Narrative

Usage of narrative Narrative plays an important role in our growing up and consequently in forming our social values. It can be used as a potent means of influencing the responses of an audience to a particular event. Therefore, a narrative can be defined as a means by which producers shape and control the flow of information to an audience.

Character is an important aspect of narrative, particularly in fictional texts. In some texts, certain character types consistently recur to the point where they almost become stereotypes. Grouping people into different categories like this is called character typology.

Proppian characters and their functions The hero The villain The donor (offers gift with magical properties) The dispatcher (sends hero on mission) The helper (aids hero) The princess (hero’s reward) The father (rewards the hero) The False hero

Story and Plot Story – all events referenced both explicitly in a narrative and inferred. Plot – the events directly incorporated into the action of the text and the order in which they are presented. ……….and intimidating word # 2 Diegesis - the internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter.

Narrator The meaning of a narrative is often established by means of a narrator – the storyteller- who manages the relationship between the narrative and the audience.

Narration Narration is the act of telling the story, and the form which it takes will affect how the narrative is told.

Narrative structure  Narrative structure is the way the story or plot unfolds

Narrative Structures Open vs Closed Ended A closed structure means the story ends satisfactorily. This is known as closure. An open ending means there is no final conclusion to the story. Some texts have an interactive structure. Multistrand structure means there are several narratives running at the same time.

Media Texts Reality is difficult to understand, and we struggle to construct meaning out of our everyday experience. Media texts are better organised; we need to be able to engage with them without too much effort. We have expectations of form, a foreknowledge of how that text will be constructed. Media texts can also be fictional constructs, with elements of prediction and fulfilment which are not present in reality.

Successful stories require actions which change the lives of the characters in the story. They also contain some sort of resolution, where that change is registered, and which creates a new equilibrium for the characters involved. Remember that narratives are not just those we encounter in fiction. Even news stories, advertisements and documentaries also have a constructed narrative which must be interpreted.

the knowledge of these conventions is used to help us interpret the text. In particular, Time is something that we understand as a convention - narratives do not take place in real time but may telescope out (the slow motion shot which replays a winning goal) or in (an 80 year life can be condensed into a two hour biopic). Therefore we consider "the time of the thing told and the time of the telling." (Christian Metz Notes Towards A Phenomenology of Narrative).

It is only because we are used to reading narratives from a very early age, and are able to compare texts with others that we understand these conventions. A narrative in its most basic sense is a series of events, but in order to construct meaning from the narrative those events must be linked somehow.

What is defines a Narrative Characters have functions such as playing protagonists or antagonists, or someone in the periphery. Setting is an important ingredient in how the story unfolds and helps give the story its framework. The action determines how the events in the narrative occur and the influence they have. Aka Cause and Effect

Narrative is often delivered to the audience by expectation, suspense, tension and closure.

Narrative Conflict As well as Aristotle deciding that 'all drama is conflict' in the 4th century BC, 20th century theorist Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict that was cause by a series of opposing forces. he called this the theory of Binary Opposition, and it is used to describe how each main force in a narrative has its equal and opposite. Analysing a narrative means identifying these opposing forces

Light/dark, good/evil noise/silence youth/age right/wrong poverty/wealth strength/weakness inside/outside and understanding how the conflict between them will drive the narrative on until, finally, some sort of balance or resolution is achieved.

That's a lot to remember... Yes, but don't forget you have been deconstructing narratives since before you could read. Think of all those bedtime stories - fairy tales are an excellent demonstration of the patterns and rules of narratives, and the main theorists developed their ideas from the study of fairy and folk tales across different cultures. All the theorists do is provide a formal framework for describing how you already understand the meaning and significance of a narrative.

Questions to ask How is the narrative organized? What is the audience’s role in relation to the narrative? How are the characters used in the narrative? What techniques of identification and alienation are used in the text? What else does the storyteller does to engage our attention and tell the story?

What are the major themes of the narrative and what values and ideologies are evident.

Point of View (POV) Enigma creates a puzzle that the audience tries to solve while the character acts out the story.