Narrative Structure: Propp's Theory

Propp says that characters take up the role of narrative 'spheres of action'. He identified 7 different characters necessary to make up a narrative. Due to Propp's keen intrest in the telling of folktales and fairytales, he quickly noticed numerous similiarities in a variety of these story types, from these similarities, he developed a theory on the characters and actions as narrative functions. According to Propp, each character has a narrative function and they each provide a structure for the text.

The typical characters he found were:
The Hero - a character that seeks something.
The Villan - who opposes or actively blocks the Hero's quest.
The Donor - who provides an object with magical properties.
The Dispatcher - who sends the Hero on his/her quest.
The False Hero - who distrupts the Hero's success by making false claims.
The Helper - who aids the Hero.
The Princess - acts as a reward for the Hero and as an object for the Villan's plans.
The King (The Princess' Father) - who acts to reward the Hero for their effort.

Binary Opposition: 

This theory was created by a French anthropologist and ethnologist called Claude Levi-Strauss. A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. He believed that the way we understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they themselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as he called it 'binary opposites'. These binary opposites can include fat vs slim, happy vs sad, up vs down, rich vs poor; light vs dark and good vs evil.

Main Brief:
This theory is very important for my main brief as we are planning to introduce the hero and the villain in our opening sequence. The main character will be the hero, who will be being followed and watched by an unknown man. Our villain will not be seen in great detail in our opening, we have done this to keep our characters identity concealed and to keep the tension consistently high throughout out our opening.