30 min times essay: Narrative

Narrative refers to the structure, and are devices that are used to communicate a story.

Noel Carrol mapped out the traditional narrative structure of the film in three stages. ‘On the set phase’ which is where disorder is created in the form of a monster. In our production ‘The girl with the long blonde hair’ (tgwtlbh) this is evident when Lorna comes back as a supernatural being, first appearing in the bathroom mirror in the clothes she committed suicide with. The ‘discovery stage’ is when the characters of the story discover that disorder has occurred. This would be when ghost Lorna is causing blatant and open paranormal activities such as switching the lights on and off, and screaming in a ghostly way in the corridor-at this point, the other characters realise that disorder has occurred. Stage three is the ‘disruption phase’ where characters destroy the source of dismal. This doesn’t apply to my production as it is left a mystery weather or not Lorna’s spirit is tamed. I have not included this stage as our production is a trailer and this would ruin the ending- Therefor Carrol’s theory on narrative applies to our production to some extent, but not completely.

Todorov’s theory on narrative similarly explores the stages of narrative structure. He says Films often begin with an equilibrium, a calm state of normality. For TGWTLBH, the state of equilibrium is shown through characters doing their normal everyday things, no sudden change or frantic behaviour. Students are shown in a normal classroom, Lorna is shown being picked on by the stock characters the ‘mean girls’ and everything is just normal. The fact that Lorna doesn’t react to the mean girls shows that this is an everyday occurrence. The disequilibrium usually comes around the middle of the narrative when someone does something to disrupt the equilibrium, and things begin to go wrong. In our production, the disequilibrium is when the mean girls take things too far and decide to cut Lorna’s hair off, then as a result she commits suicide. The final stage is the resolution, however as our production is a trailer, this won’t be revealed, as it would give away the whole movie. Therefore again, our production conforms to Todorov’s theory to some extent but not completely as the resolution does not apply to our production.

Theorist Propp studied Russian Folk fairy-tales and said that narratives are shaped by certain types of character. He said that there are seven roles which any character may assume in the story. The villain who struggles with the hero. In our narrative, this is Lorna, but only when she comes back as a ghost, because originally she is no harm. The fact that the villain wasn’t always bad somewhat challenges Propps idea of the villainous character role. The donor who prepares/provides hero with a magical agent; the helper assists or rescues the hero. The princess is a sought for character who exists as a goal; the dispatcher sends the hero off and is seen in our production through Lorna’s mother when she says collectively to the mean girls (through dialogue), ‘You have to stop her’, and she is referring to Lorna. The hero departs on a search and weds at the end, and finally, the false hero claims to be the hero. Our production completely challenges this theory, as only two out of the seven characters conform to Propps ideas; this is because our production is of the horror genre, specifically supernatural, and it is uncommon for most of these characters to be found in this type of production.

Levi-Strauss spoke about binary opposites, which is the idea that we make sense of the world by opposites. For example, we don’t know what good is if we don’t have bad. He says that Binary opposites are how narratives are structured, and that all narratives are organised around conflict between binary opposites. Binary opposites are very evident in our trailer; one of the binary opposites that we have included is popular vs nerdy. This is shown through the mis en scene of the ‘mean girls’ and Lorna. Lorna is wearing glasses, and unfashionable clothing that just looks frumpy. She is also holding books as it is stereotypical for nerds to look this way. In sharp contrast, the popular mean girls are dressed in revealing, tight clothing, (stereotypical for popular girls to dress in a promiscuous manner). This sharp contrast creates binary opposites. The binary opposites of good vs evil are also shown in our narrative, as the mean girls are all dressed in black, whereas Lorna (Before she is a ghost) is dressed in neutral pale colours.