Narrative Investigation

1. Narrative Investigation
By Paige Atkins

2. Narrative
• Refers to the different types of story structure that genres employ aswell as the actual
story-telling devices and narrative moments which they are associated with.
• LINEAR Narrative- Having a clear beginning, middle and end.
• ARISTOTLE- identified basic linear line structure- observed that the middle section
may involve a crisis resolved by the end of the story.
• CIRCULAR- beginning is the same as the end eg. Blood Brothers, The Hangover
Dramatic Arc
The Dramatic Arc is one of the most popular and
recognizable narrative structures in Western
culture. Also referred to as a classical dramatic
structure.
Aristotle declared that plays have a consistent
structure of “a beginning, middle, and end”
Centuries later, Gustav Freytag, a German
dramatist and novelist, expanded Aristotle’s
structure
Freytag’s pyramid-like diagram of five main tragic
stages evolved into a broadly applicable structure
directed toward narratives.

3. Todorov’s Theory
• Todorov’s narrative theory states that a narrative will follow this structure:
• Equilibrium- How the location and characters at the beginning of the story)
• Disequilibrium- a disruption of Equilibrium
• Recognition- of the disruption
• Resolution- plan to resolve the Disequilibrium
• Restoration of Equilibrium- the story returns back to the beginning.
• Vladimir Propp went through hundreds of fairy/folk tales and identified:
• 8 character roles (Hero, Villian, Donor, Helper, Princess, Her father, dispatcher, false hero)
• 31 functions which moves the story along eg. Punishment of villian or ban of an action

4. Narrative Theories that link to
the Horror Genre
• Noel Carroll: mapped out a traditional narrative structure.
• The onset phase- where a disorder is created by a weird
noise or a monster.
• The discovery phase- where the characters begin to
realise that something has been disrupted or changed.
• The disruption phase- where the characters destroy the
being that caused the issues, bring back normality.
• This would also link to Todorov’s theory of
Equilibrium- Disequilibrium-Equilibrium.