Narrative Theory Essay

Narrative theory is the way a story is told in fictional and non-fictional media texts. I will be using the trailer Bedeviled by Terror House because this trailer was the best one that I saw in my opinion, it had very good editing and the location was very effective.

In my summer trailer the Todorov theory was not put into place, the beginning showed a female running frantically. There was a disruption, when the camera was dropped on the floor. Of course there was no resolution as that would have been the whole film within the trailer. The trailer appears to be in non-linear order, however it does not have any flashbacks or flash fowards. Therefore, our trailer breaks the rules of the typical Todorov theory.
The Todorov theory is used in many films for example in Die Hard; the equilibrium is when Bruce Willis goes to his family for Christmas (it is all very calm), when the terrorists storm the building there is a disruption and the situation is resolved (resolution) when the hostages are taken safely. If film does not conform to this structure, it could become confusing for the audience. Although, Todorov's theory is extremely flexible therefore the majority of films fit into it.

Levi Strauss' theory (binary opposition) says that stories are unconsciously mirror the values, beliefs and myths of our culture, typically expressed through binary opposition for example, good vs evil or male vs female. This is the basis of our understanding of a story due to the conventional side to the narrative, it also allows for an equilibrium. It links with how humans perceive the world, ideologically. Much of binary opposition is shown in horror through the hero and the villain or good vs evil, the rebellion of youth vs the adult society. This theory would be very important in horror films especially because, it helps create a good story line and to reinforce the narrative.

The 5 codes of Barthes; enigma code (unexplained sections in a trailer),referential (knowledge of a genre), symbollic and semantic, add meaning and purpose as well as function to a story line. Also, the 8 narrative types by Kate Domaille; circe which is the chase, faust which is selling yourself to the devil and orpheus which is the loss of something personal eg the Sixth Sense. In our summer trailer there are some unexplained sections (enigma) of course this adds to the mystery of the trailer.

Propps theory of archetypes; villain, hero, donor, helper, princess, father, dispatcher and false hero are the 8 character types in narrative. These are frequently told as morality tales, fairytales/myth and fantasy. Generally these character types are not in  horror or thriller films because it is not realistic, for horror to be effective viewers need to be placed into the situation to be scared. These character types are not applicable to horrors or thrillers due to the lack of realism, fairytales are told to children to show them what is good and bad where as horror films are shown to adults to continue the morality idea. They are to give older people a basic understanding of what is right and wrong in a simpler way. Our trailer has none of these character types as they were not relevant to our story line.

In conclusion, we have applied the Todorov theory and possibly Levi Strauss' theory concerning good vs evil. Some of these ideas apply to the trailer as they add a lot of structure and add a good plot.