Narrative Theory

A Narrative is the way in which a story is told, fictional or non fictional into a sequence. Our narrative is linear.

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. The seven character types by Propp are: 1. 2. 3. 4. The villainstruggles against the hero The donorprepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object The (magical) helperhelps the hero in the quest The princess and her fathergives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father cannot be clearly distinguished 5. The dispatchercharacter who makes the lack known and sends the hero off. 6. The hero or victim/seeker heroreacts to the donor, weds the princess 7. False herotakes credit for the heros actions or tries to marry the princess.

Todorov Theory Russian theorist, Tzvetan Todorov, suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure. They begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is restored. Two stages will be used in our 2 minute sequence, it will begin with an equilibrium and will then a disturbance will take place, due to our sequence only being 2 minutes we cant restore the equilibrium as it is only an opening sequence.

Equilibrium: Two young girls at the cemetery visiting their dads grave.

Disturbance: Super natural man snatches one of the girls, leaving one alone.