Narrative Theory

Narrative Theory

I will have a look into five narrative theorists and how my media product matches or subverts each of their theories.

Joseph Campbell

Campbell, said to be one of George Lucas' main influences in the Star Wars films, argued that all films are essentially a battle between good and evil, that 'eternal myths and stories are shared by all cultures'. Looking at our film we have taken a slightly alternative approach to the traditional idea of a battle between good and evil, we placed both of these archetypes into our main protagonist, to represent how no person can be truly could or evil. Throughout the film you still see Campbell's war between good and evil but it takes place as an internal struggle within Eve.

Vladimir Propp

Propp argued that whatever the story was it is possible to group the characters into eight 'sphere's of action' as he called them, to indicate how intertwined he felt character and action are.

These are:

• The villain
• The hero - seeks something, carriers the events of the story
• The donor - provides a magical object
• The helper - aids the hero
• The princess - often object of the villians schemes
• The father - rewards the hero
• The dispatcher - sends off the hero
• The false hero
  

Our film does not quite match up to these, but we still have some of the key roles in ours:

• Eve
• Noah - It could also be interpreted that Eve still is the main hero of the story throughout
• No one - As it is not a fantasy there are no magical objects or anything with similar connotations
• Ben - Is there to support the hero throughout and aid him
• The Mother - Is the vulnerable one who is targeted by the villain
• No one - Despite our story having a father figure in the form of Eve's dad he is not the traditional caring father and is not there to reward
• Noah
• No one - As our hero is never on a journey any where there is never anyone to set them off, it could however be seen as Eve setting him off on a metaphorical journey from the beginning of the film
• Eve - At the beginning of the film you assume she is the hero

Tzvetan Todorov

Todorov was a structuralist and he believed that every narrative started with an 'equilibrium' where all of the forces are 'in balance'. This is then disrupted causing a chain of events ending in a new 'equilibrium' In our film we have:

1. Equilibrium, where Eve and Noah are happy together, or appear to be so and the same goes for Eve's family.
2. It begins to be shown the Eve is not a usual teenage girl, her outbursts become increasingly frequent. It is also revealed to the audience that Eve's father walked out on them when Eve was a young child because he could not handle Eve's 'moods' and he could not deal with Eve's mothers refusal to seek help for their child.
3. The recognition comes far too late when Eve's mother discovers her diary and realises that those thoughts she had been suppressing her whole life that her daughter was not like other children were right. However, as soon as this realisation takes place we seen Eve entering the room with a knife, preparing to kill her mother.
4. With the mother dead the father enlists the help of Noah as they decide something has to be done to limit any further damage from Eve.
5. Here is where our film subverts from Todorov's theory as it does not end with a new equilibrium, instead the final shots of the film show Eve deciding to kill herself, leaving it ambiguous whether it was an act of thoughtless rage or her all consuming guilt from the murder of her mother. 

Roland Barthes

Barthes suggested that all narratives make use of five different codes which the reader has to work to understand. He argued that the readers themselves have a role in making the meaning of a film. Barthes also discussed how all films have one of two endings:

• Closed - Everything is sealed up with all questions answered
• Open - Questions left unanswered

Our film has a very open ending as the viewer never truly understands what is going on inside Eve's brain and why she commits these atrocious acts against those she cares about the most.

Claude Levi-Strauss

Strauss argued that all narratives is dependent on binary oppositions such as East and West or good and evil. In our film there is a clear binary opposition within Eve, manifesting in to good and evil. She spends her life either taken over by an unquenchable anger and desire to inflict pain on others or an all powerful guilt for the acts she has committed and a fear for what she is yet to do. These fit exactly with Strauss' ideas as they could not be more polar opposite from each other.