3. Vladmir Propp examined hundreds of folk tales to
see if they shared any structures. He identified eight
character roles and thirty one narrative functions.
All of the character roles and different functions
presented by Propp can be applied to all kinds of
narrative for example; in an action movie we are
often presented with heroes and villains.
4. Propp’s eight character roles.
The villain— struggles
against the hero-
The Hero – is the one who
strives to do good but often
needs help (lacks something)
The dispatcher—character
who makes the lack known
and sends the hero off-
The helper — helps the hero
in the journey
5. The princess or prize — the hero
deserves her throughout the story but is
unable to marry her because of an unfair
evil, usually because of the villain. the
hero's journey is often ended when he
marries the princess, thereby beating the
villain-
Her father — gives the task to the hero,
identifies the false hero, marries the hero,
often sought for during the narrative -
6. The donor —prepares the
hero or gives the hero some
magical object-
False hero — takes credit for
the hero’s actions or tries to
marry the princess-
8. Bordwell and Thompson never did come up with
a complete narrative theory, they did however
come up with some interesting ideas.
They believed that chain of events within a
media form cause effects on a relationship
occurring in time and space and the narrative
shapes this material in terms of time space such
as; where and when things take place. This can
be portrayed through using effects to show the
time and space by using flash backs, forwarding
time, slow motion and speeding up.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
10. Claude Levi- Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms
of " Binary oppositions" focusing on the different sets of
opposite values which reveal the structure of the media
texts. His narrative theory is different compared to other
theorists as he focused more on the arrangement of themes
rather than the order of a media text.
11. Examples of these binary
oppositions could be :
Earth – space
Good – bad
Past- Present
Normal- abnormal
Humans- Aliens
Known- Unknown
Dead- Alive
Happy- sad
Weak- strong
13. Todorov was a Bulgarian linguist who produced
and published influential narrative theory work
from the 1960’s onwards. His theory suggested
that stories begin with an equilibrium where any
opposing force are in balance. This equilibrium
is then disrupted by an event which leads to a
series of other events leading to the
stereotypical end of all major events being
restored.
14. Visual showing of Todorov’s narrative theory found on Google
images.
