Propp's Narrative Theory

Roles, not people

Propp studied hundreds of Russian folktales a century ago and found that the same small set of parts kept turning up. Your specification asks you to use what he found on modern media, and the way it is usually taught quietly ruins it. ⚠️ IT IS USUALLY TAUGHT AS A LIST OF CHARACTER TYPES TO SPOT. Find the hero. Find the villain. Find the helper. Tick them off and you are done. That turns a useful idea into a matching exercise, and it falls apart the moment you meet a real media text. ⭐ HERE IS WHAT PROPP ACTUALLY IDENTIFIED: NOT CHARACTERS, BUT ROLES A STORY NEEDS FILLING. Jobs the narrative has to get done. Somebody has to want something. Something has to stand in the way. Something has to help. ⚠️ AND THE MOMENT YOU SEE THEM AS JOBS RATHER THAN PEOPLE, THREE THINGS FOLLOW THAT THE TICK-LIST VERSION CANNOT HANDLE. ONE CHARACTER CAN FILL SEVERAL ROLES. A mentor who gives the hero a weapon and then fights alongside them is doing two jobs, and an analysis that insists on one label for them has lost information. SEVERAL CHARACTERS CAN SHARE ONE ROLE. A team of villains is one job done by five people. ⭐ AND A ROLE CAN BE FILLED BY SOMETHING THAT IS NOT A PERSON AT ALL. In an advert, the villain might be a stain, or the clock, or the weather. In a documentary it might be a disease or a government department. The job of standing in the way is being done; nobody said a person had to do it. ⚠️ THAT IS ALSO WHY A SCHEME BUILT FROM FOLKTALES STILL FITS A SUPERHERO FILM OR A BREAKFAST CEREAL ADVERT. It was never a description of a genre or a period. It describes what stories need in order to work, and that has not changed. Notice the wording of your own specification, too. ⭐ IT ASKS FOR THEORIES OF NARRATIVE "DERIVED FROM" PROPP, WHICH MEANS APPLYING THE TOOL RATHER THAN RECITING WHO INVENTED IT.

The roles, grouped by the job they do

Propp named eight spheres of action. Grouped by what each one does to a story they are far easier to hold, and far easier to find in a text that has no princesses in it.

Tap what the scheme actually claims

Tap the TWO statements that follow from treating Propp's scheme as a set of roles.

• One character can fill more than one role in the same story
• A role can be filled by something that is not a person, such as an illness or a deadline
• Every story contains exactly one character for each of the roles
• The scheme only applies to stories written in the same period and culture as the folktales Propp studied

One character, two jobs

In a film, an older fighter hands the hero a weapon early on and then fights beside them at the climax. A student cannot decide whether to label them donor or helper. What is the best advice?

• That they fill both roles, and saying so is a stronger observation than choosing one: giving is the donor role and accompanying is the helper role, and this character does each in turn
• That donor is correct, because giving the weapon comes first
• That helper is correct, because it is the more important of the two contributions
• That neither label applies, since Propp's roles are mutually exclusive

Five words for talking about it

Five terms, each defined by what it is. What each role contributes to a story comes next, and is not given here.

Match each role to what it contributes

Two that follow from roles being jobs

Select the TWO statements that follow from treating the scheme as a set of jobs a story needs doing.

• A scheme built from folktales can be applied to a modern advert, because it describes what stories need rather than what they are about
• A role can be shared between several characters, or filled by one character alongside another role
• A good analysis works through the roles in order and labels one character for each
• Each role must be filled by a human character for the scheme to apply

Naming a role is not yet analysis

You already have a four-move habit for analysing a media text. This topic slots into it, and the slotting is where most marks are won or lost. ⚠️ IDENTIFYING A ROLE IS THE START OF AN ANSWER, NOT THE END OF ONE. "The villain is the rival brand" is an observation. It earns something, and on its own it earns very little, because it has not yet said anything about the text. ⭐ THE MOVE THAT SCORES IS: NAME THE ROLE, NAME WHAT FILLS IT, AND SAY WHAT THE STORY GAINS BY FILLING IT THAT WAY. That last clause is the whole difference. Why has this text put a clock in the villain role rather than a person? Perhaps because a deadline cannot be reasoned with, so the pressure feels inescapable. ⚠️ NOW YOU HAVE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THE PRODUCT RATHER THAN ABOUT PROPP. Three habits worth building in. ⚠️ DO NOT FORCE AN EMPTY ROLE. If a text has no false hero, saying so is a finding. Inventing one to complete the set is worse than leaving it out, and examiners can see it happening. ⚠️ AND DO NOT ASSUME THE ROLES ARE EXCLUSIVE. If one character does two jobs, say both. If five characters share one, say that. Those are exactly the observations a tick-list cannot produce. ⭐ FINALLY, WATCH FOR A ROLE THAT IS NOT A PERSON. It is the single most useful thing this scheme does with modern media, and it is what separates an answer that has understood the tool from one that has memorised a list. ⚠️ AND WHEN YOU NAME PROPP, NAME ONLY PROPP. He is one of very few theorists your specification actually credits by name on this topic, so there is nothing to gain by reaching for others.

A cereal advert, taken seriously

Take a thirty-second breakfast cereal advert, the least mythic thing imaginable, and run the scheme over it properly. A parent is trying to get two children out of the door. The clock on the wall keeps appearing. The children will not eat. The cereal arrives, they eat it, everyone leaves on time and smiling. A tick-list would stall immediately, because there is no villain in the room. ⚠️ BUT ASK WHAT IS DOING THE JOB OF STANDING IN THE WAY, AND THE ANSWER IS OBVIOUS. THE CLOCK. ⭐ AND NOTICE WHAT THE ADVERT GAINS BY PUTTING TIME IN THAT ROLE RATHER THAN A PERSON: A CLOCK CANNOT BE ARGUED WITH, BLAMED OR ASKED TO WAIT. The pressure feels external and unavoidable, and crucially nobody in the family is at fault, which matters a great deal when you are selling to the parent watching. Now the donor role. The cereal itself is handed over and makes success possible, then plays no further part. ⚠️ THAT IS THE DONOR JOB DONE BY A PRODUCT, which is close to the whole point of advertising: the thing being sold is placed in the role that rescues the story. The hero? Arguably the parent, who wants something and is opposed. ⭐ ARGUABLY THE CHILDREN, IF YOU READ THE ADVERT AS BEING ABOUT THEIR MORNING. Saying that both readings are available, and what each one implies about who the advert is aimed at, is a better answer than picking one and asserting it. And the false hero is simply absent. ⚠️ WHICH IS WORTH SAYING. A THIRTY-SECOND ADVERT HAS NO ROOM FOR A ROLE WHOSE JOB IS TO CREATE DOUBT AND DELAY THE RESOLUTION, and noticing why a role is missing is analysis rather than an admission of failure. ⭐ NOTHING IN THAT ANALYSIS REQUIRED A CASTLE, A QUEST OR A PRINCESS. IT REQUIRED ASKING WHICH JOBS THE STORY NEEDED DOING AND WHAT THE TEXT CHOSE TO DO THEM.

Assemble an answer that analyses

A cleaning product advert shows a stain defeating a family until the product arrives. Build the sentence an examiner is looking for.

Order the way to use the scheme

Put the steps in order, from meeting a text to having something worth writing down.

• Work out what the story actually wants to happen, and who or what wants it
• Ask which jobs the story needs doing, rather than which characters are present
• Identify what fills each job, allowing for things that are not people
• Note where one thing fills two roles, or where a role is shared or empty
• Ask what the text gains by filling that role in that particular way
• Write the role, what fills it and the effect together in one sentence

The narrative roles run

Five questions on using the scheme rather than reciting it. Three lives.

Complete the narrative role facts

Propp's own term for one of the roles he identified is a _____. The role of providing the hero with something they need is the _____. The role of accompanying and assisting the hero during the action is the _____. The role of appearing to be on the hero's side, or claiming their credit, without being either is the _____.

Three analyses to sharpen

Three student answers using the scheme. In each case the mark is in the reasoning, not the label.

• An answer on a talent show names one contestant as the hero, the judges as villains, and stops there. Everything it says is defensible. Why does it score poorly?
• A student analysing an advert cannot find a villain, since every character in it is pleasant, and concludes the scheme does not apply. What would you tell them?
• A student has noticed that a mentor figure both gives the hero equipment and later fights alongside them, and asks which single role to write down.

Analyse a text you know using the roles

Choose a media product you know well, such as a film, an advert or a game, and analyse its narrative using the roles in this module.

• Explain why the scheme describes roles a story needs filling rather than character types to spot
• Identify what fills at least three of the roles in your chosen product
• Include at least one role filled by something that is not a person, or explain why your product has none
• Say what the product gains by filling one of those roles in the particular way it does
• Point out any role that is shared, doubled up or absent, and say what that tells you about the product
• Finish by explaining why a scheme built from folktales can still be applied to a modern media text