Narrative Theory

There are 3 main narrative posts. They are:

·      Vladimir Propp’s theory about fairytales.

·      Tzvetan Todorov’s theory on Equilibriums & Disequilibriums.

·      Aristotle’s theory about the different themes.

Vladimir Propp (Fairytales)

Vladimir Propp had a theory about fairytales. He believed that the narratives weren’t that important, the important part was the characters. He said that each character had a function in the film. The 8 characters and their functions were:

·      The Hero – A character seeking something.

·      The Villian – The person who opposes or blocks the hero’s quest.

·      The Donor – The person who provides magical objects.

·      The Dispatcher – The person who sends the hero on their quest.

·      The False Hero – The person who makes false claims against the hero and disrupts their success.

·      The Helper – The person who aids the hero.

·      The Princess – The person who is the reward for the hero and the object of the villian’s plots.

·      The Princess’ Father – the person who gives the reward to the hero.

However, Propp’s theory only works if the film is a fairytale.

Tzvetan Todorov (Equilibrium & Disequilibrium)

Tzvetan Todorov’s theory is basically a simple version of the narrative. He said that the narrative will being in a state of equilibrium, where everything is as it should be. Then there will be some sort of disruption, which will be the disequilibrium. Then there will be recognition of the disorder and disruption. An attempt to repair the damage will happen and after that, there will be a new equilibrium for the end of the narrative.

He believed that the narrative was driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium and in the end, the equilibrium is never identical to the beginning one and that the narrative will involve some sort of transformation.

Aristotle (Themes)

Aristotle had a theory that there were certain themes that would happen within a film. These are the themes that Aristotle thought was important:

·      Inciting Incident

·      Dramatic Question

·      Character Goal

·      Antagonist/Protagonist

·      Stakes

·      Resolution

Our Theory

As a group we looked at all the theories listed above and decided that Tzevtan Todorov's was the closet theory that matched our narrative.

We believe that the theory is closely related because, our narrative starts where everything is normal and balanced nothing has happened, this is the equilibrium where the narrative begins and everything is balanced. The scene in our narrative then shows how the perfect equilibrium is disrupted, this is where the characters in our narrative begin to die in the game and are killed. The main character in our narrative then attempts to fix the disruption, by throwing the board game in a cupboard where she hopes no one will find it. Finally our narrative then reaches the resolution where the equilibrium seems to be resolved, although we are not sure as our narrative only features in the opening two minutes of our narrative.