Narrative Theories - Levi-Strauss/Propp/Todorov

Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude Levi-Strauss was a French anthropologist/ethnologist who believed that narratives involved conflict of binary opposites. He believed them as themes rather than events:

• Good vs Evil
• Man vs Machine
• Hero vs Villain
• Truth vs Lies

Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp was a Russian scholar who used to look at Russian folk tales and thought of a theory that they can be compared to many aspects of life. He thought that characters and the events in a story are shown as narrative functions - they were necessary for the structure of any story (stock characters):

• The Hero - a character that is out to seek something (quest)
• The Villain - a character who opposes the hero and has to stop him for personal (selfish) gain
• The Donor - a character who gives the hero mythical/magical objects to assist him on the quest
• The Dispatcher - a character who sends the hero on his quest for a particular reason (this reason eventually becomes the backbone of the narrative and is the hero's objective)
• The Princess - a character who gets into/is in trouble, waiting for the hero to rescue her
• The False Hero - a character who tries to shame the hero, making himself look like the hero
• The Princess's Father - a character who rewards the hero for his efforts of saving his daughter

These characters do exist in modern, mainstream Hollywood, particularly in fairytale animated films like Tangled.

Tzvetan Todorov
Tzvetan Todorov was a Bulgarian philosopher who believed that all stories and talks started in a neutral state (equilibrium) which was the disturbed by a chain of events (disruption). The narratives would then end in the resolving of the disruption (resolution).

Equilibrium>Disruption>Resolution