EVALUATION - Narrative Analysis

The narrative theory is a method of deconstructing the narrative of a text in detail. Narrative simply means the media term for storytelling. It is the way in which the different elements within a story are organised to make a meaningful story to the audience. There are four main theories of narrative from Propp, Levi-Strauss, Todorov and Barthes.

Propp's spheres of action

He believed in many stories there was always the same basic characters, dealing with the same basic problems. He focused on the way that characters tended to be types rather than individuals. The eight main types of characters he noted include:

• the hero- who is on a quest


• the villain- opposes the hero


• the donor- helps the hero


• the dispatcher- starts the hero on his way


• the false hero- tempts the hero away from his quest


• the helper- helps the hero on his way


• the princess- reward for the hero


• the princess' father-rewards the hero

Levi-Strauss Binary opposites

He described the world in terms of opposites. Binary opposites are sets of opposite values which reveals the structure of the media texts. There is always the good vs the evil, light vs dark, day and night ect.

Barthes Enigma Code

He was interested in the concepts of negotiated meaning between the institution and the audience. He argues that the audience of a text can create new meanings from it, using their past experiences. This means that everyone takes different meanings from each text. The cultural context of consumption is just as important as the original content itself. He described texts as networks, which relates to the different was in which people consume texts and understand them in their own meanings.

He also thought of the enigma code. This is the mystery which hooks in the audience into watching the whole film, or finishing a book for the enigma to be resolved. This is very popular to be used in teaser trailers for films to attract the audience to watch the film in the cinema.

Todorov five stage narrative

He suggested that there was a five stage narrative in every media text. This starts with:

• the equilibrium- when everything is happy and normal


• a disruption of the equilibrium by an event- things start turning bad


• the realisation of this disrupted equilibrium- people know something bad is occurring


• the attempt to repair this damage of the disruption- hero tries to save the day


• the restoration of the equilibrium or a new equilibrium- back to normal and happy again

This is easy to identify the structure of the narrative with, and shows how many stories depend upon establishing how an equilibrium is disrupted to create a good story.

Nikki Stock