1. Character Types:
The Hero: The hero is generally the person in the film or story that leads the
narrative through the whole thing. They will usually have a quest to complete for
an end goal.
In my children’s book the hero for this would be the third pig. The reason for this
is because this is the pig that thought on his feet and made his home from a
suitable material, which wolves can’t blow down.
Not only this but at the end the pig cooks and eats the wolf for supper which is
quite ironic due to throughout the whole story the wolf has been eating the pigs.
The Villain: The villain is usually the person who has the commotion with the
hero throughout the whole story. They would usually have stereotypical
characteristics of a villain.
In my story is quite obviously the wolf. You can see this from the first couple of
scenes due to the wolf blowing the straw house down and eating the first pig.
The Prize/princess: This is the person or something who the hero would
usually be sent on a quest to collect/retrieve. This object regardless of it been a
person would have many people trying to get the same thing. Meaning this is
where the tension comes from.
In the case of this narrative the prize would be the safety and the freedom of the
pigs. This is something throughout the whole story that each pig works towards,
but only one succeeds.
The Donor: The donor is the person who gives the hero exactly what they need
to complete their quest.
In this case the donor would be the farmer, lumberjack and the builder who
allow the pigs to attempt to build their own homes. Them doing this gave them at
least the chance of survival, which is the prize in this story.
You wouldn’t normally find pigs building houses which is why it’s a good idea
that the author used a lot of anthropomorphism to make the pigs seem more
human like
The Helper: This is the person who helps the hero on their quest but sometimes
they can seem to be quite useless. They will usually have limitation to what they
can do in the story. This would be because if they are seen as useless to the
audience it will highlight the heroic characteristics of the hero.
I would usually say that the helper and donor in this story are the same persons,
the farmer, lumberjack and the builder.
The Princess’ Father: This is usually the person who the hero has to either
impress or persuade to allow them to complete their quest. I don’t have this
character in my story here’s an example;
Princess Fiona’s dad in the second Shrek is the person who Shrek has to try and
impress and persuade him to allow Shrek to marry his daughter. There are many
things throughout this film that have been put into place to prevent them from
2. getting married. At the end this person will always favor the hero at the last
moment to build as much tension as possible before they do.
The False Hero:
This person would usually pose as a hero but then portray the hero to try
stealing their thunder or to for fill their own needs. It could also be someone who
tries the same thing as the hero but fails at his or her attempt.
In my children’s story I would say that the first two pigs are seen as the false
hero’s . They both attempt what the third pig does which is to build a home to
keep them safe from things outside in the night. Not with as much intelligence or
thought as to what they used and the result of this was their homes been blown
over and been eaten.
The Dispatcher:
This person will usually appear at the beginning of the story. This is the person
who would set the main characters on their way for the journey.
In this narrative the granny who has to let the pigs go due to the lack of money
she has. Due to the granny been in this situation the pigs are left no choice but to
go out and make their own ways in life.
Narrative Theory
Equilibrium:
This is the starting scene, which usually consists of something that the main
character would do on their everyday life. At the beginning of my story due to it
having to be cut down a serious amount I had to miss this scene out on my own
attempt at the story. In the original script the start scene is the old granny getting
the pigs ready to send them off in search of their own fortunes.
Due to it been a short story it doesn’t need to have much of an opening scene
where as if you were talking about this in terms of a film they would have a much
larger opening scene to build atmosphere and introduce characters
Disequilibrium:
This part is also at the beginning of my story even though you would find this
near the centre usually. This is when the granny announces to the pigs they have
to leave the house and go and make their own way in life. Due to this happening
the pigs have no choice but to deal with the situation and go find shelter and
build their own homes. This only consisted on one page.
New Equilibrium:
This is the part in the story where the issue has bee resolved and the character
go back to how things were normally. In my book this is the very last scene
where the pig thinks on his feet and lets the wolf fall into the cauldron. After the
wolf is dead things go back to normal for the pig because they will no longer be
hunted.
3. Binary Opposition:
When talking about binary opposition in my book I would say that my narrative
falls into the ‘Good vs Evil’ This is because all three of the pigs a shown as
harmless beings but the wolf is made out the be an evil figure who’s only out to
eat the pigs.
Narrative Structure:
Closed narrative- I would say that my children’s book falls into the closed
narrative due to there been a solution at the end of the book. Even though it
comes at the loss of two pgs. The third pig finds out how to stop the wolf. You can
structure out a closed narrative quite easily due to their been a solution to work
towards throughout production.
Single Strand- My book is a single strand narrative. I think this because there’s
only one main story line in my book that is followed the whole way through. It
would be considered a multi strand if there was more than one story line which
was involved in our books. Seen as though we only had 12 maximum pages, it
meant we were quite limited as to which we wanted.
Linear- The reason I have listed my book as a linear book is because there is a
very structured way on which this book is laid out. There’s the issue at the
beginning which starts the whole story off by them getting kicked out of the
granny’s house. This starts a series of events that results in each pig building
their own homes and the wolf attempting it’s hardest to catch each pig. The
last/smartest pig of all is the one that survives. The is a begging> Build up>
peak> Solution and ending
(Realistic/Anti-realistic)- I have made curtain things in my book have extra
detail. When making the background with the sky and the tree line I would keep
it very simple but effective. When I came to making my assets such as characters
and the materials which the pigs were going to use, this is where the detail was
added because you need to make sure the audience know what everything is
through visual because even though there’s text, it’s very limited how much you
can use due to the audience been so young.
I feel that this book would a fall into anti realistic section. This is because even
though the pigs and the wolf are doing things which you could expect people to
do because they’re been personified, it is a story line which couldn’t happen in
reality so it would be seen as anti realistic.
