Narrative theory

We have also looked at narrative theory; this is basically looking at how most plots for films and story form.

We started with Tzvetan Todrov, a Bulgarian literary theorist reduced the concept of narrative down you a simple recurring formula:

Equilibrium           Disequilibrium               New Equilibrium

This says that a narrative starts with a state of equilibrium or life being normal. An outside force then disrupts this sense of normality; the character/s must then adapt and overcome this disruption and then come to a new sense of normality not quite the same as the first sense of normality

Our second theory was that of Vladimir prop a Russian critic and literary theorist. He studied over 100 Russian fairy tales and proposed that it was possible to classify the characters and their actions his typical character roles were:

.The hero (seeks something)

.The villain (opposes the hero)

.The donor (helps the hero by providing a magic object)

.The dispatcher (sends the hero onto his mission)

.The false hero (falsely assuming the role of the hero)

.The helper (gives the hero support)

.The princess (the hero’s reward but may also need protection from the villain)

This theory actually be found in many feature films such as star wars harry potter and james bond

We finally looked at Claude Levi-Strauss, a social anthropologist. He examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs and myths of a culture. He was also interested in how much of the worlds were described in binary opposites. Binary opposites means two conflicting qualities or terms, e.g. light/dark, good/ bad  etc.

Learning about both narrative and audience theory has really helped give us a grasp on our own thriller and in truth we probably do have  afew examplles of the theories within our thriller however hopefully they are not ver conventional and predictable