Task 3 Explaining the narrative theories

Vladimir Propp

Propp was a soviet formalist and he would analyze stories and simplify them into their narrative elements. It is said that he influenced Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes with his work on morphology. He is used widely across the world as his character types can be used in any media platform. For example both in games and Television. Propp's theory was that stories would have an initial situation which would then allow the story to take the 31 functions. Propp suggested that characters could be broken up into 7 different categories, these were:

1) The Villain

2) The Hero

3) The Helper

4) The Princess

5) The Dispatcher

6) The False Hero

7) The Donor

Some of the roles above can be used by more than one character which is very common. There are some criticisms that come with Propp's theory, it is said that he has removed all verbal consideration from the way he analyses the stories.

Tzvetan Todorov

Todorov's theory suggest that all narratives follow a structure cut into three separate parts. It starts with the equilibrium, which is basically suggesting that everything is as you would expect it to be, we then discover the dis-equilibrium. This is where a problem occurs and changes the way we see the narrative. The third part of the structure is the attempt to repair the dis-equilibrium and then the return back to normality.

Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss is best know for modernizing anthropology. Strauss' main narrative theory was the idea of binary opposites for example a hero and a villain would be classed as binary opposites. Binary opposites reveal the structure of media texts. He's idea was that narratives oppose each other and can be put into pairs because of this. These opposites make the narrative move forward because they cause conflict which can establish the meaning of the film or narrative. He named these Binary opposites, and example of this would be Good VS Evil, I have included a picture with more examples of how this theory could work in a narrative structure.

Roland Barthes

Barthes was a French literary theorist and philosopher. Barthes had said that there was five codes that explained and explored the way a text means to those reading it. He believed that texts could be opened in many different ways but also closed as well. The five theory codes he believed in are as follows:

1) Enigma code

2) Action code

3) Semantic code

4) Symbolic code

5) Referential code

Barthes' theory is usually very good to use when opening a scene as you can use the Enigma code to create a mystery and engage the audience as they will want to find out more about the narrative. when you want to show the audience the real meaning of something and make it easy for them to identify what it is you are talking about you are most likely going to use the Semantic code.