Narrative Theory

Narrative Theory

Narrative theory is a method of deconstructing the narrative of a text in detail.

Propp

Propp studied folk tales and legends from many different countries and noticed that they tend to have a similar trend. This trend being that they seemed to be about the same basic problems and the same basic character types cropped up in most of the folk tales. He focused on the way the characters appeared as types rather than individuals. Some of the types being :

-The villain (opposes the hero)
- The hero
-The donor (helps hero)
-The dispatcher (also helps hero)
-The false hero (tempts the hero away from quest)
- The helper (helps hero)
-The princess (who is the reward for hero)
- The father (who rewards hero for efforts)
-The victim (hero tries to help)

From looking at Propp’s theory I found the artist in my music video would be defined as the victim. The narrative of our story being a victim who seeks for a way to escape from her problems, this is then done by the character dancing to relieve the stress and free herself from her problems.

The narrative is also broken down by Levi-Stauss’ theory of binary opposites . The binary opposites being happy and sad emotions, the speed of the cuts being slow and fast is used to emphasise the emotions of the characters and create a more realistic narrative.

Barthes theory was also incorporated into our narrative, he believed the audience produces new meanings”. We wanted our audience to interpret our meaning correctly, this was achieved by using close-ups to show the victims suffering.

“There are five stages to a narrative”- Todorov’s theory
-Equilibrium
-A disruption of this equilibrium by an event
-A realisation that a disruption has happened
-An attempt to repair the damage of disruption
-A restoration of equilibrium

Researching Todorov’s theory we found that our music video is fragmented as it does not follow the five stages of Todorov’s theory. The narrative of our music video is broken down into 3 scenarios as we use camera cuts to show how each of the characters are affected from their problems and how it is solved, our story does not follow one simple storyline.