NARRATIVE THEORIES

ROLAND BARTHES CODE THEORY:• Barthes believed that texts are like a tangled ball of threads and the more you unravel it

the more viewpoints you find

• He put these view points into 6 different codes:

The Hermeneutic Code (The Voice of Truth)

The Enigma Code (The Empirical Voice)

The Semantic Code (The Voice of the Person)

The Symbolic Code (The Voice of Symbols)

The Cultural Code (The Voice of Science)

PROPP’S APPROACH TO NARRATIVE THEORY:• Propp believed that narrative was shaped around different character types

• There are seven main character types:

The Villain

The Donor

The Helper

The Princess

The Dispatcher

The Hero

The False Hero

LEVI-STRAUSS BINARY OPPOSITES:• Strauss said that Binary Opposites create meaning through establishing what something

is not. We understand the world through a system of power weighted oppositions i.e.

Man V Woman

Black V White

Young V Old

Hero V Villain

Good V Bad

• This can help establish the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters as we cannot conceive the concept of ‘good’ without the concept of ‘bad’

• Binary Opposites are shown in narrative because fundamentally a narrative must be based on a conflict between i.e. a ‘hero’ and ‘villain’

TODOROV’S NARRATIVE THEORY:• Todorov simplified the idea of Narrative theory by saying that there are five main stages the

narrative can progress through:

A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be)

A disruption of that order by an event

A recognition that the disorder has occurred

An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption

A return or restoration of a new equilibrium

• The Narrative is therefore seen as circular and is driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium.

• He also argues the narrative involves some sort of transformation whether that be through the characters or the situation. Also the disruption itself usually takes place outside the normal social frame work or the ‘normal’ social events i.e. a murder happens and people are terrified.