THEORY - Theories

Narrative Theory
Propp's Fairy tale CharactersVladimir Propp was a Russian critic who examined folk tales to see if there was any common structures that they shared. Propp discovered 8 main character roles that were common to the Folk tales and also discovered 31 narrative functions. 
Suggested 8 most common characters in a narrative :
  1. The Hero
  2. The Villain (struggles against the hero)
  3. The Donor/Enabler (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
  4. The Helper (helps the hero on their quest
  5. The Princess (often sought for during the narrative)
  6. Her Father (rewards the hero)
  7. The False Hero (percieved as a good character in the beginning and emerges as evil)
  8. The dispatcher (send the hero off on their quest)
Todorov's Equilibrium
  1. State of equilibrium
  2. Disruption of equilibrium
  3. A recognition of the disruption
  4. An attempt to repair the disruption
  5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium
Binary Opposition

Claude Levi Strauss was French antropolohist and ethnologist who came up with the theory of Binary Opposition. This Theory was based around the sets of opposite values that are feautred in the structure of media texts. He wasnt exactly interested in the events or arrangement but of deeper themes. He found multiple examples of this:
  1. Fear - Confidence
  2. Light - Dark
  3. Good - Bad
  4. Earth - Space
  5. Humans - Aliens
  6. Past - Present 
  7. Normal - Strange
  8. Known - Unknown

Tzvetan Todorov was a Bulgarian structuralist linguist that published a lot of work on narrative from around the 1960s+. He suggested that stories began with an equilibrium that opposing forces were potentially equal. The peace was then distrupted which resulted in a chain of events. The problems are then eventually resolved that restores the peace.
Binary Opposition


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