Narrative Theory

We applied four narrative theorists to 'The Shining'.

The first theorist we applied was Tzvetan Todorov. Todorov suggests that stories begin an equilibrium where opposing forces are all in balance. This is disrupted by an event. Problems are then resolved in order to restore the world of the film. The equilibrium in the shining is that the author (Jack) is a stay at home author, living a fairly normal life. The disruption is caused when he gets a new job and relocates away from his family home. Todorov's theory is now that the problems are resolved, however I do not think this the case with 'The Shining' because in my opinion I don't think the issues are resolved. Although Jack is no longer an issue for Wendy and Danny, he has not been defeated and we do not know that the issue is resolved for them as we have no context of what happens next in their lives.



The next theorist we covered was Vladimir Propp. Propp looked at 100s of foak tales and identified the roles of eight characters and thirty one narrative fucntions.
Propp came up with this list of characters:
1) The villan(s) - The villan in 'The Shining' is Jack who kills the other characters in the film before becoming frozen to death.
2) The hero - The hero role could apply to Wendy or Danny.
3) The donor (who provides an object with some magic property) - The donor in the movie could be Tony, the character in Dannys mind.
4) The helper who aids the hero - The helper in the movie is Dick (The chief)
5) The princess (the sought for person, reward for the hero and object of the villan's schemes) - This character could potentialy be seen as Wendy
6) Her father - who rewards the hero, 7) The dispatcher - who sends the hero on his way and 8) The false hero don't fit with the movie. Therefore I don't think you can really apply Propps theory to the movie.



Another theorist we applied was Claude Levi-Strauss. he looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. I think the following binary oppositions would apply to 'The Shining':
Sane/Insane
Mental/Physical
Axes/Knives
Normal/Paranormal
Real/Unreal
Mother/Father
Man/Woman


The final theory we applied was by Bordwell and Thompson. In their book 'Film Art: An Introduction', they define narrative as "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurding in time and space". They believe that a typical narrative begins with one situation, a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation arises that brings the end of the narrative. The situation in 'The Shining' would be Jack being hired for a new job working in an isolated hotel. A series of mental changes occur to him and he finds his whole world changing. Then finally the chase sequence outside the hotel in the maze brings an end to the narrative.