This can be explored via the russian formalists in the early 1920s.
there are three main theorists and they are:
- Claude Levi-Strauss
- Tzvetan Todorov
- Vlamidir Propp
He was born in Brussels in belgium on the 27 november 1908.He died in paris , france on 30th october 2009 and he was 100 years old then. He was a french Anthropologist and ethnologist and has been named along side James George Frazer the "father of modern anthropology"
Summary
He discussed/argued that the "savage" mind has the same sturcutres as the "civilized" mind and that the human characterisitics are the samne everywhere. These observations culinated in his famous book Tristes Tropiques which positioned him as one of the main central figures in the sturcturalist school of thought, this is where his ideas reached into fileds including the humanities, sociology and philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activitiy.
His theory was that meanings including narrative depend on binary oppositions.
Lévi-Strauss
required applying the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure to
anthropology. At the time, the family was traditionally well thought-out the fundamental
object of analysis, but was seen mainly as a self-contained unit
consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children. Nephews, cousins, aunts,
uncles, and grandparents all were treated as secondary. Lévi-Strauss argued
that, nevertheless similar to Saussure's notion of linguistic value, families
acquire determinate identities only through relations with one another. Thus he
inverted the classical view of anthropology, putting the secondary family
members first and insisting on analyzing the relations between units instead of
the units themselves.
In
his own analysis of the formation of the identities that arise through
marriages between tribes, Lévi-Strauss noted that the relation between the
uncle and the nephew was to the relation involving brother and sister, as the
relation among father and son is to that between husband and wife, that is, A
is to B as C is to D. Therefore if we know A, B, and C, we can predict D, just
as if we know A and D, we can foresee B and C. The goal of Lévi-Strauss's structural
anthropology was to simplify the stacks of practical data into general,
comprehensible relations amid units, which allow for foretelling laws to be
identified, such as A is to B as C is to D. Equally, Lévi-Strauss identified
myths as a type of speech through which a language could be exposed. This
theory attempted to explain how seemingly fantastical and arbitrary tales,
could be so alike across cultures. Because he believed there was not one
"authentic" account of a myth, rather that they were all
manifestations of the same language, he hunted to find the essential units of
myth, namely, the mytheme. Lévi-Strauss broke each of the versions of a myth
down into a cycle of sentences, consisting of a relation linking a function and
a subject. Sentences with the same function were specified the same number and
bundled together. These are mythemes.
Lévi-Strauss
believed he had revealed when he examined the relations between mythemes was
that a myth consists of nothing but binary oppositions. Oedipus, for instance,
consists of the overrating of blood relations and the underrating of blood
relations, the autochthonous origin of humans and the denial of their
autochthonous origin. Influenced by Hegel, Lévi-Strauss assumed that the human
mind thinks fundamentally in these binary oppositions and their unification
(the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad), and that these are what compose
meaning possible. Furthermore, he considered the job of myth to be a sleight of
hand, an union of an irreconcilable binary opposition with a reconcilable
binary opposition, creating the illusion,/ belief, that the former had been
resolved.
Example with analysis:
He was born March 1, 1939 in Sofia. He is a Franco-Bulgarian Philospher. He has lived in France since 1963 with his wife Nancy Huston and their two children, writing books and essays about literary theory, thought history and culture theory.
His Narrative thoeryTodorov's greatest contribution to literary theory was his definition of the Fantastic, the fantastic uncanny and the fantastic marvelous. Todorov defines the fantastic as being any event that happens in our world that seems to have supernatural effect. Upon the occurrence of the event, we must decide if the event was an illusion or whether it is real and has actually taken place. Todorov uses Alvaro from Cazotte's Le Diable Amoureux as an example of a fantastic event. Alvaro must decide whether the woman he is in love with is truly a woman or if she is the devil.Upon choosing whether the event was real or imaginary, Todorov says that we enter into the genres of uncanny and marvelous. In the fantastic uncanny, the event that occurs is actually an illusion of some sort. The "laws of reality" remain intact and also provide a rational explanation for the fantastic event. Todorov gives examples of dreams, drugs, illusions of the senses, madness, etc. as things that could explain a fantastic/supernatural event. In the fantastic marvelous, the supernatural event that occurs has actually taken place and therefore the "laws of reality" have to be changed to explain the event. Only if the implied reader cannot opt for one or the other possibility, the text is purely fantastic.
Key point of the Theory:
This theorist suggested that most narraties start with a state of equilibrium in which life is "normal" and Protagonists happy. This state of normality is disrupted by an outside force, which has to be fought against in order to return to a state of equilibrium. this can be easily applied to a wide range of films. All stories start in a state of equilibrium, which is then disturbed, setting in a motion a chain of events. the resolution of the story is the creation of a new different equilibrium.
Equilibrium-----> Distruption-------->Resolution/Re-equilibrium
This narrative structure can be found in most hollywood films and Music videos.
An exmaple of this is
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He was born on 17th april 1895 in St. Petersburg to a German family. He had attended St.Petersburg unviersity from 1913-1918 majoring in Russian and german Philology. Upon his Graduation he taught Russian and German At a secondary School and then became a College Teacher of German. His book morphology of the folktale was published in Russian in 1928. it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics and morphology and influenced Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes as it was generally unnoticed in the west until the transaltion was done in 1958. His theory about character types are currenlt used in the media education and this can be applied to almost any story whether is is literature, film theatre, television series, games and etc.
1932 Propp had become a member of Lenigrad university (which is currently now called St Petersburg University) Faculty. In 1938 he shifted the focus of his research from linguistics to Folklore. He Chaired the department of Folklore until this transfered to the name of departmenet of Russian Literature. He was still a faculty member until he died on 22nd August 1970. He was a Soviet Formalist Scholar who analysed the basic plot componenets of russian folktales to identify thier simplest irreducible narrative elements.
Summary of the narrative theory:
he was essentially interested in the narrative of folk tales. He has identified a thoery about folk tales being similar in many areas.They were about the same basic struggles and they appeared to have stock charcaters.
This theorist proposed that it was possible to classify characters and thier actions into clelarly defined roles and functions. the model is useful as it highligths the similarities between semingly quite different stories.
Key point of the theory
This theory identifies about characters and actions as narrative function; which it then provides a structure for text.
The hero- a character that seeks something
The villian-who opposes or actively blocks the hero's Quest.
http://www.slideshare.net/wmorris/narrative-theories
An example of this:
