Narrative Theory - Vladimir Propp's Seven Character Types
Propp was a literary critic and founded that the idea a certain type of character was. used in every narrative structure. His theory influenced many filmmakers to producing and writing successful narratives. He also said that all fairy tales follow a specific narrative structure.
He suggested that every narrative has 8 different character types, these are:
1. THE HERO - Main character in the story and is the one who goes on a quest, reacts to Donor, fights against the villain and gets the Princess.
2. THE FALSE HERO - takes credit for hero's actions and tries to marry the princess
3. THE VILLAIN - Fights the hero in some way (and struggles)
4. THE HELPER - Helps the hero on their quest.
5. THE PRINCESS OR PRIZE - The hero deserves her throughout the story, but is unable to be married to her due to evil (villain). Heroes journey often ends with him saving the princess and living happily ever after.
6. THE DISPATCHER - Character who makes the villain's evil known and send the hero off
7. HER FATHER - Gives the task to the hero, identifying the false hero and marries the hero. Propp noted that the princess and father cannot easily be distinguished.
8. THE DONOR - Prepares hero or gives a magical object to help on the way.
Propps found that every hero has to have a weak spot, otherwise, there is no narrative and it is boring. Due to characterisation, plot, location, pace, tone and theme writers can take their stories wherever they want.
POLITICAL THEORY
Karl Marx
Marx's was born in1818 and slowly became part of the communist party and worked as a journalist. Marx wrote a lot of books and articles, mostly about capitalism. Marx came up with a few issues and here are some of them:
Firstly he found that Modern work is alienated- he thought they needed to see themselves in the objects they created.
He also thought that modern work is insecure. Marx knew that we do not want to be alone.
Thirdly, workers get paid little while capitalists get rich.
Primitive Accumulation - he believed that capitalists shrink the wages in order to cut off the wide profit margin. Whereas capitalists seek profit as an award, Marx saw it as theft and that you are essentially stealing from your workers. i.e making one person do something at one price and then selling it to someone else at a much higher price.
4. Capitalism is very unstable - Marx said that every crisis is 'dressed up ' as different to any others or rare (but in fact they were all pretty similar). Capitalists crisis is of ABUNDANCE, not SHORTAGE. Meaning that we produce far too much, enough that everyone could have a house, food, access to a good school and hospital etc.
5. Capitalism is bad for Capitalists - Marx argued that marriage was an extension to business and that people didn't stay together for love, but for money.
Commodity Fetishism - The capitalist system brings everyone to believe that economic interests were at the heart of their lives so that they can no longer know honest relationships. (psychological tendency)
GRAMSCI
Italian communist
He wrote extensively in prison.
He used Hegemony, Idelology, and Organic Intellectuals to describe and analyse how social classes come to dominate society.
ETHNICITY AND POST COLONIALISM
Paul Gilroy
2. THE FALSE HERO - takes credit for hero's actions and tries to marry the princess
3. THE VILLAIN - Fights the hero in some way (and struggles)
4. THE HELPER - Helps the hero on their quest.
5. THE PRINCESS OR PRIZE - The hero deserves her throughout the story, but is unable to be married to her due to evil (villain). Heroes journey often ends with him saving the princess and living happily ever after.
6. THE DISPATCHER - Character who makes the villain's evil known and send the hero off
7. HER FATHER - Gives the task to the hero, identifying the false hero and marries the hero. Propp noted that the princess and father cannot easily be distinguished.
8. THE DONOR - Prepares hero or gives a magical object to help on the way.
Propps found that every hero has to have a weak spot, otherwise, there is no narrative and it is boring. Due to characterisation, plot, location, pace, tone and theme writers can take their stories wherever they want.
POLITICAL THEORY
Karl Marx
Marx's was born in1818 and slowly became part of the communist party and worked as a journalist. Marx wrote a lot of books and articles, mostly about capitalism. Marx came up with a few issues and here are some of them:
Firstly he found that Modern work is alienated- he thought they needed to see themselves in the objects they created.
He also thought that modern work is insecure. Marx knew that we do not want to be alone.
Thirdly, workers get paid little while capitalists get rich.
Primitive Accumulation - he believed that capitalists shrink the wages in order to cut off the wide profit margin. Whereas capitalists seek profit as an award, Marx saw it as theft and that you are essentially stealing from your workers. i.e making one person do something at one price and then selling it to someone else at a much higher price.
4. Capitalism is very unstable - Marx said that every crisis is 'dressed up ' as different to any others or rare (but in fact they were all pretty similar). Capitalists crisis is of ABUNDANCE, not SHORTAGE. Meaning that we produce far too much, enough that everyone could have a house, food, access to a good school and hospital etc.
5. Capitalism is bad for Capitalists - Marx argued that marriage was an extension to business and that people didn't stay together for love, but for money.
Commodity Fetishism - The capitalist system brings everyone to believe that economic interests were at the heart of their lives so that they can no longer know honest relationships. (psychological tendency)
GRAMSCI
Italian communist
He wrote extensively in prison.
He used Hegemony, Idelology, and Organic Intellectuals to describe and analyse how social classes come to dominate society.
ETHNICITY AND POST COLONIALISM
Paul Gilroy
Can you now add notes on Gramsci's concept of hegemony?
ReplyDeleteWhat about post-colonial perspectives? To what kind of text might you apply that?
What about Said's notion of Orientalism?
So what would be a Marxist reading of an advert for the Job Centre?
ReplyDelete