An introduction to narrative theory and narrative theorists for Media Studies students. A pdf handout is also available on this site. This one is a new version of the old one without a typo! Oops!

1. Narrative Theories
A media student’s guide to story telling
J

2. Stories have been told
since we could speak or
even paint you don’t
have to have watched
TV to know about
narrative - storylines

3. They Might be Giants
Vladimir Propp
It is Propp that tells you that there are only eight
character roles (a pity if you think you’ve got an original
one) and he bases his theories on the age-old stories of
ordinary folk.
The characters are:

4. the princess
the hero
the villain
the donor
the helper
the father
the dispatcher
the false hero

5. Obviously TV cop dramas and
Hollywood thrillers done necessarily
have fairy princess, heroes and villains
or do they? Start looking - don’t be too
literal!

6. The Balancing
Act
Tzvetan Todorov
Todorov states that stories
start with an equilibrium. The
story starts with an assumption
about the balance of action
within the story and the
progress of the story is its
disruption

7. The story though, is not just about the way things are when they start
but it is also about the common ground that underlines that equilibrium.
That is the cultural assumptions we all agree - for instance that “crime
does not pay”.
Possibly the equilibrium is informed by the ”backstory”, in other words
the story about the main characters that is never told. Their history -
how they got to be where they were at the start. What and ho made
them the characters they are in the story.

8. Breaking the Codes
Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes has narrowed the action
down to five basic codes - even more
depressing if you thought you had a great
original storyline.

9. Stories, in this mode are more like puzzles,
perhaps a puzzle with some missing pieces, and
what keeps you interested is the bits that you
fill in yourself.
action or proairetic
the enigma or
hermeneutic code
the semantic code
the symbolic code
the cultural code

10. ...and that means...
action or proairetic the symbolic code
this is the way in which tension is this is a bit the same as the above,
built and the audience is kept but it uses symbolic knowledge such
guessing as religious understanding
the enigma or hermeneutic code the cultural code
this is the way in which the story this is the cultural assumptions that
avoids telling the truth, or revealing we tend not challenge - murder is
all the facts in order to drop clues wrong
and create mystery
the semantic code
this refers to the connotations that
the story suggests - the connotations
of noir for example

11. Zeroes and Ones: Binary
Claude Levi-Strauss
OR - how Levi-Strauss (who died aged 100) suggested that stories are a
series of binary opposites.
Conflict, it is said, is the essence (the inevitability of the plot and all
of drama. Without the odd the elements in it)
argument (frank exchange of In essence you start with your
views) you can't have drama. paradigmatic elements and then
Whilst some may query this those that you are going to follow
Levi-Strauss suggests that through the story are chosen. These
stories are largely made up of elements have opposites and the plot
binary oppositions: (syntagmatic part) details the
girl boy
effects of that opposition.
good evil
Paradigm - a set of objects or
concepts life death
Syntagm - an element which follows money poverty
another in a particular sequence
to choose or not

12. Acknowledgements
Pic 1: Fairy Tale CC Flickr Kjirstin
http:/ /www.flickr.com/photos/kjirstinb/260328469/
Pic 2: Tightrope Walker CC Flickr geoftheref
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoftheref/2253511823/
Pic 3: CC Judith Gunn
Pic 4: CC Judith Gunn
Pic 4: Morguefile http://mrg.bz/Zyfk7E