Research: Narrative theory - Miss Begum

Narrative theory

What is narrative theory?

The narrative theory is the way the story of a movie is told and how meaning is constructed to achieve the understanding of the audience. The narrative refers to all the events in a movie. The narrative is important because the audience need to understand what is happening in the movie in order for the story to make sense.

Four element that allow the audience to find meaning.

Genre: the genre creates more meaning to the audience as they can understand the narrative more by knowing what the genre is. For example if the genre was romance the story would normally be about two people in love and if the story was thriller you would expect to see violence and gore.

Character: the way characters are presented in movies is important because it allows us to create meaning and context for the characters. For example if a character is wearing black you would think he is an evil character. And if a character was wearing white it would show purity.

Structure: The structure of the movies is important because the structure of the movie will help the narrative for example every movie has to have a start middle and end or it wouldn’t make sense.

Denotation connotations: connotations and denotation create meaning in movies because the denotation will be something like a pan using to cook something but the connotation would be like using a pan to hit someone in the head to knock them out.

Theorist:

Propp: Propp was meaning mainly interested in narrative folk tales. He believed that folk tales were about the same basic struggles. Therefore he has the same characters. Characters have a narrative function, they provide a structure for the text.

Propp’s characters include:

·         The Hero - A character that seeks for better things

·         The Villain - Who opposes or actively blocks the hero's quest

·         The Donor - Who provides an object with magical properties

·         The Dispatcher - Who sends the hero on his/her quest via a message

·         The False Hero - Who disrupts the hero's success by making false claims

·         The Helper - Who aids the hero

·         The Princess - Acts as a reward for the hero and the object of the villains plot

·         Her Father - Who acts to reward the hero for his effort

Event Order (Stages):

1)      Complication - Hero acts towards the villain via plan

2)      Transference - Hearo reacts to the donor

3)      Struggle - Villain has to be overcome

4)      Return - Hero arrives home

5)      Recognition - False hero or villain is unmasked

Todarov:

Todarov believed in the idea of an equilibrium and disequilibrium and new

Equilibrium

Equilibrium: is the beginning of the movie where there is no problem and

Everything is a peace

Disequilbrium: this is the climax of the movie and where everything goes wrong.

New Equiblrium: is the idea of a new beginning and everything is at peace once

Again.

Aristotle:

Aristotle was centered his theories round themes and emotions his structure consisted of it going from an exposition in which the audience gets to know the character.

1)      Exposition - The audience gets to know the main character

2)      Rising Action - Protagonist understand her or his goal and beings to work towards it

3)      Climax - Greatest overall tension; the phase in which everything goes mostly wrong

4)      Falling Action - The turning point of the story, where the main character makes the decision that defines the outcome of the story

5)      Denouement - The resolution is that all mystery is solved

Barthes:

The last theorist is Barthes his narrative can be defined through connotations and denotations and cultural understanding.

Conclusion: researching about these theorist has improved my understanding about narritives and has helped me to decide what narrative I am going to do for my thriller opening scene and the narrative I am probably going to use is todaraov’s theory because it is the most used theory in thriller films today.