Media conventions: Narrative

Definitions – Plot vs. Narrative Plot: The sequence of incidents or events that comprise a story. Narrative: The way a story is told; how information is presented to an audience.

What Narratives Do in Media Texts Simplify & organize Familiarize & allow for prediction

Features of Narrative Structure of time Point of view Linear/Chronological – ex. most ‘biopics’ (biographies) Non Linear – ex. Pulp Fiction, Memento Cyclical – ex. Groundhog Day, Run Lola Run Point of view Single/Multiple viewpoints (restricted vs. omniscient) Motivations, Causes & Effects Open or closed Episode of a TV sitcom vs. a film

Narration, Story & Plot Diegesis – a term for the world of the story, which can include music. Story – consists of all the events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly presented and those the viewer infers. Plot – “everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us', including all the story events directly depicted” Narration – 1st person, 3rd person & omniscient (voice over) Unrestricted narration– the audience knows more, sees more, hears, more than all the characters. Also called omniscient narration, especially in historical narratives, where the audience knows the outcome of an actual historical event (i.e., Civil War) that the characters are living on screen. Restricted narration – The characters and the audience learn story information at the same time.

Vladimir Propp Russian Formalist The Morphology of the Folk Tale (1928) Stated that all fairytales have common narrative structures and character functions (stock characters)

Propp’s Analysis of Fairytales Propp examined hundreds of fairy tales and identified: 31 functions which move the story along Examples include the punishment of the villain (usually at the end of the story); the ban of an action (i.e. if Sleeping Beauty touches a spinning wheel, she will die) Not all 31 had to be present, however, they did always follow the same sequential order These functions were performed by one of 8 main character types/roles that advanced the action 8 character roles (or‘spheres of action’)

Propp – (Stock) Characters & Roles Propp’s 8 character roles or‘spheres of action’ The hero, who is motivated by an initial lack The villain, who tries to defeat the hero The donor, who provides an object with some magic property The helper, who aids the hero The princess, a reward for the hero and object of the villain’s schemes Her father, who validates the hero The dispatcher, who sends the hero on his way The false hero, who presents a contrast with the real hero

Modern Day Examples

Propp – Narrative as Structure Propp’s theory is a form of structuralism, which is a view that all media is inevitably in the form of certain fixed structures. These structures are often culturally derived and form expectations in the mind of an audience from within that same culture (fairy tales always have happy endings or the princess always marries the handsome prince). Genre plays an important role in structuring our expectations and understanding which rules can apply in the narrative. In other words, we know the rules that determine how certain kinds of narratives will ‘behave’ (detective stories vs. romantic comedies)

Tvzetan Todorov Franco-Bulgarian philosopher who coined the term narratology, meaning to look at units of meaning in a text. Claimed all stories had a basic structure based on equilibrium.

Todorov – Narrative & Equilibrium Equilibrium (sense of order/calm, the status quo) A disruption of this equilibrium by an event A realization that a disruption has happened An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption A restoration of the equilibrium which may be a new or changed one

Roland Barthes French semiologist Identifies different‘codes’ of narratives

Barthes – The Enigma Code (Puzzles) The narrative poses questions or ‘puzzles’ that create suspense and move the story along. As audiences, the unravelling of these codes and thinking about the questions posed by events provide viewing pleasure. We should feel at the end of a good detective story or thriller that we have been pleasurably puzzled, so that the‘solution’—our piecing together of the story in its proper order out of the evidence offered by the plot—will come as a pleasure. We should not feel that the plot has cheated; that parts of the story have suddenly been revealed which we couldn’t possibly have guessed at (ex. In a murder mystery, the butler cannot, at the last minute, suddenly be revealed to be a poisons expert).

Claude Levi-Strauss French anthropologist He looked at narrative structure and themes in texts in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are opposite values that reveal the structure of media texts (he also argued that cultures are structured in a similar way). These oppositions create tensions and conflicts that structure stories.

Levi-Strauss – Binary Oppositions Hero Coward Natural Artificial Good Evil Male Female Rational Emotional Strong Weak Day Night

Binary Oppositions in a ‘Western’ film Homesteaders Native Americans Christian Pagan Domestic Savage Weak Strong Farm/Garden Wilderness Inside society Outside society

Summary PROPP – ‘Stock’ character types with prescribed roles TODOROV – Equilibrium is disturbed and then restored BARTHES – Narratives provide puzzles for us to solve LEVI-STRAUSS – Binary oppositions create conflicts and tensions that propel the narrative