Research: Narrative Theory - Miss Begum

What is Narrative?

Narrative is usually the main storyline and plot set within the film. It is important to have a narrative for if there was none then the audience would be watching a film without any idea as to what may be going on which will leave them confused and clueless.

In terms of creating meaning in texts or films there are four elements which allow the audience to do so. There are Connotations and Denotations as in a movie take a knife, the denotation will be that it is a knife used for cutting food and etc., but a connotation will present it as being a weapon and it is associated with danger.

The next one is Characters, and with characters we can identify their roles and specifically look into the way they are adapted to suit their roles. Doesn’t really help as much but it is still a main factor.

As of Genres, with different genres there will always be a theme beneath them to give the audience identify the narrative and what may occur during the film, e.g. in a Comedy there will be scenes of laughter and joy as they may aim to pump up the audiences happiness.

The last one which in my opinion is the most important is the Structure of a narrative, and usually it will be commonality of having a start, middle then ending to top off the story. Modern day films may not be of good support as they have a start, middle, come to the ending and say “oh hey you know what will be a good idea? Making a sequel”, then there you go with an unfinished plot but an ending in progress.

There are four theories within media to follow on from the structural side of elements. The first theory is from that of Propp, in which he sees their structures as being that of a fairytale. Propp was mainly interested in narrative folk tales, and he strongly believed that folk tales were about the same basic struggles, therefore ended up with the same characters. Characters have a narrative function which provide a structure for the text.

Another theorist of media is that of Todorov, he believed that there was an order in which things happen. That there is a complication, Protagonist plans action against villain, then there’s the transference in which the protagonist reacts to the donor, and then there is the struggle of villain having to be overcome by the protagonist, subsequently the return in which the protagonist arrives home but is not recognized. The last stage is the recognition as the false hero or villain is unmasked and true identity revealed. Usually, it is another process called Equilibrium and it is how the characters appear stable at the beginning, the Disequilibrium in which something happens a change occurs which needs to be resolved. Finally there’s the New Equilibrium and usually the disruption is sorted and the narrative is closed.

A man called Aristotle centered his theories round themes and emotions. His structure consisted of it going from an Exposition in which the audience gets to know the character. The Rising Action when the protagonist understands his/her goal and starts to work towards it. It then reaches the Climax which is the point of the greatest overall tension; the phase in which everything goes mostly wrong. Then the climax ends and there comes the Falling Action which is the turning point of the story, where the main character makes the decision that defines the outcome of the story, then lastly comes the Denouement which is the resolution and all mysteries are solved.

The last theory is that of Barthes and it is pretty simple and easiest of the four in my personal opinion. The media theory of him was that a narrative can be defined through:

Symbolic – Connotation

Semic – Denotation

Cultural Understanding – Events which can be recognized as being part of a structure e.g. A pumpkin is associated with Halloween in most normal cases and that will be how the audience will see it on screen.

Take the mask from the famous 1978 movie Halloween, the denotation would be that it’s a mask. The connotation would be that the character uses it to hide his identity or to get away with actions without being recognized as such. The cultural understanding would be that because it is Halloween it will be dark thus allowing for them to create the effect with the mask.

Conclusion

From my study of the different elements and media theories I may take interest into using Barthes narrative structure idea to create my opening sequence as I am very intrigued into his narrative structure and theory.