Narrative

Theory of Narrative

In media terms, narrative is the coherence/organisation 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, a 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.
The difference between Story & Narrative

“Story is the irreducible substance of a story (A meets B, something happens, order returns), while narrative is the way the story is related (Once upon a time there was a princess…)”

(Key Concepts in Communication – Fiske et al (1983))

Media Texts

Reality is difficult to understand, and we struggle to construct meaning out of our everyday experience. Media texts are better organised; we need to be able to engage with them without too much effort. We have expectations of form, a foreknowledge of how that text will be constructed. Media texts can also be fictional constructs, with elements of prediction and fulfilment which are not present in reality.

Successful stories require actions which change the lives of the characters in the story. They also contain some sort of resolution, where that change is registered, and which creates a new equilibrium for the characters involved. Remember that narratives are not just those we encounter in fiction. Even news stories, advertisements and documentaries also have a constructed narrative which must be interpreted.

Narrative Conventions

When unpacking a narrative in order to find its meaning, there are a series of codes and conventions that need to be considered. When we look at a narrative we examine the conventions of

• Genre
• Character
• Form
• Time

We use knowledge of these conventions to help us interpret the text. In particular, Time is something that we understand as a convention – narratives do not take place in real time but may telescope out (the slow motion shot which replays a winning goal) or in (an 80 year life can be condensed into a two hour biopic). Therefore we consider “the time of the thing told and the time of the telling.”  (Christian Metz: Notes Towards A Phenomenology of Narrative).

It is only because we are used to reading narratives from a very early age, and are able to compare texts with others that we understand these conventions. A narrative in its most basic sense is a series of events, but in order to construct meaning from the narrative those events must be linked somehow.

 

Barthes´ Codes

Roland Barthes describes a text as like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter many, many potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. Then you can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on. An infinite number of times. If you wanted to. Also, bear in mind that different people may see different meanings.

All you really need to know is that texts may be ´open´ (i.e. unravelled in a lot of different ways) or ´closed´ (there is only one obvious thread to pull on).

 

Narrative Structures

There are many ways of breaking down narrative structure. You may hear a movie described as a “classic Hollywood narrative”, meaning it has three acts. News stories have their own structure. A lot of work has been done by literary theorists to develop ways of deconstructing a narrative.

• Tvzetan Todorov – suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium
• Vladimir Propp – characters and actions (31 functions of character types)
• Claude Levi-Strauss – constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack

 

Deconstructing Narratives

Separating Plot and Story

Think of a feature film, and jot down a) the strict chronological order in which events occur b) the order in which each of the main characters finds out about these events a) shows story, b) shows plot construction. Plot keeps audiences interested, e.g. in whether the children will discover Mrs Doubtfire is really their father, or shocks them, e.g. the ‘twist in the tale” at the end of The Sixth Sense. Identifying Narrator Who is telling this story is a vital question to be asked when analysing any media text. Stories may be related in the first or third person, POVs may change, but the narrator will always

• reveal the events which make up the story
• mediate those events for the audience
• evaluate those events for the audience

The narrator also tends to POSITION the audience into a particular relationship with the characters on the screen.

Comprehending Time

Very few screen stories take place in real time. Whole lives can be dealt with in the 90 minutes of a feature film, an 8 month siege be encompassed within a 60 minute TV documentary. There are many conventions to denote time passing, from the time/date information typed up on each new scene of The X-Files to the aeroplane passing over a map of a continent in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other devices to manipulate time include

• flashbacks
• dream sequences
• repetition
• different characters’ POV
• flash forwards
• real time interludes
• pre-figuring of events that have not yet taken place

Locating the Narrative

Each story has a location. This may be physical and geographical (eg a war zone) or it may be mythic (eg the Wild West). Virtual locations are now a feature of many newsrooms (eg the computers and holograms of the BBC’s Nine O’Clock News). There are sets of conventions to do with that location, often associated with genre and form (eg all space ships seem to look the same inside).

Narrative Notes & Assignment

Todorov’s Theory

Tzvetan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative theory while also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts with his theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium.

The theory is simply this:

• The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium (everything is as it should be in a state of equal balance between powers of any kind, where  equality of importance or effect exists among the various parts of any complex unity).
• It then suffers some disruption (disequilibrium).
• New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.

There are five stages the narrative can progress through:

1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be.)
2. A disruption of that order by an event.
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

In these stages, narrative is not seen as a linear structure but a circular one.  The narrative is driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium.  However, the equilibrium attained at the end of the story is not identical to the initial equilibrium.

Todorov argues that narrative involves a transformation.  The characters or the situations are transformed through the progress of the disruption.  The disruption itself usually takes place outside the normal social framework, outside the ‘normal’ social events (e.g., a murder happens and people are terrified or someone vanishes and the characters have to solve the mystery).

In summary:

• Narratives don’t need to be linear.
• The progression from initial equilibrium to restoration always involves a transformation.
• The middle period of a narrative can depict actions that transgress everyday habits and routines.
• There can be many disruptions whilst seeking a new equilibrium (horror relies on this technique).