulation.
