Narrative

Found this interesting on Narrative in This is England

Applying Narrative Theories - "This Is England"

In the film "This Is England" we can see that generic roles appear which have been stated by Propps who studied hundreds of Russian Folk Tales and noticed patterns that seemed to exist in all of the stories. The roles which occur in "This Is England follow Propps theory of a villian, which in this case i think is Combo, because he seems to be the one that controls everyone but then the hero which could be seen as Woody because he goes against Combo and tries to act like a authoritian figure towards the rest of the group, such as Shuan, the donor who provides something to help the hero in this film he helps Woody by giving Woody the chance to be a father figure to Shaun. There is also the helper which is Lol who acts like Woody girlfriend she helps him and sticks by him through the tough times with Combo. The donor and the helper could be switched either way as they both do the same job. But then Lol could also be seen as the Princess because we soon find out that Lol has had a past with Combo but now realises it was the wrong thing.
In this film "This Is England" shows the idea of Todorov's theory of the story structure which in order to actually be a narrative or a story then all narratives must follow the same basic structure.
Equilibrium - Disruption - Quest to restore Equilibrium - New Equilibrium.
The film shows that ther is a normal life which is pursued by Shaun, He is being bullied by school pupils and is getting annoyed by it he also has no father because he died in the war. This could be seen as the Equilibrium because of it's social realism to society now. But then there is a Disruption when Shaun meets the skin heads in the tunnel and finds Woody who then takes on the role of being a father figure to Shaun. Then we come across a quest to restore the Equilibrium which is when combo comes along with a mission to do with the BNP and restoring English jobs in England and also wants to take revenge for people in the war taking his fathers life. We then end with a new Equilibrium which is when Shaun realises that Combo is abit mentally ill after beating Shauns friend Milky, he then forms a strong bond with his mother after having a disucssion about his father in which we then find out that Milky is going to be ok. This film follows Todorov's structure very well and shows the film has a story to it.
Barthes' theory of Enigma Codes which are puzzles that we have to solve along the way when watching "This Is England". He thought that a key aspect of narrative was the way stories establish a variety of Enigma Codesthat create tension and provide a real picture for the audience. "This Is England" provides a puzzle in the first few scenes of the film in which we do can not figure out if Woody is a nice person or if he was just being nice to bully Shaun, the puzzle was solved by figuring out that Woody just wanted to be Shauns friend. The second puzzle in this film is with Combo in which we don't know if he is mentally ill or just jealous of the fact that Milky has a nice family and Combo doesn't.