Todorovs theory of narrative
five stages
equilibrium- al that should be
disruption- disrupting the order by an event
Recognition- recognising the disruption that has occurred
Attempt to repair- repair the damage or disruption
A return or restoration of a new equilibrium

"Vladimir Propp analysed a whole series of Russian folk tales in the 1920s and decided that the same events kept being repeated in each of the stories, creating a consistent framework. His seminal book, Morphology of the Folk Tale, was first published in 1928 and has had a huge influence on literary theorists and practitioners ever since."

Izetan Todorov was a Bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influential work on narrative from the 1960’s. Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is interrupted by a series of events; problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction. Todorov claimed that conventional narratives are structured in five different stages.

mediaknowall: Props character theory

analysis on folk tales

"Propp extended the Russian Formalist study of language to his analysis of folk tales. He broke down the tales into the smallest possible units, which he called narratemes, or narrative functions, necessary for the narrative to exist. Each narrateme is an event that drives the narrative forward, possibly taking it in a different direction. Not all of these functions appear in every story, but they always appear in this order."

"Although the plot is driven by the actions and choices of the hero (the protagonist), these narrative functions are spread between the main characters. Propp also defined these character categories

the villain, who struggles with the hero (formally known as the antagonist)the donor,the helper,the Princess, a sought-for person (and/or her father), who exists as a goal and often recognizes and marries hero and/or punishes villain the dispatcher,the hero, who departs on a search (seeker-hero), reacts to the donor and wedst he false hero (or antihero or usurper), who claims to be the hero, often seeking and reacting like a real hero (ie by trying to marry the princess)"

Media Know All- 

"Story is the irreducible substance of a story (A meets B, something happens, order returns), while narrative is the way the story is related (Once upon a time there was a princess...)" (Key Concepts in Communication - Fiske et al (1983))

Levi Strauss narrative theory

Binary oppositions

Claude Levi-Strauss - constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack. Binary oppositions.

Film art- an introduction David Bordwell Kristen Thompson 

stories surrounds us. In childhood, we learn fairy tales and myths. As we grow up, we read short stories, novels, history, and biography. Religion, philosophy, and science often present their doctrines through parables and through tales. plays tells stories as do films,television shows    


theory of narrative 2 

Todorov, and many other structuralists, was attempting to isolate the universal strutures of litature and, it follows,language.

In a semiotic point of view narrative, which must exists in time is to be found in diachronic dimension ; the same is true,incidentally of genre.

lew hunter describes how the simular concepts of "vertical and linear stories"are used in hollywood script confrences; vertical narratives focus on character and linear narratives on plot .

all narative texts have a narrator;someone must be speaking in order for the audience to hear.\at a basic level we may say that this narrator is the texts auother. however the texts auother is not necesarily the texts adresser.

Annette Kuhn has surmised the conventional , or classical narrative mode of the twentith centery as
1. linearity of cause and effect within an overll trajectory of enigma-resolution
2.a high degree of narrative closure
3. a fictonal world governed by spatial and temporal verisimillitude
4.centairly of the narrative agency of psychology-rounded characters.


in order to make sense of "art films" the audience  often has to workhard at generating meaning.

while conventional narratives take care to create a choherent narrative world which, necessarily, has a single digesis, counter in cinema offers mutliple diegesis hetrogenous worlds.

film a critical introduction

a narrative is an acount of a string of events ocurring in space and time. not merley a cluster of random elements, a narrative an ordered series of events connected by the logic of cause and effect.

Characters encounter obstecals to attaining goals: these obsticals arise from within, from other characters, from nonhuman characters and from forces of nature.

Filmakers orchestrate story details in a systematic way to produce a meaningful enjoyable experience for the audience.

choices regarding how and when to present infomation about characters contribute to the overall storytelling framework of the film.

not all narrative films confirm to a three-act or four-part structure. remaining attentive to narrative , visual, and sound details that signal turning points makes it possible to discern alternate narrative structure