The document discusses three structuralist theories of storytelling: 1) Vladimir Propp's theory of character archetypes, which identified eight common character types including the hero, victim, and dispatcher. This theory is applied to the story "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". 2) Tzvetan Todorov's theory of narrative structure, which proposes stories progress through equilibrium, disequilibrium, and new equilibrium stages. 3) Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposition, which argues stories require opposing sides like good vs evil.

1. There are different theories to stories and film that three different structuralists
researched in to.
The first theory I looked at was by a man named Vladimir Propp he researched
about the different characters within film and books and realized there were
eight types of characters overall that would always or mostly always appear. All
eight could appear in one film or book or only a few would appear but there
were always the typical characters in a film. These are:
The hero – Typically the main character who we want to succeed
The victim – Usually the person who struggles against the hero. We don’t want
these to succeed.
The princess/prize – What the hero/victim are after
The donor – The person who gives the hero something they need e.g.
information, money, map, gold etc.
The helper – The hero is supported by this person throughout most of the
film/book.
The princess’s father – The task the hero is sent on is typically given by this
character.
The false hero – This character acts heroic but isn’t the main character and has a
tendency to trick the characters in to being helped.
The dispatcher – An early role in the story. Sends the hero on the mission. Could
be a family member.
The story I remade was ‘The boy who cried wolf’.
Propp’s theory makes a lot of sense when we look at different stories. Most
stories have a lot of these characters within them but The boy who cried wolf is
very tricky when it comes to analysing which character is who.
The hero in this story would typically be the shepherd as he is the main
character. What makes this tricky is that he is the one who cries wolf, tricks the
villagers and then becomes the liar that the villagers eventually don’t believe.
Therefore he isn’t a hero at all but nor a villain either.
I would say the main villager (the one who comes running up the hill to help the
boy but ends up telling him off) is the hero. This villager is doing the correct
thing by helping the shepherd and trying to teach him a lesson before everything
goes wrong.
This villager also has helpers who are the other villagers as they come running
up the hill with him (they follow him/support him).
The Villain is the character who struggles against the hero. The one who is
morally bad. The shepherd isn’t bad he’s just bored so he plays tricks, he doesn’t
realise it is going to end badly and doesn’t mean for anything to go wrong. The
villain in this story would most likely be the wolf as the wolf is the one who
chases the sheep away, who is bad, who makes everything go wrong. Without the
wolf the boy wouldn’t learn a lesson, as the sheep wouldn’t have been chased
away and the story overall wouldn’t have had a relevant ending.

2. As I’ve looked through the characters I thought the shepherd would be the false
hero. This role suits him well, as he is the main character therefore could be
mistaken to the audience. His prize he is trying to achieve is attention, although
this is not a person he is still aiming for something, which the actual hero would
do. We find out that he isn’t doing the right thing so he isn’t the hero but just
being mischievous.
False hero - Shepherd
Hero - Main villager
The helpers - Villagers
The villain – Wolf
Prize – Attention (for the false hero; Shepherd)
I think this theory of Propps works really well. Not to this particular story but if I
were to research another old folks tale, fairy tale, film or book I would most
likely find it easier to analyse which character is who. As an example the story of
Cinderella would be much simpler to define.
Hero - Cinderella
Villains - Stepmother and stepsisters
Prize – Prince Charming
The donor – Kings helper (takes the glass slipper and fits it on the Cinderella’s
foot).
Helpers - Mice
Dispatcher – Fairy godmother (Magic’s a carriage, horses, dress and glass
slippers for Cinderella).
The second theory I researched was by a man named Tzvetan Todorov. He
researched about the structure of the stories. He believed all stories followed the
same narrative pattern. In his theory there were three to five different stages
depending on the plot/story.
Typically there is Equilibrium – Where the story starts, normal day-to-day life.
Disequilibrium – The characters day-to-day life gets disrupted Can be anything,
something big or small e.g. aliens invade their home or the main character
forgets their car keys which never happens etc.
New equilibrium – End of story, things settle down for the characters, everything
is back to how it were with a slight difference.
Theses are the three structures but there can also be two more.
The extra two are;
The recognition there has been a disruption
An attempt to repair the damage of disorder
So the final five steps to this theory are;
Equilibrium
Disequilibrium
Recognition of disruption

3. Attempt to repair the damage of disorder
New equilibrium
My story follows this in a way:
Equilibrium – The shepherd is looking after the sheep and the villagers are on
the hills or the farm working.
Disequilibrium – The boy plays a trick on the villagers
Recognition that the disruption has occurred – The wolf chases the sheep away
Attempt to repair the damage of disruption – The shepherd gets a talking to by
the villagers and they plan on finding the sheep the next day
Although my story doesn’t have a new equilibrium, we can sort of make one, see
what is coming. So my story partially follows this.
The third theory I looked in to was by a man named Levi Strauss, this was the
binary opposition.
Levi’s theory is that a story can only commence when two opposing sides come
together. E.g. Good vs. Evil, Men vs. Women, Humans vs. Aliens etc
There is a type of structure to this, which has eight parts;
Open – Don’t reach a conclusion e.g. Soap operas, comic books
Closed – Meets a conclusion, closed narrative and has an end. E.g. folk tales, film.
Single strand – Just one story line. E.g. children’s story
Multi-strand – More than one story line or have sub plots. E.g. Soap operas
Linear – Starts at the beginning all the way through to the end. Step-by-step.
Non-linear – Doesn’t necessarily start at the beginning. Has flash backs, jumps
around.
Realist – Reflect real life. Can be stretched more dramatic. E.g. Soap operas
Anti-realist – fictional, sci-fi, non-realistic things. Things that cannot happen, that
hasn’t being proven. E.g. aliens invading earth, Toys that are alive, dolls/objects
that are haunted etc.
My story follows the single strand as it would be too much for children to take in
more than one story at a single time especially when reading.
The boy cries wolf and the wolf eventually turns up the third time he calls but no
one believes him. The story is to not be a liar and the narrative doesn’t stray
from this.