Narrative Stucture

Narrative

In media terms, narrative is the coherence/organization given to a series of facts. The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We connect events and make interpretations based on those connections. In everything we seek a beginning, middle and an end. We understand and construct meaning using our experience of reality and of previous texts. Each text becomes part of the previous and the next through its relationship with the audience.

Most of the films we see at the cinema are narrative films, films that tell a story. Even films which are factual often employ story methods to get this point across, for instance a documentary may follow the 'story' of a group of environmental warriors over a period of six months in their fight to prevent a road being built. We are so steeped in the narrative tradition that we approach a film with certain expectations, whether we know anything about the story or not. For example: We expect the opening to give us information about whom, what and where. To see a series of incidents, which are connected with each other? Problems and/or conflicts. The ending to resolve the action or cast new light on what has happened As the viewer watches a film, they pick up cues, recall information, anticipate what will follow, and generally participate in the creation of the film's form. The film shapes the particular expectations by summoning up curiosity, suspense, and surprise. The viewer also develops specific hunches about the outcome of the action, and these may control our expectations right up to the end. The ending has the task of satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole. The ending may also activate memory by cueing the spectator to review earlier events, possibly in a new light. As we examine the narrative for

Narrative Theories

1. Claude Levi-Strauss - constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Binary oppositions.

Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be GOOD and EVIL - we understand the concept of GOOD as being the opposite of EVIL. Levi -Strauss was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. For example, if we look at Science Fiction films we can identify a series of binary oppositions which are created by the narrative

2. Tvzetan Todorov - suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium.

Bulgarian structuralism linguist publishing influential work on narrative from the 1960s onwards) Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction.