narrative structure in avril lavigne’s ‘nobody’s home

8/10/2019 Narrative Structure in Avril Lavignes Nobodys Home

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Narrative Structure in Avril Lavignes

Nobodys Home Music Video

https: / /www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFSNE18Ywc

Billy Clayton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFSNE18Ywchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFSNE18Ywchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFSNE18Ywchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFSNE18Ywc


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Art ist and Track

Nobodys Home is a song by

Canadian singer-songwriter Avril

Lavigne. It was released in 2004,

taken from her second studio

album Under My Skin released

the same year and is consideredto be a rock ballad with post-

grunge orientated sounds. The

lyrics tell the story of a young girl

who Lavigne knew growing up

who experienced a chain of rough

events in her adolescents. Thisincludes the issue of

homelessness and abandonment

from her family, and how there

was little way of helping her in

such situations.


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Chorus

The narrative structure then changes as we reach the chorus. Shots of the homeless girl

with her arm out towards ongoing cars on the highway confirm that she is homeless and

wants to go home but nobodys home. It is also made clear that the wealthy Lavigne is

the narrator of the story as she lip syncs the lyrics to the song whilst the homeless girl

reflects her words, conforming to Goodwins theory of performance aspect and lyrical

link to visuals; I couldnt help her, I just watched her make the same mistakes again

Lavigne sings whilst staring into the camera as she paces the grand house, cutting to

the troubled girl running after cars with her bags slung over her shoulder in attempt to be

picked up. This scene is ambigious as Lavigne lyrically notes whats wrong, whats

wrong now, too many, too many problems suggesting that the girl may have gotten in to

prostitution in efforts to earn money whilst she is shown miserably hoping to be pickedup by a passing stranger. This can act as an intertextual reference to the 2003

production Homeless to Harvard, a film about a troubled teenager with a sexually

abused mother who turns her disorganised and hopeless life around after a family

members death.


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Final ChorusThe narrative structure takes one final turn before the video ends, portraying the troubled

youth approaching a telephone box in the dark city street where she enters what appears

to be her mothers number who is shown briefly answering before hanging up on her. The

two shots we receive of the motherly woman answering and hanging up both confirm and

add more aspects of ambiguity to the videothe audience become aware that the girlsown family are against her and experience dysfunctional lives themselves due to the

womans physically drained appearance as she lays in bed, but we are not aware as to

why this is the case and the scene becomes an open text. The video ends with the

troubled girl frantically pulling at car door handles in a car park during a storm to find an

open one whilst the wealthy girl repeats the narration shes lost inside which uses the

Goodwins theory element of match-on-action. This scene displays the helpless girls

devastation with her life as she has reached a new low of attempting to break in to cars togive her some form of a place she can call home. Because of the first shot of the video in

which the girl starts her day at a homeless gathering watching the sunrise followed

eventually by the ending shot of the girl turning from the camera and walking in to the

distance of the highway as the sun sets, the audience can infer that their may be an

internal circular narrative; this is her daily life style and there is no solution to the ongoing

problem.

narrative structure in avril lavigne’s ‘nobody’s home

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