We applied the theories and ideas of 4 narrative theorists to the 1980 film The Shining. Vladimir Propp identified Various set of character and actions there are a maximum of 8 Character roles. The character roles are not seperate since one character can occupy a number of roles and or 'spheres of action' and one role may be played by a number of different characters.
The character roles are: Also the character roles in the shining:
1. The villian - Jack/Ghost
2. The hero - Danny and Wendy
3. The donor - cook and Danny
4. The helper - cook and Tony
5. The princess (the sought for person) - Danny and Wendy
6. Her Father
7. The dispatcher - Jack
8. The false hero
Propp also outlined a list of thirty-one functions organised in broader narrative groups indicating thier place in the development of the plot. The Narrative groups are Preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return and recognition. In The Shining we only recognized some functiong from preparation, complication, transference and the struggle in the plot. This theory did help iin identifying a clear plot in this film.
1. The villian - Jack/Ghost
2. The hero - Danny and Wendy
3. The donor - cook and Danny
4. The helper - cook and Tony
5. The princess (the sought for person) - Danny and Wendy
6. Her Father
7. The dispatcher - Jack
8. The false hero
Propp also outlined a list of thirty-one functions organised in broader narrative groups indicating thier place in the development of the plot. The Narrative groups are Preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return and recognition. In The Shining we only recognized some functiong from preparation, complication, transference and the struggle in the plot. This theory did help iin identifying a clear plot in this film.
Tzetan Todorov
Tzetan Todorov was a bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influential work on narrative from the 1960's onwards. Todorov suggests that stories begin with an equilibrium or status qou where any potentially opposing forces are in balance which is then disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. The "classic hollywood" or "classic realist" is based on Todorov's ideas. The equilibrium at the start of The Shining is when Jack and his family move into the hotel for the winter for jack to work then a disequilibrium occurs when jacks starts to go crazy and showing signs that he is becoming voilent, which in then solved by Wendy and Danny who fight jack off. Danny then ends up tricking Jack who then gets lost in the maze creating a new equilibrium Danny and Wendy get away leaving Jack to die in the maze.
Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude 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. He was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot instead he looked for deeper arrangements of themes. Some binary oppositions which are created by the narrative are earth/space, Good/evil, humans/aliens, past/present, normal/strange, known/unkown. I think some binary opposition shown in The Shining are good/evil, past/present, normal/strange, known/unknown.
Bordwell and Thompson
Bordwell and Thompson defined narrative as "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space". For them, a narrative typically begins with one situations, a serias of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect, finally a new situation arises that brings the end of the narrative. Narrative shapes material in terms of space and time, cause and effect take place in time three distinstions of time within a film are
- Screen duration: the time the film takes to show
- plot duration: the length of time the plot covers
- story duration: the length of time the story covers
You've explained the theoretical approaches well enough, but your appplication of them to The Shining is a bit thin. There's much more to explore, for example, in B&T's concept of time, in relation to the film.
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