Narrative Theory

Narrative Theories are structures that apply to film and the characters within, there are four main theories created by Propp, Todorov, Levi-Strauss and Bordwell and Thompson. Narrative theories are devised to help the character relate to the story in a sequence of events that could relate to the real world and to make sense of the sequence of events, which are often left to the audience to assume. Due to this and character roles fitting narrative theories perfectly to any movie is almost impossible, for example The Shinning.

Tzvetan Todorov's theory began with a calm equilibrium where a world is neutral or in balance, this is then disrupted by an event or series of events. He applied his theories to mostly 'classic hollywood' and 'cleasic realist' work. The stages of events are in the diagram to the left for his theory. Within the Shining the successes of this theory is the order of events in that that family are somewhat calm in their suburban home and soon the hotel appears and the family move, this being the disruption. This is followed by the path of resolution by Wendy and Danny as they try to es

cape Jack and escape the hotel. The new equilibrium is the escape from Jack and the hotel in the Snowcat and their safety is implied. However, it cold be seen as order is not fully restored as the character of Jack, originally the father, is no longer part of their lives as they leave.

Vladimir Propp a russian critic looked at folk tales to study character roles and this was the bases of his first book 'Morphology of the Folk Tale'. He identified 31 narrative functions and 8 character roles. I found his character roles particularly hard to fit the The Shining due to the lack of character's in the film itself, as it's based around

the experiences of 3 main solid characters and only 2 or 3 other characters which are either only apparent once or twice or from the imagination of Jack himself or even ghosts of past events. The character roles are;

• The Villain (s) Jack? The Hotel? Grady?
• The Hero Wendy/Danny. Tony
• The Donor Tony/ Hallaran (the Shining/Snowcat)
• The Helper Wendy/Danny? Tony?
• The Princess Wendy/Danny
• Her Father Jack? Tony?
• The dispatcher Hotel Owner? Jack?
• The false hero Jack

Propps theory helps us to see that characters are not just people but functions and we are able to look at them as objects instead of looking at their actions to determine the character role. In order to use his theory you have to be able to look at it in a functionalist eye rather than an ordinary watcher.

Claude Levi-Strauss looked at binary opposites and opposite values for example the use of GOOD vs EVIL and how we understand one being the opposite of the other and how some genres have a se list of binary opposites. These work well with The Shining as there is;

good/evil,

known/unknown,

past/present,

normal/strange,

sane/insane, etc.

However, there are no concrete boundaries as Jack crosses from good to evil and is in one scene in the present and in the next walking around the hotel in the past with the staff from the past etc his theory helps us in seeing how themes are juxtaposed.

Bordwell and Thompson look at narrative as 'a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space' they never created a full theory but introduced some very interesting ideas looking at time and space. They believe that a story beings with one typical situation and a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect and a new situation rises bringing an end to narrative. This works relitevly well with The Shining the situation is the mother and child at home, this is then changed by the moving to the hotel, the isolated hotel is the beginning of the sequence of cause and effect as Jack begins to turn against his family. The audience according to Bordwell and Thompson are generally left to fill in missing gaps and make assumptions to twist the story to what they would prefer, they experemened with this by using an actor with a blank expression and flashed opposing images between this shot, such as a baby, a bowl of soup and a dead body. The blank face was described as affectionate, sad and hungry even though the expression never changed. This works i the film, for example who was the woman in the bathtub, or who hurt Danny? It could have been the old caretakers wife who he killed or anyone. And why is Jack in the old photo frame, was it because he's now mentally trapped there, Grady was his ancestor. Why did Grady tell Jack he'd 'always been there'. At the beginning we hear the story of Grady killing his family and we know Jack will try do the same, but the events that build up this stage are slow and progressive. Their theory helps us understand the use of time.