Narrative

Narrative

Tzvetan Todorov discovered that in folk tales and fairy tales the structure and pattern of the stories were all very similar. This also applies to mainstream films and TV shows today. Vladimir Propp another theorist who also studied fairy tales and came up with the idea that there are distinctive character types and actions that occur. Even though both theorists were successful at making the theories they were not always correct and did not apply to all fairy tales.

A classic narrative pattern that could occur would be:

1. Equilibrium- This is when everything is happy and all in order in the beginning of the narrative
2. Disruption- Something happens which is normally bad and disrupts the balance of things
3. Recognition- There is recognition that something has taken place
4. Repair- There is some sort of attempt to fix the disruption
5. New equilibrium- The problem has been solved and the narrative returns back to normal like in the beginning.

Finding Nemo

The movie Finding Nemo it follows this sort of narrative pattern but also follows it more than once.

• In the beginning everything is happy Merlin (Nemo’s dad) and his wife are happy and they have their eggs hidden in a hole in a rock to keep them safe.
• Then the problem occurs when a big fish appears and notices the eggs. The mother desperately tries to save her eggs but the fish kills her and her eggs. Merlin has hidden in the coral.
• When he goes back to the hole there is only one egg left. He takes care of the egg and this is the repair to what has happened and then Nemo is born.
• It then goes to Nemo and Merlin happy and it is Nemo’s first day of school which is the start of a new equilibrium.
• The disruption happens when Nemo swims out to the boat and touches it. A diver catches him and puts him in a net and climbs back onto the boat.
• Merlin fights to get his son back with a female fish who helps him called Dory and goes through lots of challenges in order to do so.
• Merlin finds where Nemo is and gets him back. Everything is happy and seems in order.
• But when Nemo and Merlin see other fish being caught in a net by fishermen they try and help and get them to swim down to break the net. Nemo gets stuck between all the fish and cannot move.
• Merlin tries to get him out but he can’t.
• When the net finally breaks Nemo is on the bottom of the sea bed lying still. Merlin swims over and Nemo is still alive.
• Merlin tells Nemo all of the adventurous things he has had to do in order to get Nemo back and everything returns to normal and the equilibrium is restored.

Levi- Strauss developed Propps’ theory further and focused on the structure of the stories. He looked at the connections between story elements such as themes and characters. He concluded that if there is an element that has a meaning then there must be another element of the story that does not have that meaning and is an opposite of the first element.

In Finding Nemo there are elements which are Binary Opposites such as:

• Male/female- Merlin’s friend dory was female and she helped him find Nemo.
• Fear/ happiness- Nemo was happy to touch the boat but when he was caught he was scared and fear struck him.
• Hero/ Villain- the Villain was the man that caught Nemo and put him in the fish tank. The hero was Merlin who fought to save Nemo.