Research: Narrative theory

What is a narrative?

A narrative is a brief description of the story being told and the events that may occur throughtout the film.
A elements that allow the audience to find meaning are; characters, genre, structure and denotation and conotation.

Propp -

Propps theory is based on characters and fairytales. Propp believed that folk tales were about the same basic struggles and therefore the same characters. He then decided on 7 characters from fairytales that can relate to media. These are:

The hero - A character that seeks for better things.
The villain - Who opposes the activety or blocks the hero's quest.
The donor - Who provides an object with magical properties.
The dispatches - Who sends the hero on their quest via a message.
The false hero - Who distrupts the hero's success by making false claims.
The helper - Who aids the hero.
The princess - Acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the vallain's plots.
Her father - Who rewards the ehro for his effort.

Propp analysed faiytales and slip them up into a narrative structure:

1. Preparation
2. complication
3. transference
4. struggle
5. return
6. recognition

Todrov -

Todrov's theory is based on a narrative having a clear start, middle and end structure. This is structured by having an equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium:

1. Equilibrium - Characters appear stable in the beginning.
2. Disequilibrium - Something disrupting happens and a change occurs which needs to be resolved. 
3. New equilibrium - Usually disruption is sorted and the narrative is closed.

An example of this is in the opening of 'Halloween'; the equilibrium is when the 2 teenagers are home alone on halloween and the backdoor is left open when they go upstairs. The disequilibrium is when someone enters the house and picks up a knife. The boyfriend then leaves the girl home alone and someone dressed up as a clown comes in and stabs her to death. The new equilibrium is when the mask is taken off the murderer and we see that it is her little brother. 

Aristotle -

Aristotle said that the beginning, middle and end must relate to eachother. He said that this would arouse emotion from the auidence and is mainly used in tragedy films.

Barthes - 

Barthes said that a narrative can be defined by using the 5 following things:

1. Action - Understanding and resolving the understood by the action seen.
2. Enigma - Teases the audience by presenting a puzzle or riddle that needs to be solved.
3. Symbolic - Connotation
4. Semic - Denotation
5. Culture understanding - Events which can be recognised as being part of a culture.