Summary of various Narrative Theories

Summary of Narrative Theories

1.Tzvetan Todorov

A Bulgarian structuralist linguist who published influential work on narrative from the 1960s onwards. He suggested that stories began with an equilibrium or a normal world where any potential opposing forces in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting off a series of events. Then the problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction. This is the “classic Hollywood” narrative structure based on Todorov's ideas.
So in a horror movie using this narrative would be for example: a normal town or village for the equilibrium which is then disrupted by the dead rising from their graves, causing disequilibrium, which is then solved by hero or heroes who resolve the problem by killing the zombies, therefore creating a new equilibrium by the end of the story

2.Vladimir Propp

A Russian critic who examined 100 examples of folk tales to see if they shared any structures. His book on “Morphology of the Folk Tale” was first published in 1928. He identified 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions. The 8 character roles are:
The Villain
The Hero
The Donor-who provides an object with some magic property or use
The Helper who aids the hero
The Princess (the sought for person)-reward for the hero and object of the villain's schemes
Her Father-who rewards the hero
The Dispatcher-who sends the hero on his way
and the False Hero
This narrative theory is applied to all kinds of narrative. In TV news programmes we are often presented with “heroes” and “villains”.

3.Bordwell and Thompson

They both published a book “Film Art: An Introduction” which defines narrative as “ a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space”. They did not create a full narrative theory but had some interesting ideas. For them, a narrative typically begins with one situation, a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation arises that brings about the end of the narrative. Narrative shapes material in terms of space and time, it defines where things took place, when they are about to take place and how quickly they will take place. Narrative thus, uses techincal effects to manipulate our awareness of time and space; e.g. flashbacks, slow motion, speeding up and down. This is especially important in horror, because the rate of pace and narrative will have a distinct effect in the audience.

Narrative can help to build suspense in horror using two types of narrative:
Restricted narrative=Used to surprise an audience, e.g. when a character does not know what is waiting around the corner and neither does the audience.
Unrestricted narrative=Gives the audience more information than the character, which can be used to effectively to build suspense, as the audience knows and anticipates the events of which the character has no knowledge. For example, two characters are having a chat and there is a bomb beneath the table between them. Nothing happens and then all of the sudden the bomb explodes and the audience is surprized. This can be highly effective in a horror film situation, but the audience does not know about it, therefore it does not create a great amount of suspense. By using the same situation but looking at the suspense of the scene, then it would be to let the audience see the bomb through editing of the scene and occasionally cuts to a close-up of it ticking away as the characters talk. The audience is aware that the bomb will explode soon. The audience is participating in the scene, longing to warn the characters of their impending doom.