NARRATIVE THEORIES

Narrative theory

the way in which a story is told in both fictional and non-fictional media texts.

Vladimir Propp

• Russian critic and literary theorist.

• Analysed over 100 Russian fairytales in the 1920s.

• He proposed that it was possible to classify the characters and their actions into clearly defined roles and functions.

• Films such as Star Wars fit Propp’s model precisely, but a a significant number of more recent films such as Pulp Fiction do not.

• The model is useful, however as it highlights the similarities between seemingly quite different stories.

Propp’s Character Roles

• The hero (seeks something)

• The villain (opposes the hero)

• The donor (helps the hero by providing a magic object)

• The dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)

• The false hero (falsely assuming the role of hero)

• The helper (gives support to the hero)

• The princess (the reward for the hero, but also needs protection from the villain)

• Her father

Tzvetan Todorov

• Bulgarian literary theorist

• Suggests most narratives start with a state of equilibrium in which life is ‘normal’ and protagonists happy.

• This state of normality is disrupted by an outside force, which has to be fought against in order to return to a state of equilibrium.

• This model can easily be applied to a wide range of films.

Roland Barthes

• French semiologist.

• Suggested that narrative works with five different codes which activate the reader to make sense of it.

• (also used the terms denotation and connotation to analyse images)

barthes' codes 

• Action – a narrative device by which a resolution is produced through action, e.g. a shoot-out.

• Enigma – a narrative device that teases the audience by presenting a puzzle or riddle to be solved. Works to delay the story’s ending pleasurably.

• Symbolic – (connotation)

• Semic – (denotation)

• Cultural – a narrative device which the audience can recognise as being part of a culture e.g. a “made man” in a gangster film is part of the mafia culture.

Claude Levi-Strauss

Social Anthropologist.

Studied myths of tribal cultures.

Examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs and myths of a culture.

These are usually expressed in the form of binary oppositions.

His research has been adapted by media theorists to reveal underlying themes and symbolic oppositions in media texts.