Theorists Of Narrative

Narrative is about a tale, a story, recital or facts. It's the way in which a story is told in both fictional and non-fictional media texts. Narrative has no right or wrong way and it can always be challenged.

Narrative story refers to events you can see and those that are inferred. Voices of narrative can vary and the intention of narrative can be different for different stories.

Their are multiple key theorists that have explored narrative.

Tzventan Todorov- 
Todorov was a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist, essayist and geologist.

1. He believed that narrative starts with an equilibrium
2. An action or character disrupts the equilibrium 
3. A quest to restore the equilibrium begins
4. The narrative continues to climax
5. Resolution occurs and equilibrium is restored

Todorov also believes that narratives follow in a chronological order.

An example of Todorov's theory within the media industry would be the TV series Sherlock. 

Claude Levi Strauss-

Strauss was a French anthropologist. 

He studied myths from all around the world.

His theory of narrative is conflict is based around binary opposites. 

These made these the central climax of the narrative structures. He realised that words were just symbols for societies ideas. This helps narrative gather a pace.

Critics argue that not only does everything have a opposite but they also have a medium.

Roland Barthes- 

Who was he? Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic and semiotician. 

He explored a diverse range of ideas which influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, social theory and post- structuralism. 

Barthes broke down the action of text into five codes which can be put within any narrative.

These are: 

1. The hermeneutic code
2. The enigma code
3. The semantic code
4. The symbolic code
5. The cultural code

The hermeneutic code- the voice of the truth. 

This is the way the story avoids telling the truth or revealing all the facts in order to drop clues and creat mystery.

The enigma code- empirical voice

The way the tension is built and audience is left guessing.
The semantic code- the voice of the person
Often gives additional meaning in a way of connotation
The symbolic code-
Gives broader and deeper sets of meaning
The cultural code-
Looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology.

He also said text could be opened or closed meaning that opened text can be unravelled and closed meaning that there is only one obvious thread in the story.
As well as he famously described a picture being a 'message without a code in his final look 'la chamber claire'
No one really followed Barthes theory as it was ever adapting and refutes notions of constancy.

Quote: 'language is a skin, i rub my language against the other. It us as if i had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.'

Lyotard-
He was a French philosopher. and a post-modernists.
Lyotard believed that knowledge is communicated through narrative and that knowledge is something which is required to gain power.

There are two types of narrative he speaks about meta narrative and mini narrative.
Meta narrative is also known as a grand narrative which refers to a system of beliefs that help us make sense of the world.  And a mini narrative is small and personal.

Joseph Campbell-
 He believed in the 'hero's journey' and the 'hero's inner journey' being a patterned narrative.

George Lucas was the first film maker to credit Joseph Campbell and his theory of narrative which he used in the star wars movies.

In terms of my media A2 task, narrative is extremely important within our media products. Many media platforms will include a narrative to create a story for an audience to follow. Having researched the theorists, it allows me to explore the different views on how narrative works and I can use them in my final product for this year.