Narrative Theory

Vladimir Propp (1928)Propp was a theorist who identified common roles that characters play in media texts, though his theory was originally based from Russian Folk Tales it can easily be used across all fictional mediums.Propp looked at 100 folk tales and concluded that all character types could be narrowed down to 7 different roles.• The villain - struggles against the hero.• The donor - prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.• The (magical) helper - helps the hero in the quest.• The princess and her father - gives the task to the hero, identifies the false

hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.

• The dispatcher - character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.• The hero or victim/seeker hero - reacts to the donor, weds the princess.• [False hero] - takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Kate Domaille (2001)Domaille believe that every narrative can be placed into 1 of 8 narrative types, each of these types are a source that the others are based up on.• Achilles: The fatal flaw that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless,

or almost flawless, person, e.g. Superman, Fatal Attraction.• Candide: The indomitable hero who cannot be put down, e.g. Indiana Jones,

James Bond, Rocky etc.• Cinderella: The dream comes true, e.g. Pretty Woman.• Circe: The Chase, the spider and the fly, the innocent and the victim e.g. Smokey

And The Bandit, Duel, The Terminator.• Faust: Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your soul

belongs to him, e.g. Bedazzled, Wall Street.• Orpheus: The loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy

of losss or the journey which follows the loss, e.g. The Sixth Sense, Love Story, Born On the Fourth Of July.

• Romeo And Juliet: The love story, e.g. Titanic.• Tristan and Iseult: The love triangle, Man loves woman…unfortunately one or

both of them are already spoken for, or a third party intervenes, e.g. Casablanca

Tzvetan Todorov (1977)Todorov looked at narrative structure and how a narrative is formed an set out. His theory looks at how an equilibrium is established, then broken by an event. The narrative follows how this event is reversed or counter acted to return to equilibrium (re-equilibrium) or to form another equilibrium entirely.• Stage 1: A point of stable equilibrium, where everything is satisfied, calm

and normal.• Stage 2: This stability is disrupted by some kind of force, which creates a

state of disequilibrium.• Stage 3: Recognition that a disruption has taken place.• Stage 4: It is only possible to re-create equilibrium through action

directed against the disruption.• Stage 5: Restoration of a new state of equilibrium. The consequences of

the reaction is to change the world of the narrative and/or the characters so that the final state of equilibrium in not the same as the initial state.