The document discusses several narratives and concepts: 1. It provides a summary of the Greek myth of Oedipus, including his killing of his father and marriage to his mother. 2. It then analyzes Lévi-Strauss's structuralist interpretation of the myth, seeing it as dealing with issues of human origins and relationships. 3. The document also references several films that experiment with nonlinear narrative structures, including Russian Ark, Run Lola Run, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. 4. Finally, it discusses Borges's short story "The Garden of Forking Paths," which presents a concept of a work of fiction in which all possible outcomes and

1. database narrative
sean cubitt
15 March 2013
the idea becomes a machine that makes the art (Sol Lewitt)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumming_(Reich)

2. traditional narrative arc in a nutshell
Vanishing Point, 1971, Richard C. Sarafian

3. Richard Thompson
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Said Red Molly to James that’s a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat’s off to you
It’s a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I’ve seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride
Said James to Red Molly, here’s a ring for your right hand
But I’ll tell you in earnest I’m a dangerous man
I’ve fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I’m 21 years, I might make 22
And I don’t mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I’ll give you my Vincent to ride
Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they’ve taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn’t much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I’ll give you my Vincent to ride
Says James, in my opinion, there’s nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won’t do
They don’t have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I’ve got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lCH5JgWCZY

4. Initial situation
1 One of the family members leaves home distancing
2. Interdiction (or an order) interdiction
3. Interdiction transgressed (order not obeyed) transgression
4. The Villain tries to obtain information interrogation
5. The Villain receives information about his victim information
6. The Villain attempts to trick the victim trickery
7. The victim is tricked, so helping the Villain complicity
8. The Villain harms one of the family harm
8a. A family member needs or wants something lack
9. News of the harm or lack reaches the Hero mediation
10. The Hero accepts the quest or decides to act start of counter
-action
11. The Hero leaves home departure
12. The Hero is tested by the Donor 1st function
of Donor
13. The Hero reacts reaction of Hero
14. Magic object given to Hero reception of
magic object
15. Hero travels towards object of the quest journey
(with guide)
16. Hero and Villain come into conflict combat
17.
Hero receives a mark mark
18.
The Villain is defeated victory
19. Inital hurt or lack repaired reparation
20.
The Hero returns return
21.
The Hero is pursued pursuit
22.
The Hero is helped help
Brothers steal the object of the quest
variation
The Hero recommences the quest
variation
The Hero is tested again
variation
New reaction to the Donor
variation
The Hero receives a new magic object
variation
The Hero arrives once more near the object of the quest
variation
23. The Hero arrives home incognito disguise
24. The False Hero tells lies lying
25. The Hero is given a difficult task task
26. The task is accomplished task accomplished
27 The Hero is recognised recognition
28. The False Hero or Villain is unmasked unmasking
29. The Hero gains a new appearance transfiguration
30. The False Hero or Villain is punished punishment
31. The Hero marries and ascends the throne marriage
Vladimir Propp - Narratology
and the russian folk tale
According to Propp all Russion folk tales contain some or all of the following narrative moments and no others. Even if some do not appear, the others always
appear in the same order (and some may be repeated)

5. Cadmus, the eldest brother of Europa, is sent by his father to find her after she had been wooed by Zeus in the form of a
bull. The Delphic Oracle tells him to give up the search, and instead to follow a cow and build a city wherever she would
sink down for weariness. Buying a cow, he follows her through Boetia to the place where Thebes now stands until she lies
down. His companions are attacked and killed by the serpent-dragon living in the nearby Castalian Spring, but Cadmus
kills the dragon and sacrifices the cow to Athena. She appears and tells him to sow the serpent’s teeth. When he obeys,
they spring from the ground as armed warrors, the Spartoi. Cadmus throws a stonme among them, and they begin to
destroy each other till only five are left. who serve Cadmus faithfully.
Cadmus resigned the throne of Thebes to his grandson Pentheus, who begat Labdacus, who begat Laius. Laius married
Jocasta and uled over Thebes. Childless, he consulted the Delphic Oracle, who told him that his son would kill him and
marry his mother. Jocasta fell pregnant and when the child was born, Laius pierced the boy’s feet with a nail and left him
on Mount Cithaeron. A shpherd found him and named him Oedipus because his feet were deformed. Growing in years,
Oedipus in his turn asked the Delphic Oracle what the future held for him. She replied ‘Away you wretch! You will kill
your father ansd marry your mother’. Not wishing to harm his adopted parents, Oedipus fled.
On the road he met proud King Laius, and slew him. Laius had been on the way to the Oracle to ask how to rind the city
of Thebes from the Sphynx, a terrible creature with a woman’s head, lion’s body, serpent’s tail and eagle’s wings. The
Sphynx would ask ebvery traveller the same rifddle. If they could not answer, she throttled and evoured them on the
spot.
As Oedipus travelled towards he Thebes he met the Sphynx. This was her riddle.
‘What creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?’
‘Man’, he replied, ‘because he crawls on all fours as an infant, stands on his own two feet in his prime, and leans upon a
staff in his old age’. The Sphynx in horror leapt to her death from Mount Phicium.
As a reward for lifting this curse, Oedipus ascended the throne of Thebes and married the Queen, his own mother Jo-
casta, laius’ widow. She bore him two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, and a daughter, Antigone. Finally however, a plague
descended on the city, and Tiresias, the blind seer, revealed that the King was a patricide and in an incestuous union.
Driven out of the city, Oedipus blinded himself in remorse, and dies, accompanied only by Antigone, in the sacred oak
grove at Colonnus.
His twin brother-sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, accursed by their father, fell to warring with each other, When Polynei-
ces finally fell in battle, the dictator Creon, who had seized power, decreed that no-one should give the corpse its sacred
rites. But Antigone buried her brother Polyneices, and as punishment was sent to be buried alive . . . .

6. Cadmus seeks
his sister Eu-
ropa, ravished
by Zeus
Cadmus kills the
dragon
Oedipus kills
his father, Lai-
us
The Spartoi kill
each other
Labdacos (Laius’
father) = lame?
Oedipus mar-
ries his moth-
er, Jocasta
Oedipus kills the
Sphynx
Laius (Oedipus’
father) = left-sid-
ed?
Eteocles kills
his brother,
Polyneices
Oedipus = swol-
len-foot ?
SYNTAGMATIC AXIS =>
<=
PARADIGMATIC
AXIS
=>

7. Lévi-Strauss explains that ‘the first column has as its common feature the overrating
of blood relations. It is obvious that the second column expresses the same thing
but inverted: underrating of blood relations. The third column refers to monsters
being slain. As to the fourth column . . . all the hypothetical meanings . . refer to
difficulties in walking .’ (Lévi-Strauss 1963: 214-5). He explains that dragon is ctho-
nian, that is, born of the earth, and is killed. The Sphynx kills men. Both share the
quality of denying the autocthonous (born of earth) origins of men. The fourth
column draws on a tradition in which men born of the earth have trouble walking
or are maimed, which therefore is characterised by the persistence of the autoctho-
nous origin of men.
Lévi-Strauss concludes that the Oedipus legend deals with ‘the inability, for a cul-
ture which holds the belief that man is autocthonous, . . . to find a satisfactory tran-
sition between this theory and the knowledge that human beings are actually born
from the union of man and woman Although the problem obviously cannot be
solved, the Oedipus myth provides a kind of logical tool which relates the original
problem – born of one or born of two? – to the derivative problem: born from dif-
ferent or born from same?’ (Lévi-Strauss 1963: 216).
Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Structural Study of Myth, http://people.ucsc.edu/~ktellez/levi-strauss.pdf

8. Zbig Rybczinski, The New Book, 1975

9. Plot Outline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saragossa_Manuscript_(film)
Wojciech Has, The Saragossa Manuscript, 1965

10. Russian Ark, Alexander Sokurov, 2002

11. Run Lola Run, 1998, Tom Tykwer

12. Plot Outline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock,_Stock_and_Two_Smoking_Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie, 1998

18. The Big Brother house

19. diagrams by Sergio Circone http://www.cisenet.com/index.php?p=5

20. Borges, Jorge Luis (1964). The Garden of the Forking Paths. In: Yates, Donald A. & Irby, James E. (eds.), Labyrinths. New York: New Directions.
http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-garden.html
A broad rereading of the work confirmed the theory. In all fictional
works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he
chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts’ui Pên,
he chooses – simultaneously – all of them. He creates, in this way,
diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and
fork. Here, then, is the explanation of the novel’s contradictions.
Fang, let us say, has a secret; a stranger calls at his door; Fang
resolves to kill him. Naturally, there are several possible outcomes:
Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they both can
escape, they both can die, and so forth. In the work of Ts’ui Pên, all
possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for
other forkings. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for
example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts
you are my enemy, in another, my friend.