Narrative Theroy

In lessons we have been learning about Narrative theroys. I think narrative theroy are interesting, we can decide if we agree with the theroys and if are work fits them, and if this is a good or bad thing.
Here is a bit about the different narrative theroys.

Tzvetan Trodorov's Narrative Theroy

A bit about the guy:

- He was born March 1st 1939 in Sofia

- He is a Franco-Bulgarian philospher

- He has lived in France since 1963

- He has written books and essays about literary theroy, thought history and culture theroy

- Has published a total of 21 books

- He has been a visiting professor at several universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Berkeley

His theroy:

- Tzventan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative theroy while also allowing a more complex interpetation of film text with his theroy of Equilibrium and Disequilibruim

- Todorov's theroy was the equilibrium and disequibruim theroy. This theroy explains that stories have certain sections

- Equilibrium = beginning, meeting the character in their own world.

- Disturbance = things change, a problem occurs the we were introduced to changes, or there is a problem with the characters.

- Resolution = The problem is solved, and a different equillibruim is restored.

Example of his theroy being put in place:

His theroy is shown in Sweeney Todd

- Equillibrium = Main character has a happy family and life, he is getting married and has a child.
- Disturbance = Judges come and take his away from his family and ruin his life. The maincharacter then come back for revenge with a new name trying to kill the judge.

- Resolution = Judge is killed but the so is the mail character but he is reunited with his love after death while his daughter is free to live her life with her love.

How Todorovs Narrative theroy could link to my work:

- Most Newpapers stories seem to follow the Equillibruim theroy, although are at different stage of the theroy, - some stories may not have reached a new Equillibruim but casn be continuing stories in newpaper. Some stories may not finish by following this narrative theroy as there is not always a new Equillibruim to be me found

- I need to make sure if i use this narrative theroy i keep my storylines realistic.

Vladimir Propp

A bit about the guy:

-Born on 17th april 1895 and died 22nd august 1970 - aged 75.

His Theroy:

-Propp came up with the narrative theory from the russian folk tales.

- He extended the Russian Formalist approach to narratology (the study of narrative structure).

- Where, in the Formalist approach, sentence structures had been broken down into analysable elements - morphemes - Propp used this method by analogy to analyse folk tales.

- By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units - narratemes - Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.

-By analysing types of characters & action, Propp was able to arrive at the conclusion that there were thirty-one generic narratemes in the Russian folk tale.

- While not all are present, he found that all the tales he analysed displayed the functions in unvarying sequence.

- After the initial situation is depicted, the tale takes the following sequence:

• A member of a family leaves home (the hero is introduced);
• An interdiction is addressed to the hero ('don't go there', 'go to this place');
• The interdiction is violated (villain enters the tale);
• The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance (either villain tries to find them 　　　　　　children/jewels etc; or intended victim questions the villain);
• The villain gains information about the victim;
• The villain attempts to deceive the victim to take possession of victim or victim's belongings (trickery; villain disguised, tries to win confidence of victim);
• Victim taken in by deception, unwittingly helping the enemy;
• Villain causes harm/injury to family member (by abduction, theft of magical agent, spoiling crops, plunders in other forms, causes a disappearance, expels someone, casts spell on someone, substitutes child etc, comits murder, imprisons/detains someone, threatens forced marriage, provides nightly torments); Alternatively, a member of family lacks something or desires something (magical potion etc);
• Misfortune or lack is made known, (hero is dispatched, hears call for help etc/ alternative is that victimised hero is sent away, freed from imprisonment);
• Seeker agrees to, or decides upon counter-action;
• Hero leaves home;
• Hero is tested, interrogated, attacked etc, preparing the way for his/her receiving 　　　magical agent or helper (donor)
• Hero reacts to actions of future donor (withstands/fails the test, frees captive, reconciles disputants, performs service, uses adversary's powers against them);
• Hero acquires use of a magical agent (directly transferred, located, purchased, prepared, spontaneously appears, eaten/drunk, help offered by other characters);
• Hero is transferred, delivered or led to whereabouts of an object of the search
• Hero and villain join in direct combat;
• Hero is branded (wounded/marked, receives ring or scarf);
• Villain is defeated (killed in combat, defeated in contest, killed while asleep, banished);
• Initial misfortune or lack is resolved (object of search distributed, spell broken, slain person revivied, captive freed);
• Hero returns;
• Hero is pursued (pursuer tries to kill, eat, undermine the hero);
• Hero is rescued from pursuit (obstacles delay pursuer, hero hides or is hidden, her transforms unrecognisably, hero saved from attempt on his/her life
• Hero unrecognised, arrives home or in another country;
• False hero presents unfounded claims;
• Difficult task proposed to the hero (trial by ordeal, riddles, test of strength/endurance,other tasks);
• Task is resolved;
• Hero is recognised (by mark, brand, or thing given to him/her);
• False hero or villain is exposed;
• Hero is given a new appearance (is made whole, handsome, new garments etc);
• Villain is punished;
• Hero marries and ascends the throne (is rewarded/promoted)

- These narrative functionare also spread between the main characters. - Propp also decided that a narrative needed to have:-

• The villain, who struggles with the hero
• the donor,
• who prepares and/or provides hero with magical agent
• the helper, who assists, rescues, solves and/or transfigures the hero
• the Princess, a sought-for person (and/or her father), who exists as a goal and often recognizes and marries hero and/or punishes villain
• the dispatcher, who sends the hero off
• the hero, who departs on a search (seeker-hero), reacts to the donor and weds at end
• the false hero (or antihero or usurper), who claims to be the hero, often seeking and reacting like a real hero (ie by trying to marry the princess)

Roland Barthes

A bit about the guy

- Roland Barthes was born on 12 November 1915

- Born in the town of Cherbourg in Normandy.

- He was the son of naval officer Louis Barthes, who was killed in a battle in the North Sea before his son was one year old.

- His mother, Henriette Barthes, and his aunt and grandmother raised him in the village of Urt and the city of Bayonne.

- When Barthes was eleven, his family moved to Paris and it was there that he would grow to manhood (though his attachment to his provincial roots would remain strong throughout his life).
- Barthes showed great promise as a student and spent the period from 1935 to 1939 at the Sorbonne, earning a license in classical letters.

- He died 25 March 1980

His theroy

- Barthes agrues that the 'author' no longer exist, and because of ideas such as surrealism and the insights offered by modern thought, anything created is just a compilation of previous ideas and conventions drawn from previous texts.

- This theroy basically says instead of the author of a media text being the one controlling the meaning, it is the reader of the text that interprets it in a way which is relevant to their past experiences and knowledge of convention

- Roland Barthes describes a text as "galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can reach, they are indeterminable . . . ; the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language"

- What he is basically saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads, which need unravelling so we can separate out the colours.

- Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings.

- We can start by looking at narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experiences and create one meaning for the text

- You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle by pulling a different thread if you like and create an entirely different meaning, and so on.

- Texts can be 'Open', ie unravelled in a lot of different ways

- A text can also be 'Closed' and there is only one obvious thread to pull on.

- Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try to unravel meaning are called narative codes and they could be categoried in the following five ways:

• Action/proiarectic code and enigma codes (ie questions and answers)
• Symbols and signs
• Point of culture reference
• Simple description/reproduction