All about narrative

Narrative theory studies the devices and conventions governing the organisation of a story (fictional or factual) into a sequence.

Tzvetan Todorov (Bulgarian structuralist linguist) suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of fiction.

Vladimir Propp (Russian critic) looked at hundreds of folk tales and identified 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions. The 8 character roles are:

1.       The villain

2.       The hero

3.       The donor – who provides an object with some magic property

4.       The helper who aids the hero

5.       The princess – reward for the hero and object of the villain’s schemes

6.       Her father – who rewards the hero

7.       The dispatcher – who sends the hero on his way

8.       The false hero

These character roles and functions can be applied to all kinds of narrative – e.g. television programmes & the concept of heroes and villains.

Claude Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions (sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts – e.g. good and evil)

Narrative shapes material in terms of space and time – it defines where things take place, when the take place, how quickly they take place. Narrative, especially that of film and television, has an immense ability to manipulate out awareness of time and place – e.g. flashbacks.

There are two main modes of narrative which need to be structured:

-          Narrative of events – e.g. a hero shoots an enemy agent, dives into a lake, trigger a remote control device which will destroy the enemy submarine.

-          Narrative of drama – e.g. the heroine has a tense argument with the hero and decides he was never her type and she is going to leave. Nothing has really happened in terms of events but a lot has happened dramatically.

Restricted narrative can be used to surprise an audience – e.g. when a character does not know what is waiting around the corner and neither does the audience. A degree of unrestricted narrative, the other ‘half’ can be used to effectively build suspense, as the audience are anticipating the events to come, of which the character has no knowledge.

When we go to watch a film, we are so steeped in the narrative tradition that we approach a film with certain expectations, whether we know anything about the story or not. As the viewer watches the film, they pick up cues, recall information, anticipate what will follow, and generally participate in the creation of the film’s form. The ending has the task of satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole. The ending may also activate memory by cueing the spectator to review earlier events, possibly in a new light.

The director can create a mood or atmosphere by choosing certain shots in a certain order, to build a picture in our minds. We automatically link what is happening in one shot with what happens in those either side of it, as this is what happens in real life. Thus, by showing us a window frame and then a shot of a house, we presume that house is what you see out of that window. In this way, we are interacting with the film.