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Narritive
What is narrative?
A spoken, written or visual account of connected events.
What are the conventions of narratives in-
Comedy:
Comedy is conventionally a beginning, middle, and end story
line. It starts with things being normal so, in the middle, we can see how they
react to a disruption of the norms, which is then resolved by the end.
Horror:
Horror’s narrative conventions are often varied. They
sometimes start at the middle or the end and then explain how that scenario was
reached.
Action:
Action tends to be a very straightforward of beginning,
middle and end in order to keep the plot clear.
Drama:
Similar to action, in order for the audience to retain their
understanding of the plot itself, the narrative usually follows the classic
beginning, middle, end structure.
Romance:
Romance, much like horror, varies in structure. Due to
limited storylines, in order to keep the films interesting, the structure
varies and can start from the middle or end as well as the beginning.
Narrative theories-
Vladimir Propp:
Propp proposed a theory revolving around the key types of
character you should find within a narrative to propel the story along.
- 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 (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
- The false hero (perceived as good character in beginning but emerges as evil)
- The dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)
- The hero [AKA victim/seeker/paladin/winner, reacts to the donor, weds the princess
Tzvetan Todorov:
Todorov produced a theory which was supposedly applicable to any film. He believed that all films followed the same narrative and stages called the ‘equilibrium’, ‘disequilibrium’, ‘acknowledgement’, ‘solving’ and again ‘equilibrium’.
There are five stages the narrative can progress through:
1. A state of equilibrium.
2. A disruption of that order by an event.
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A return or restoration of a new equilibrium.
Claude Levi-Strauss:
Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory suggested ‘binary oppositions’ as a way of accessing meaning and sub-context within narratives. He argued that all meaning was dependent and constructed based on these oppositions-
Good/ evil
Male/ female
Humanity/ technology
Nature/ industrialisation
East/ west
Dark/ light
Dirtiness/ cleanliness
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