Week Seven - A Story in Everything

Narrative is basically story-telling (Cambridge Dictionary Online), and according to Aristotle, narrative structures of a beginning, a middle and an ending.

It can be found in many types of media and can be of different forms (Huisman, 2005, page 11). Hence, it would be not such a farfetched idea to suggest that narrative could be found almost anywhere, either in printed form in books and newspapers, spoken form in conversations and radio and songs, graphical form in printed adverts in magazines and flyers and a combination of different forms such as in films and television commercials.

Let’s take a look the most common form of narrative – a fairy tale:

The Peasant in Heaven

Once upon a time, a poor pious peasant died, and arrived before the gate of heaven. At the same time, a very rich, rich lord came there who also wanted to get into heaven. Then Saint Peter came with the key, and opened the door, and let the great man in, but apparently did not see the peasant, and shut the door again. And now the peasant outside heard how the great man was received in heaven with all kinds of rejoicing, and how they were making music, and singing within. At length all became quiet again, and Saint Peter came and opened the gate of heaven, and let the peasant in. The peasant, however, expected that they would make music and sing when he went in also, but all remained quite quiet; he was received with great affection, it is true, and the angels came to meet him, but no one sang. Then the peasant asked Saint Peter how it was that they did not sing for him as they had done when the rich man went in, and said that it seemed to him that there in heaven things were done with just as much partiality as on earth. Then Saint Peter said, “By no means, you are just dear to us as anyone else, and will enjoy every heavenly delight that the rich man enjoys, but poor fellows like you come to heaven every day, but a rich man like this does not come more than once in a hundred years!”

(source: The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales)

It is easy to see that the above tale have an obvious beginning, a middle, and an ending; hence, fitting into the narrative category. Now, let’s see another form of narrative – a printed advert:

People in general are born story-tellers and thus, it does not take much effort to make a story out of even a simple picture. With reference to the schema theory – a theory of which suggests that ‘people organize everything they know into schemas or knowledge structures’ (Tracey and Morrow, 2006, page 51) called frames. These frames consist of two levels – the top level and the lower level. The top level is basically consists of what is familiar with the analyzer, while the lower level is what could be changed or filled within the same frame.

Returning to the advert, it is of no trouble to guess that this advert is for a slimming product or service. There is obvious beginning and middle in the picture, but, again, it is easy to think that the man used to be fat (beginning). Then, he found this particular slimming product/service and began to use it (middle). Finally, as ‘a happy ending’, he manages to get the optimum body build and satisfaction is clearly shown on his face (ending). The top level here is that the man is now slim, and the lower level would ‘fills’ up his past as ‘a fat man’ and indirectly, making a narrative.

Now, let’s move to yet another form of narrative – a music video:

Again, with reference to schema theory, the narrative begins with a supposed separation of the young couple and with the aid of the lyrics sung by the artists, it could be assumed that the couples are thinking – or being reminded of – the times they used to spend together before and the young man makes an immediate decision to find his girlfriend which result, in the end, they reconcile with each other. Not exactly very farfetched from the usual fairy tales shown by Disney and Hollywood, with the couple having a happy ending.

And apparently, television commercials have always used this ‘fairy tale’ structure in their narrative-like commercials, just like the one below:

Here, the narrative is even more complex. Not just the commercial has the basic structure for a narrative, it also has definite characters – a ‘hero’ or in this case, a ‘heroine’, a ‘villain’, the ‘godmother’…or ‘godfather’ to be precise, the ‘villain’s side-kicks’ and ‘minor characters’. Again, referencing to schema theory, it is hard not to be reminded of those Disney Princesses’ films with the protagonist struggles against the ‘cruelty’ of the antagonist to achieve her dream and like any other fairy tales, she succeeds and even her enemy gives a grudging recognition for it.

There are a lot of other forms of narratives that could be analyzed but I would stop here and as a conclusion, within almost every subject, there would be some kind of narrative structure injected in it, obviously stated or hidden cleverly. And with schema theory, these narratives can be unravelled for the world to see.

References:

§         (1998). The Peasant in Heaven (page 696 – 697). The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales. London, England: Routledge.

§         Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (2006). Narratives (page 41 -64). The Media’s Student Book. New York, United States: Routledge.

§         Fulton, H., Huisman, R., Murphet, J. and Dunn A. (2005). Narrative and Media. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=wBfchogKaUQC&lpg=PP1&dq=narrative%20in%20mass%20media&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=narrative%20in%20mass%20media&f=false

§         Tracey, D.H. and Morrow, L.M. (2006). Schema Theory. An Introduction To Theories And Models (page 51 – 54). New York: Guildford Press. Retrieved June 21, 2010, from Universiti Brunei Darussalam Ebrary Books Website.