Narative theories

For this media lesson I looked at the three popular existing narrative theories from three different people called Tzvetan Todoro, Vladimir Propp, and Claude Levi-Strauss. I also did a bit of research on their theories

Tzvetan Todorov’s TheoryTzvetan Todorov (Bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influentialWork 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's theoriesContending that fairy tales could be studied and compared by examining their most basic plot components, Formalist Vladimir Propp developed an analysis that reduced fairy tales to a series of actions performed by the dramatis personae in each story. Propp argued that all fairy tales were constructed of certain plot elements, which he called functions, and that these elements consistently occurred in a uniform sequence. Based on a study of one hundred folk tales, Propp devised a list of thirty-one generic functions, proposing that they encompassed all of the plot components from which fairy tales were constructed. He also concluded that all the characters could be resolved into 8 broad character types in the 100 tales he analyzed:

The villain — struggles against the hero.The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.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, and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Claude Levi-Strauss's TheoryClaude Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in termsof 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 SpaceGood EvilHumans AliensPast PresentNormal Strange Known UnknownSo far in the clips that we have viewed and analyzed there has only been a few that I can say that these theories have applied. For example a clip on youtube that we watched called ‘Panic Attack’. Out of these three theories I think that Tzvetan Todorov’s theory applies most to this particular clip as it begins with an equilibrium then we see that the robots come to attack. However the story didn’t get resolved. The last thing that we see is the robots bombing the city that they’re attacking.