A Nartative theory is essetially the formula for how a story would progress, consisting of a begining, a dilemma occuring that would cause disturbance or disruption in the storys setting or a problem that the protagonist would need to face and then a conclusion which resolves the dilema in the end.
The Franco Bulgarian philospher and phyciatrist Tzvetan Tordrov had once studied story naratives and had used is findings to produce a formula, that represents the order for how the story would follow.
This theory would begin in a social setting, in which there is a sense of peace and order present at the time along with a firm sense of social order.This state of peace is called Equilibrium which means a situation in which any of the opposing sides in the story's setting are balanced.
The story of this Narrative then progresses into the middle of the story , to which the Equilibrum has become disrupted by a dilemma, such as a conflict or the arrival of the story's antagonist and the sinister actions by the antagonist. As this is the complete opposite of Equilibrum this is called Disequilibrium.
The effects of whatever the dilemma is , or what the antagonist has caused to happen would the lead to the introduction of the story's protagonist. This person would then set out to intervene in the in the story's dilemma and put an end to it . The protagonist would then succeed to provail in his mission and over come the antagonist and any other oppposing forces that he would have to face. The story is then restored to its orginal peacefull and balanced state in the form of 'New Equilibrum'.
Narative formula : Equilibrium leads to Disequilibrium which then eventually leads to New Equilibrum.
A russian structuralist called Vladamir Propp had reasearched a number of fairy tale stories and had produced a listed of character types and events that are associated with them, based on what he had learnt from he's studies(much like Tordrov). He then called these factors that he had identified 'functions'.
The main factors and character types that fairy stories consists of are:
- The hero(protagonist)
- The villian (antagonist)
- The doner (offers gift with magical properties)
- The helper (sides hero)
- The princess (hero's award)
Tzvetan Tordrov
- Tzvetan Tordrov was a philosopher from Bulgaria who had theoriszed the Narrative story method of Stories are that is based on the changing states of Equillibrum. This method would involve of a story which begins in state of Equillibrum thst means this setting in which this story is taking place would be a society that is currently in a calm and peacefull state where the opposing forces are even.
- This Equillibrum would then be disrupted by the film's dilemma in which the story will be faced with a certain predicament that affects either the story's characters or the story's setting in some way that could potentially be life threatening to them.
- The state of when a story is faced with a dilemma is called a Disequllibrum.
- This predicament would then cause the story to introduce the protagonist of the film, who would be set with the task of solvig the story's dilemma in any way they can and therefore putting an end to the story's Disequllibrum.
- Most often in stories or films the protagonist would be forced to set on a task to put an end to the story's Disequllibrum because they are unwilling and the task could be extremely risky, however there are a few situations when the protagonist would accept their task freely as they would see it as their duty.
- The protagonist would then eventually overcome all of their obstacles by then conclusion of the story and then restore the films peaceful and calm state therefore creating New Equllibrum.
Vladamir Propp
- Vladimir Propp was a soviet russian scholar and film critic.He had studied the various folk tale stories to find out all of their structure similarities in order to see whether they had all followed a specific Narrative pattern.
- As a result of his findings, Propp had concluded that each folk tale that he had studied followed 31 narrative functions and resolved around a group of eight different kinds of characters:
- The Hero-the Protagonist of the story.The person of whom's prespective shown is shown in the story and who sets out on a quest to thwart the Villian's schemes.
- The Villian-The person who opposes the stories Protagonist.
- The Dispatcher- The person who sends the hero on his or her task.
- The Helper- The person who helps the hero in his task.
- The Doner - The person who provides the hero with a magical object or the person that trains the hero for their mission.
- The princess- The hero's love interest that the hero cannot marry throughout the story (which is often because she is being imprisoned by the Villain). At then end of the story when the hero defeats the Villain the hero is now able to marry the princess as his reward.
- The Princess' father- This person can also be seen as the dispatcher as their have been numerous occasions in which the father of the princess sends the hero to retrieve his daughter safely. By the end he often rewards the hero by giving him and his daughter his blessings to elope.
- The False hero-The person who attempts to take credit from the protagonist's heroic actions or the person who pretends to be the protagonist so that he or she can benefit from the hero's rewards.
Cluade Levi-Strauss
Cluade Levi-Strauss was a french ethnologist and anthropologist.
He had researched the different narrative structures by identifying the binary oppositions that are presented within a story.The Binary oppositions in a story are essentially a group of one or more individuals that are conflicting against each other because they have contrasting aims and beliefs. This causes them to fight for their separate causes which therefore makes them see each other as enemies.
The most common example of this is the forces of Good verses the forces of Evil. This conflict is very common in stories and various types of other media because these two forces are very identifiable as being enemies seeing as though they are polar opposites of each other.This means that these separate groups would believe and want different things for themselves as well as the well beings of their societies, whether they'd want to keep the peace in it or damage it.
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