http://www.egglescliffe-arts.org.uk/media/narrative/propp.htm

Vladimir Propp's 31 Functions


1st Sphere: The introductory sequence
1
Member of family absents self from home/ hero is introduced
2
Interdiction announced: (don’t do X)
3
Interdiction violated: (hero does X anyway)
4
Villain tries to meet hero: (reconnaisance of hero)
5
Villain receives information about hero
6
Villain attempts to deceive hero with trickery:
7
Hero is deceived: (complicity in becoming victim/ helps villain)



2nd Sphere: The Body of the story
8
Villain causes harm, carries away a victim, the hero or the desired magical object, which must be retrieved
8a
Member of hero’s family lacks or desires something (the magical object) – EITHER OF THESE BECOMES “THE LACK”
9
Hero discovers the lack
10
Hero decides on counteraction
11
Hero leaves home



3rd Sphere: The Donor Sequence (magic agent is obtained)
12
Hero tested and/ or questioned: prepares for magical agent
13
Hero responds to test of donor
14
Hero gets magical agent/ object which will help with quest
15
Location shifts to the place where “the lack” is to be found
16
Hero and villain in direct combat
17
Hero is branded
18
Villain defeated: I
19
Initial lack liquidated: the object of the quest is obtained by the hero (the tale often ends here, but can continue into the fourth sphere of action)



4th Sphere: The Hero’s return
20
Hero sets out for home
21
Hero is pursued
22
Rescue of hero from pursuit: (tale sometimes ends here)
23
Unrecognized, hero arrives home or in other country
24
False hero claims success of true hero
25
Difficult task is set
26
Task resolved by true hero
27
True hero recognized
28
False hero exposed
29
Hero given new appearance/ transfiguration
30
Villain is punished
31
Hero marries and ascends throne
Vladimir Propp : Morphology of the Russian Folk Tale
Characters have NARRATIVE FUNCTIONS as well being REPRESENTATIONS OF PEOPLE
Events in a narrative can be reduced to a TEMPLATE, and all narratives choose from a repertoire of 31 generalised events and present them in roughly the same order. (Note: not all of the 31 elements need to appear in any one story) Also, Propp’s theories are very male-oriented. Are all stories about hero/ villain struggles
There are ONLY 8 broad character types in the thousands of tales he analysed:
The villain (struggles against the hero)
The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
The (magical) helper (helps the hero in the quest)
The princess (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
Her father
The dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)
The hero or victim/ seeker hero, reacts to the donor, weds the princess
false hero/ anti-hero/ usurper - (takes credit for the hero’s actions/ tries to marry the princess)

Theories

Semiotics and content analysis (quantitative) are the main methods of formal analysis of representation.

• Semiotics foregrounds the process of representation.
• Reality is always represented - what we treat as 'direct' experience is 'mediated' by perceptual codes. Representation always involves 'the construction of reality'.
  
• All texts, however 'realistic' they may seem to be, are constructed representations rather than simply transparent 'reflections', recordings, transcriptions or reproductions of a pre-existing reality.
  
• Representations which become familiar through constant re-use come to feel 'natural' and unmediated.
  
• Representations require interpretation - we make modality judgements about them.
  Representation is unavoidably selective, foregrounding some things and backgrounding others.
  
• Realists focus on the 'correspondence' of representations to 'objective' reality (in terms of 'truth', 'accuracy' and 'distortion'), whereas constructivists focus on whose realities are being represented and whose are being denied.
  
• Both structuralist and poststructuralist theories lead to 'reality' and 'truth' being regarded as the products of particular systems of representation - every representation is motivated and historically contingent.
  
  

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