Narrative Structures

Claude Levi-Strauss

Levi-Strauss (left) was an anthropologist who studied how societies functioned. He argued that ‘primitive’ societies and ‘advanced’ societies shared similarities. He suggested that opposing pairs provide motivation for the story to develop. The way in which the characters attempt to resolve these oppositions creates a narrative. Levi-Strauss named these pairs ‘Binary Opposites’

Vladimir Propp

Propp (right) studied media texts and productions and developed a theory that suggested that whatever the surface differences between stories, they all contained the same internal structure in which there were 8 different character types in narratives. These are: 

1. The villain (struggles against the hero) 
2. The hero (seeks something) 
3. The donor (prepares the hero) 
4. The helper (help the hero along in the story) 
5. The princess (reward for the hero) 
6. Her father (who rewards the hero or usually dies during or before the story) 
7. The dispatcher (character who sends the hero off) 
8. The false hero 

Roland Barthes

Barthes (right) came up with a theory that suggests that any text portrays a mystery to make the audience question something about the narrative and intrigue the audience to draw them in. For instance, a crime thriller will often not reveal the full motivation of the crime until the end of the story, which poses the question "Why was the crime committed?"