Narrative theorys

Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

Tzvetan Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

Claude 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- Space                Good-Evil

Humans- Aliens           Past-Present

Normal-Strange           Known-Unknown

Barthes’ enigma code – The narrative will establish enigmas or mysteries as it goes along. Essentially, the narrative functions to establish and then solve these mysteries. Roland Barthes' narrative theory claims that a narrative can be broken down into five codes or sets of rules. These are:

1.       Action code which refers to the events taking place

2. Enigma code which refers to the questions raised and answered
3. Semantic code which refers to the characters and characterisation
4. Referential code which refers to the information and explanation
5. Symbolic code which refers to the connotations of signs

Reference: Wikipedia, filmreference.com