Narrative theory overview

NARRATIVE THEORY

Narrative theory studies the devices and conventions governing the organisation of a story (fictional or factual) into a sequence.

TZVETAN TODOROV (Bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influential work on narrative from the 1960s onwards) Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction.

VLADIMIR PROPP (A Russian critic who examined 100s of examples of folk tales to see if they shared. any structures. His book on this 'Morphology of the Folk Tale' was first published in 1928) Propp looked at 100s of folk tales and identified 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions.

The 8 character roles are
1. The villain(s)
2. The hero
3. The donor ‑ who provides an object with some magic property.
4. The helper who aids the hero.
5. The princess (the sought for person) ‑ reward for the hero and object of the villain's schemes.
6. Her father ‑ who rewards the hero.
7. The dispatcher ‑ who sends the hero on his way.
8. The false hero

The character roles and the functions identified by Propp can be applied to all kinds of narrative. In TV news programmes we are often presented with 'heroes' and ‘villains'. Just think of the media portrayal of Saddam Hussein or Princess Diana.

CLAUDE LEVI‑STRAUSS Levi‑Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be GOOD and EVIL ‑ we understand the concept of GOOD as being the opposite of EVIL. Levi ‑Strauss was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. For example, if we look at Science Fiction films we can identify a series of binary oppositions which are created by the narrative:
Earth VS Space
Good VS Evil
Humans VS Aliens
Past VS Present
Normal VS Strange
Known VS Unknown