Vladimir Propp's Narrative Theory
Propp was very intrested in the telling of folktales and fairytales. He noticed numerous similiarities in a variety of these story types, from these similarities, he developed a theory on the characters and actions as narrative functions. According to Propp, each character has a narrative function and they each provide a structure for the text.
The typical characters he found were:
The Hero - a character that seeks something.
The Villan - 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.
The False Hero - who distrupts the Hero's success by making false claims.
The Helper - who aids the Hero.
The Princess - acts as a reward for the Hero and as an object for the Villan's plans.
The King (The Princess' Father) - who acts to reward the Hero for their effort.
Binary Opposition:
A Binary Opposition is a pair of related terms that are opposite in definition. The theory was created by Claude Levi-Strauss, a French anthropologist and ethnologist. He was attempting to come up with the fundamental themes in myths and tales, believing that they were all manifestations of the same language. What he believed he had discovered in examining the relations between myths was that all myths consist of binary opposites. These binary opposites can include rich vs poor; light vs dark; good vs evil, and up vs down.
Main Brief:
This theory is important for my main brief as we are planning to introduce the hero and the villain in our opening sequence. The main character will be the hero, seeking answers to an unsolved murder that famously occurred a few streets from where she lived, whilst the villain - the ghost of the murderer - will be doing everything it can to stop her from doing this. However, the ghost shown in the opening will be the helper, but the audience will not be aware of this until later on in the film. The helper will be one of the victims of the murders who is trying to assist the hero in getting justice for her death.
As there will only be two characters in the opening sequence as the sequence itself is only 3-4 minutes long, our main focus will be on the binary opposite of good vs evil. The girl, Marie, will be representing the good, whilst the ghost will be representing the evil.
The False Hero - who distrupts the Hero's success by making false claims.
The Helper - who aids the Hero.
The Princess - acts as a reward for the Hero and as an object for the Villan's plans.
The King (The Princess' Father) - who acts to reward the Hero for their effort.
Binary Opposition:
A Binary Opposition is a pair of related terms that are opposite in definition. The theory was created by Claude Levi-Strauss, a French anthropologist and ethnologist. He was attempting to come up with the fundamental themes in myths and tales, believing that they were all manifestations of the same language. What he believed he had discovered in examining the relations between myths was that all myths consist of binary opposites. These binary opposites can include rich vs poor; light vs dark; good vs evil, and up vs down.
Main Brief:
This theory is important for my main brief as we are planning to introduce the hero and the villain in our opening sequence. The main character will be the hero, seeking answers to an unsolved murder that famously occurred a few streets from where she lived, whilst the villain - the ghost of the murderer - will be doing everything it can to stop her from doing this. However, the ghost shown in the opening will be the helper, but the audience will not be aware of this until later on in the film. The helper will be one of the victims of the murders who is trying to assist the hero in getting justice for her death.
As there will only be two characters in the opening sequence as the sequence itself is only 3-4 minutes long, our main focus will be on the binary opposite of good vs evil. The girl, Marie, will be representing the good, whilst the ghost will be representing the evil.
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