Narrative theory

Narrative Theory
Year 13
Thursday 2nd February 2012
Lesson Objectives
Can I remember all the narrative STRUCTURES?
What is narrative?
Who are the narrative theorists?
Have I started Mini-Lesson for my theory?

Narrative structures
• Name all the narrative structures
• Give a one line definition of all the narrative structures

• The group that get them all right first gets

•5 points

Narrative structures

• Structure 1: Open and closed ended
• Structure 2: Interactive
• Structure 3: Multi-strand
• Structure 4: POV
• Structure 5: Enigma

3 Distinct narrative forms
• Classic
• Hollywood
• Anti-Classic
• World cinema
• Avant-Garde
• Experimental

On a basic level films follow the same narrative
pattern…

• EXPOSITION – Introduces the films settings and
characters to the viewer.
• DEVELOPMENT – The storyline is taken further and more
characters are introduced.
• COMPLICATION – A complicating event which will affect
the lives of the main characters.
• CLIMAX – Dramatic tension is at a high and we (the
audience) uncover the mystery of the story or have our
questions answered.
• RESOLUTION – Re-establishes stability and restores a
form of calm.

Children’s book
• Using the book in front of you
• Find the;
• Exposition
• Development
• Complication
• Climax
• Resolution

The Theorists
• What theorists did you find?

3.Vladimir Propp
4.Roland Barthes
5.Tzvetan Todorov
6.Claude Levi-Strauss
7.Victor Shklovsky
8.David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
9.Gill Branston and Roy Stafford

The Theorists
• What theorists did you find?

3.Vladimir Propp AND Roland Barthes
4.Tzvetan Todorov
5.Claude Levi-Strauss AND Victor Shklovsky
6.David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
7.Gill Branston and Roy Stafford

Mini Lesson
• In your groups you will be given a theorist
• You will research the narrative theorist
• Find a short film that
• A: Adheres to the theory
• B: Subverts the theory
• You will do a 15minute mini lesson
• You will need to organise a activity for the class to do
• You will have 2 lessons to produce the lesson

What makes a good lesson?
• A warm up
• Information
• Educational
• Engaging activity
• An wind down

• 10-15mins each group

Propp

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

Theories of Narrative Vladimir PROPP (1895-1970)

The Morphology of the Fairy Tale, 1928

Propp examined hundreds of fairy tales in the generic form ‘the folk
wondertale’.

He identified:
•8 character roles (or ‘spheres of action’)
•31 functions which move the story along -
examples include the punishment of the villain
(usually at the end of the story); the ban of an
action (eg. If Sleeping Beauty touches a spinning
wheel, she will die)


Propp’s 8 character roles or ‘spheres of action’

•The villain
•The hero - a seeker character motivated by an initial lack
•The donor, who provides an object with some magic property
•The helper, who aids the hero
•The princess, a reward for the hero and object of the
villain’s schemes
•Her father, who validates the hero
•The dispatcher, who sends the hero on his way
•The false hero

adapted from (Branston and Stafford, 1996)



Propp’s theory is a form of structuralism, which is a view that all media is
inevitably in the form of certain fixed structures.

These structures are often culturally derived and
form expectations in the mind of an audience
from within that same culture eg fairy tales
always have happy endings or the princess
always marries the handsome prince.



Propp’s theory can be applied to generic structures in Western culture, such
as popular film genres.

Thus genre structures form expectations in the
mind of an audience that certain rules apply to
the narrative. However, cultural change can force
structures to change eg a hero can now be a
woman



Attempt to identify as many of Propp’s 8 ‘spheres of action’ from the films we
have studied as you can -

•The villain
•The hero - a seeker character motivated by an initial lack
•The donor, who provides an object with some magic
property
•The helper, who aids the hero
•The princess, a reward for the hero and object of the
villain’s schemes
•Her father, who validates the hero
•The dispatcher, who sends the hero on
his way
•The false hero

Theories of Narrative Tzvetan TODOROV

Bulgarian structuralist 1960s

Todorov developed the theory of
disrupted equilibrium

He identified that stories follow a typical pattern
of:
•Equilbrium
•Disequilibrium
•Equilibrium

This applies equally well to film texts



Equilbrium - the ‘status quo’ where things are as they
should be

Disequilibrium - the status quo is disrupted by an
event

Equilibrium - is restored at the end of the story by the
actions of the hero



What is the equilbrium at the beginning of a
crime genre or horror genre film?

What sort of event disrupts the equilibrium to
cause disequilibrium in a crime or horror film?
(Give two examples of actual events from films
we have studied)

How and when is equilibrium restored in
a) a crime film?
b) a horror film?



There can be several moments in the plot where resolution
of equilibrium takes place, for example when pieces of the
detective’s puzzle fall into place.

An example from The Black Dahlia is where
Bucky Bleikert fits the puzzling words of the
pathologist to precise attributes of the ‘Stag-
film’ set - the injury caused by the crown, the
river to wash away the blood.



Todorov later developed this into a 5 stage pattern:

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset.

2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some
action.

3. a recognition that there has been a
disruption.

4. an attempt to repair the disruption.

5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Theories of Narrative Roland BARTHES

French theorist
Barthes believes that there are 5 action codes that
enable an audience to make sense of a narrative.
•hermeneutic (narrative turning-points)
we know where the story will go next
•proairetic (basic narrative actions)
eg detective interviews suspect or femme fatale seduces hero
(see Propp’s 31 functions)
•cultural (prior social knowledge)
eg our attitudes to gender or racial stereotypes
•semic (medium-related codes)
intertextuality
•symbolic (themes)
iconography or a theme such as ‘image versus reality’
(Curtis Hanson)

Theories of Narrative Claude LEVI-STRAUSS

French structuralist, 1970s

Claude Levi-Strauss is most noted for his theory of Binary
Oppositions.

In order to find those oppositions, Levi-Strauss was less
interested in

syntagmatic relations i.e.how events line up in the
narrative structure to develop the plot,

than paradigmatic relations i.e. those events and
features that belong to the theme of the piece,
especially within genre based texts.


French structuralist

Levi-Strauss used the ‘Western’ film genre to develop his theory
of Binary Oppositions.

Homesteaders Native Americans

Christian Pagan

Domsetic Savage

Weak Strong

Garden Wilderness

Inside society Outside society

Sci-Fi
Good Bad
Humans Aliens
Earth Space
Past Present
Normal Strange
Known Unknown



What binary oppositions can you think of from the crime or
horror genres?



Levi-Strauss used the ‘Western’ film genre to develop his theory
of Binary Oppositions.

detective villain

princess femme fatale?

criminal ‘straight’

weak strong

safe streets ‘mean streets’

sane mad

poor ? rich

Theories of Narrative Victor SHKLOVSKY

Russian theorist 1920s

Shklovsky attempted to distinguish between the plot, which he
defined as the events we actually ‘see’ in the narrative; and the
story, which contains all the information or events affecting the
characters both on and off screen.

Theories of Narrative Victor SHKLOVSKY

Russian theorist 1920s

He gave them typically difficult names:

fabula = the story i.e. the whole world of the story
before during and after what we see or hear

syuzhet = only the events that we see or hear within
the field of vision

Theories of Narrative David BORDWELL and KristinTHOMPSON
American Film Studies theorists 1990s

In their book ‘Film Art (1997), Bordwell and
Thompson give three different time zones for film
narratives:
story ‘the set of all the events in the narrative, both the
ones explicitly presented and those the viewer infers,
compose the story’

plot ‘the term plot is used to describe everything visibly
and audibly present in the film before us’.

screen time ‘the time taken to broadcast the film’

Diegesis is therefore the Greek for the ‘narrative world’ of
the plot during the screen time.

Theories of Narrative Gill BRANSTON and Roy STAFFORD
British Media writers 1990s

Branston and Stafford happen to very usefully apply
the relevance of fabula/syuzhet theory to the crime
genre:
We should feel at the end of a good detective story or
thriller that we have been pleasurably puzzled, so that the
‘solution’, our piecing together of the story in its proper
order out of the evidence offered by the plot, will come as
a pleasure. We should not feel that the plot has cheated;
that parts of the story have
suddenly been revealed which we couldn’t
possibly have guessed at. The butler
cannot, at the last minute, suddenly be
revealed to have been a poisons expert.

Narrative theory

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